Category: inspiration

antiques, gardens, inspiration, interiors

a garden room

elegant country style

 

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It can be fancy or utilitarian or a little bit of both, but you can make a garden room (or garden nook) almost anywhere that leads from indoors to outdoors. Garden rooms have been around since the days of ancient Greece, and they come in all shapes and sizes (from the spacious garden rooms of grand country homes to small decks of city apartments). They are places for starting seeds, potting plants, storing tools, arranging flowers, keeping notes or a journal, sitting a spell, and above all, finding inspiration.

Why not make a mudroom more garden roomy, or a back hallway or a small porch? Continue reading “a garden room” →

inspiration, interiors

7 fun fabrics for summertime

elegant country style

 

 

Radish by Radish Moon in Indigo
Kalindi by Penny Morrison in blue yellow
Hand Block Badu by Elizabeth Eakins
Ostrich by Holland and Sherry in Charleston
Citrus Garden by P. Schumacher in pool
Berkshire Meadow by P. Kaufman in honey dew
March Hare by Jane Churchill in blue

Summertime: time to lighten our load, our mood, our clothes, our rooms. Here are 7 charming fabrics to add delight to a sunroom or porch or morning room or bedroom. Imagine a rattan chair under a pergola with cushions covered in Radish Moon’s Indigo Radish. Or throw pillows in Holland and Sherry’s Ostrich in a garden room. I even like the interplay between the fabrics, so some combination might work for you. Whismy. Chic. The possibilities are endless…have fun as you lighten things up for summer in elegant country style! Shop the look. Continue reading “7 fun fabrics for summertime” →

inspiration

favorite things: peonies

elegant country style

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There is something about peonies: their lush, feathery petals, their intoxicating smell, their rich, dark green foliage, their old-fashioned beauty…and they don’t get as much attention as the rose, but they should. They don’t have thorns, and they are easier to grow. All you have to do is stake them when they flop or better yet, clip them and bring them inside. I’d love to have a field full of peony bushes like Martha Stewart does at her country house above, but since I don’t, here are a few of my favorite things that would add a touch of elegant country style to a home wherever it might be. Continue reading “favorite things: peonies” →

antiques, inspiration, interiors

a Bunny Mellon vignette to welcome you!

elegant country style

If you currently live an elegant country lifestyle or if you aspire to, and if you believe (like I do) that elegant country style is not only a way of life, but also a mindset, then I welcome you to my site!

With each post I’ll be exploring what elegant country style means to me and how many have achieved it (all over the world) through architecture, interior design, gardening, and even sartorial choices.

ECS_Bunny Mellon vignette

Here, is a Bunny Mellon vignette to start us off. Who better (in my opinion) to show us one way to achieve elegant country style than the woman who said to her interior decorators (Bruce Budd, John Fowler, and Billy Baldwin no less): “Make it look like we just brought it down from the attic.” She was the queen of understated and knew how to blend the rustic with the refined.

Here is a photograph of her desk in her home called Oak Spring in Virginia. Her signature elements were her topiaries (which she grew herself), handwoven baskets, rooms in shades of white, blue, cream, and yellow, Impressionist landscape paintings, and painted hardwood floors.  Notice the antique boxes and Staffordshire porcelain tulips alongside her garden shears and a simple terra cotta pot. Quite lovely!