Designing a Beautiful 1940's Cottage - Hanna Seabrook Founder of Gadabout: Creative Design and Digital Direction

When Charleston-based couple Hanna and Nelson Seabrook had three weeks to find and buy their first home, after Nelson landed a job in Louisville, Kentucky, they found a house with the "most potential".  A 1940s 1,800 square foot cottage with original architectural details and a kitchen that needed to be completely removed and redesigned.  Hanna, an avid Etsy, eBay, flea, and thrift store collector when she is not running Gadabout Creative was happily prepared to decorate her home. 

"I always start with a piece I love and then build around it."

"It's the accessories that give a room its character."

The result is a lovely, livable home with chintz patterns, chalky walls and botanical-themed art and accessories of coral, shells, drift wood along with herberie pictures hung on a flat-panel door to conceal storage.   Not everything was replaced: the black tile surrounding the fireplace was concealed with a charming, vintage wicker screen.  

The walls are painted Farrow & Ball's Vert de Terre. 

"I wanted to bring in the natural world as much as possible."

Who doesn't love a wall of books?  It absolutely transforms a room into a cozy den, library, or TV space; providing a venue to show off personal collections and a beautiful place to display the latest find.  The singular pattern in this room, Smarkand by Peter Dunham Textiles, keeps the space "quiet"  and gives a place for your eyes to land and take it all in.  

"Books and their bindings give layers to a room."

"Growing up, I thought of brown wood pieces as "old lady," but now I value the craftsmanship and combine them with untraditional accents."

The dinning room is painted Benjamin Moore's Woodlawn Blue and the trim is Wedgewood Gray.

Her beautiful magpie collection on her dinning room table.

My favorite room in Hanna's home is the lovely, redesigned farmhouse-inspired kitchen by designer and friend Olivia Brock of torrancemitchell.com   Beaded-board walls hung vertically for height, wood counter tops in a durable mahogany that are oiled twice a month, and hardwood floors painted Benjamin Moore's Randolph Gray.  Making a statement is the French drop-leaf table she found at a local antiques store. 

"It's 4 inches too big for the space, but that didn't bother me at all. Practically speaking it's an investment piece that can just move with us to the next house."

"People think wooden counters require a lot of maintenance, but we just oil them twice a month.  These are 2 1/2 inches thick, which makes them look substantial."

More of her collections beautifully displayed.

The impeccably styled master bedroom is gorgeously painted in Benjamin Moore's Mountain Mist.
The gilt-metal floral mirrors had me at hello.

"I hunted for them specifically because I wanted something that was busy and a bit over-the-top to go with the lamps."

Daughter Eaddy's bedroom is a lovely, muted pink with a timeless feel of collected items and Schumachers' Cabanon Stripe fabric.  A lovely, timeless room to grow and play in.

"I move my furniture around all the time, so I pick things that can travel."

To see the before photos visit the Southern Living article here

Photos:  Hector Manuel Sanchez

Styling:  Elly Poston Cooper

Design Inspiration: A Normandy Vacation Home of Peter Copping in Pictures

🌿🍃There are days where I want to be inspired by photos of beautiful homes and decide how to incorporate this look or this feel into my own home.  Many times it will inspire me to get rid of or move items to different rooms or create different placements in a vignette.  Often it is as simple as adding flowers in a garden basket or recognizing the mix of plates on a table in the photo is something I can design with the plates I currently own.  Many days I just want to look at something beautiful and move on with my busy schedule.  

Instagrammer and blogger Gloria Gonzalez @bygloriagonzales  sent out these photos which are originally taken from the Architectural Digest article  dated from 2015 with many more photos than shown here.   She has a very inspiring Instagram and is #onetofollow 🍃🌿

Enjoy!

