Southern Rooms~ Book Review

It's been awhile since I shared one of my latest design book finds~

I am going to try and get back into sharing one more often. 

I have pretty big library of design books that I have collected~ like an armoire full of them. 

Usually the ones I purchase are ones I find in the store that I have a chance to thumb through

 I add them to my list of possibilities and when I find them on sale ~ I will add them to my library.

I was ordering a book for my daughter on Amazon - which was $15.00

but  in order to get free shipping the order needed to be $25.00

So, of course, instead of paying $3.99 in shipping (that would just be crazy don't you think?)

 I had to find a book to add to the order-  Yeah... that makes perfectly logical sense right?
It's just how I work I guess.

;)

I had a couple books that had been sitting in my cart that I was thinking about
and this one in particular had been there for a bit.

 Southern Rooms II by Shannon Howard.

I hadn't seen this book in person... which always makes me hesitate to purchase

but it looked like it would be good and for the price-

 I went ahead and ordered.

I am a sucker for traditional. 

I love old stately homes built with symmetry and careful attention to details.

I love and crave formal living spaces,
big old gardens and outdoor entertaining areas.

Honestly, when I look at the homes that make my heart go pitter -patter 

they are southern style homes.
But I am a California girl for sure-  I love so many things about it here.

If I could find a big old stately southern style house on gorgeous property in California-
(at a price that was even halfway reasonable or do- able)

 That would my dream home!

So I love to delve into books that are about those lovely southern plantation style houses and formal rooms
Southern Rooms is filled with beautiful elegant rooms- 

decorated with careful attention to detail.

Gorgeous antiques, formal rooms and fantastic warm colors.

The homes shared range from traditional and elegant to beachy and comfortable

to rustic and even modern.

At the back of the book there are some good mood boards for finding your perfect combination

 for your perfect look.

I am loving these china cupboards

so charming.

Overall Southern Rooms II is a smaller paperback decorating book

that has some great inspirations and details if you love Southern decorating.

It shows Southern style decor from several different designers and how they achieved the look

in several different homes. 

The rooms I loved the best are by Suzanne Kasler. 

It is not a coffee table type decorating book 

 but it is definitely one to consider for getting ideas and inspirations for 

adding southern touches to your rooms

and

since it was on sale for just $9.99 at Amazon with free shipping- 

even better.

:)

Don't forget that tomorrow is the Spring Linky party!

4 blogs,

 1 big old party 

and LOT'S of inspiration and fun!!

Find more information HERE

 I am off to get back to work on a little painting today and a little Easter tablescape!!

Happy Sunday!!

the reading room

We have a lot of books in our house.  We read a lot and we like to re-read so we keep them. 

 We are comfortable with that.

Many people shy away from full book shelves.  Dusty, untidy, unfashionable?  Different reasons maybe.

How about you? Are you more books on shelves, or books piled on tables?  

 Would you enjoy any of these reading rooms?

all images with thanks to Mires Paris

a good book, a grey afternoon and a roaring fire

Yesterday evening we had friends to the house for dinner.  Relaxed simple family time.  They brought me a book as a gift and today, being a rainy, cold, grey, november sort of day, I lit a fire , sat on cushions on the floor right here and  read the book.

Have you read this one?  You should. 

I'll let you do your own research about its contents but what I really wanted to share is how much I adore a story that is told through letters.  No narrative text, everything that happens and all the characters are understood through the contents of the letters flying back and forth. Here are a couple of examples that I love, but I'm sure you have more.

 

So to my question ....  I am sort of working on a book idea, can't tell you much more than that for the moment, but I need to explore other examples of narratives written uniquely via letters.  I know that you read a great deal and I'd be really grateful to receive any suggestions.  I promise to reply to all your comments, many many thanks for your help.

Bonne semaine!

slumming it in style

Living in the middle of a valley in Normandy isn't all good news.  Buying English books for example.  In our tiny village?  .....   un boulanger - yes; le boucher - oui;  le petit bar - aussi,  BUT,  la librairie anglaise is strangely missing.  Amazon is always happy to wing books to my door, but thank goodness I  have several english speaking friends who take pity on me when I look under nourished and give me their hand me downs.

So it is that I inherited a couple of weeks ago from a very lovely Patricia - big thank you if she's reading - a bag load of books including this delicious number

 Deborah Devonshire the youngest of the Mitford sisters, grew up with her five sisters and brother on various huge estates in the beautiful Cotswolds. She married  Andrew who unexpectedly inherited a small cottage called Chatsworth.

What is delightful in the book is her strong, independent and thoroughly straightforward character.  She rubs shoulders with the great and the good but never thinks of herself as successful. “Rather an odd thing to want to be."

The book is a collection of memories ranging from Kennedy's funeral to the usefulness of tiaras,  and,  - why I thought it may be interest to you girls - her encounter, whilst out hunting one day, with Nancy Lancaster, the famed American "taste maker".  

'Debo Devonshire writes   "Whatever Nancy touched had that hard-to-pin-down but instantly recognisable gift of style.  Her genius (and that is no exaggeration) was her eye for colour, scale, objects and the dressing-up of them; the stuffs the curtains were made of, their shapes and trimmings, the china, tablecloths, knives and forks.

Describing Ditchley, Nancy's home, she continues;   "Even the bathrooms were little works of art. Warm, panelled, carpeted, there were shelves of Chelsea china cauliflowers, cabbages, tulips and rabbits of exquisite quality. A far cry from the cracked lino and icy draughts to which I was accustomed.
I had never seen such huge, square, down pillows as she went in for, nor Porthault sheets, decorated with carnations or trailing blue flowers and scalloped edges of the same colour; and the puffed-up eiderdowns covered in pale silk with tiny bows where a stitch held the down in place.
The tea tables had no cloths but were painted brilliant Chinese red. Anyone could have done that, but no-one else did.
The rooms and their delectable contents were only part of the story. All that beauty could have been set up, and people would have delighted in it, but the whole of Ditchley reflected the personality of Nancy herself. She was the star on the stage she created."

Nancy had an eventful life but nevertheless became principally responsible for creating the English country house look,  notably through the influence of her company Colefax & Fowler. .

So I thought that as we post on the interior design that we find so exciting,  these words of tribute from one strong woman to another may touch you.
 Hope it wasn't too long to read and that you American gals are proud of this truly stylish expatriated sister.