Brooke and Steve Giannetti's New Book PATINA LIVING - Intentional Living: Beauty in the Everyday

There is beauty in the everyday, in the items we touch and use on a daily basis.  How we live, better yet how we decide to live, with beauty and inspiration is tactile, sound, color and light.  Once we decide we can live intentionally in life, there is no going back it continues on into friendships, design, cooking, the "living parts" of our lives.  Garden roses freshly cut in the morning hours for the kitchen table, gathered eggs for an impromptu omelette, the crunch of gravel on a path to the potager for butter lettuce, lavender dried and made into sachets for the linen closet, is the essence of home.  That is the journey and beauty of Patina Living.  Brooke and Steve Giannetti invite us once more into their life at Patina Farm where everything was considered and designed for how they wanted to live daily, from the rose and lavender gardens, to the potager, chicken coop, and those darling animals; nothing was over looked, everything was meant to slow down and engage in a life well-spent and enjoyed on a daily basis.  When their new book Patina Living arrived I spent the weekend reading, savoring, and taking the time to incorporate the beauty of "Patina Living" into our family's daily life.

I have to say we are the better for it.

"During blooming season, roses from the garden can always be found in my bathroom.  There is nothing more luxurious than taking a bath in fresh rose petals."

"The garden is welcomed into my bathroom.  I fill the bath with warm water, adding soothing lavender and rose petals.  My muscles relax as I breath in the perfumed air and take a moment to appreciate the leftover roses in their vase as well as the verdant garden beyond our all-glass shower.  Then I dab my skin with a towel, leaving the lavender oil covering my body."

"I am a bit addicted to baby birds and enjoy the experience of raising day old chicks inside our home.  The experience of raising our babies fills my need to nurture, and I a know our little birds bond to us as much as we bond to them.  We now have a place in Steve's office bathroom that is dedicated to the baby chick cage, and it seems to be filled with little peepers at least twice a year.  After five years on the farm, Steve doesn't even bat an eye when he sees the red glow of the heat lamp emanating from his bathroom."

"Our free-ranging chickens produce the most vibrant-colored eggs. They are as delicious as they look!  I don't believe it is a coincidence that our hens lay eggs in a color palette that is similar to the colors of our home.  Were they inspired by my work, or was I inspired by theirs?"

"My favorite days include a couple of visits to the veggie garden.  In the morning, when the cool mist still blankets the bottom land, I drift down to the garden and scoop out holes in the earth with my hands for new seedlings... After an hour working in the garden, my mind is clear and cobweb free."

"The design for our veggie garden includes spaces where we can spend time doing a variety of activities during the day.  In front of the greenhouse, a round table is placed beneath the branches of a sycamore tree to provide a protected dining or reading space.... that opens to a gravel walkway covered by roses and lined with lavender... this shaded walkway is the perfect place to feed the donkeys some newly harvested carrots or snap peas."

"Like our animals, Steve and I are creatures of habit, enjoying our evening routine.  It's always the same, with maybe a few minor changes with the addition of a new baby animal to cuddle and kiss.  We spend a little less than an hour washing out water and feed bins and giving neck rubs before safely "tucking" everyone into their barn, coop or cage."

"Steve and I never imagined how much we would both enjoy taking care of the animals.  After the evening feeding is complete, we walk back to the house with an increased feeling of peace and well-being"

TO PURCHASE ON AMAZON - HERE

"Most evenings, Steve and I make an effort to thank each other for what we do."  

"We find that saying it out loud is the best way to stay grateful."

My sincerest thanks to Jill Cohen Associates

for the opportunity.  It has been my pleasure

My sincerest thanks to Austen George, Marketing and Publicity Specialist at Gibbs Smith Publishing

for the Patina Living book, photos and assistance.  I apprecite you.

Photographs by Victoria Pearson 

from Patina Living by Brooke and Steve Giannetti, reprinted by permission of Gibbs Smith.

Many thanks to Brooke and Steve Giannetti

For all of the inspiration.

Summer Time and the Living is Easy

🌞

This reminds me of the first Summer in a new town, riding my bike with my brother to my aunt's to swim in the pool, with grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade lemonade with a sprig of basil...

popsicles, Marco Polo, beach balls, lawn baseball of course your cousins always won because they were older, evening tag, then bath time and falling into bed with a smile, so tired you slept sweetly dreaming your cousins would be home again tomorrow to replay the day all over again.  

 It's the little things isn't, like choosing joy even in difficult times.  

Like the @forkingandcountry song says, 

"And I choose joy

Let it move, let it move you

Yea, I choose joy

Let it move you, let it move, let it move you...."

🌿🌸🍃🌿

This beautiful poolside scene is from @serenaandlily 

Everything is 20% off for their Summer style event.  This post is not sponsored, just thought you  would like to know.  I love a sale

At home in her lovely garden with Landscape-Architect, Bunny Guinness, Cambridgeshire

We are currently in the middle of refreshing our garden.  I want it to look neat and lovely from the windows, with a small raised bed for a kitchen garden, flowers of course for vases, and a stylish space for entertaining by the pool.  I have long-admired English gardeners with their seeming ease and dexterity of plantings: gorgeously unruly flowers, and vegetables in manicured beds.  I was thrilled to find an article in House & Garden of Cambridge's landscape-architect, radio host, and columnist Bunny Guinness who frankly never disappoints, always inspiring and makes a weekend gardener announce with great confidence and sincerity to her husband:  'Of course, you know... we can espalier the apple trees next to the pottager.'   

Bunny's half acre formal garden surrounds her charming stone house, along with a kitchen garden, gravel and stone paths, espaliered apple trees with glorious riot of flowers in and out of the vegetables, and another eight acres of orchard, including twin avenues of pleached hornbeam in the pool garden, woodland, and pasture for livestock.

"I tend not to put all the similar things together, as you're supposed to do, so I 'll grow a few runner beans here, a few there, and throw everything in together.  

It seems to work."

"My husband farmed before he became an accountant, and we have always had livestock, so we have our own meat and eggs, and I grow a fair bit of what we need in the vegetable garden.  We eat what's in season."

"More than anything else, though, the garden is an antidote to the pressures of a busy working life.  I need my gardening days.  Gardening really takes your mind away from everything else, and it gives me the exercise and fresh air that I need.  And there's always something new to try.  You always think you're about to get to the stage when the garden feels finished, but it never is."

To view the entire House & Garden article written by Clare Foster and photography by Andrew Montgomery please view here.  Enjoy!

Have you seen my Instagram ? Come join the conversation.  🌿🌳🌿

Sunday Chic: Australian Designer Cameron Kimber's Love of English Country-House Style

Inspired by the late American Philanthropist Bunny Melon, Australian designer Cameron Kimber built a new home in New South Wales and filled it with his love of English Country.

"I wanted a simple House that was quite cottagey, but I had some big paintings and collections, so I just stirred it all together"

It is in his "stirring" that his home and his designs frequently are featured in magazines, blogs, and Instagrams, and are worth revisiting again and again.  His pale neutral rooms are the perfect backdrop for his large-scale furnishings, he says, "I like everything to be comfortable", and changing or adding to his collections of vintage fabric, English and Chinese ceramics, antiques, layered rugs, and oil paintings allows him to do so with ease.  He also includes a snug room with rich colors for evenings:  "In all my houses, I've had a room that feels cocooning and enveloping." 

"I like the way English interiors have a handed-down look.  It doesn't matter if something doesn't quite match or isn't perfect, and it's OK to have the dog bed in the sitting room.  Things are beautiful and comfortable, and that's really all that matters."

Along with his gorgeous designs, it is this 'Intentional Living' that inspires me most.  Living with items you love and in the way your family's life and home functions best.  Our homes should be beautiful, welcoming, appointed... but they should have "us" in them, regardless of where you live.  Welcoming friends and family into our homes is a gift to them and us.   Here is some Sunday Chic for inspiration!   Enjoy!

House & Garden article:  Here