As a single parent, I’ve been an adventure vacation slacker compared to my Dad.  My sons don’t know I messed up – they’ve recently enjoyed tame but fun trips to Washington D.C., Bermuda and Stowe.  I was well-traveled by fourth grade.  When others went to Disney World, we went the Canary Islands.  This was my Father’s fault.  Boston born and bred, he sought adventure.  During my childhood in the 1970’s we’d take off for a month in Central America, a school term on Tortola, traveled Ireland end to end (save for the North), hiked ancient ruins and explored foreign cities.  The school calendar didn’t matter.

When I was six we went to the English colony, British Honduras (now Belize). One day Dad took me on a field trip while my brothers and Mom remained at the simple beachfront rental.  Careening down a narrow dirt road in a Jeep, it was a bumpy, dusty drive.  I don’t remember complaining.  I do remember screaming watching a six-foot long snake slithering along the road.  Arriving at “Hopkintown” I grasped that it wasn’t a town.  To my young , discerning eye it was a settlement of small, single room huts made from found materials like discarded wood and sheets of corrugated metal.  Population 25, tops.  Dad stopped the car and said, “C’mon”.  We walked toward the village.

For the record, Dad was handsome, confident and charismatic.  He always had a plan (also true in later years when I realized he really didn’t have a plan).  I felt safe.

Dad directed me to the cooking hut: a cozy 8×8 footprint with a dirt floor.  A native woman was tending a low fire and making some sort of tortilla.  He smiled, made an introduction, told me to sit next to her and learn what she was doing.  Then he left to look around.  Typical.  She had no idea who we were.  I sat cross-legged in a shack, a dutiful little girl in a ponytail and Lacoste shirt respectfully learning how to make pancakes.   Patting the doughy ball evenly between my palms, I had a short stack upon Dad’s return.

While he tended to make everything a life lesson, the upshot of this was cultural awareness not from skimming a National Geographic in a waiting room but by experiencing it.  We became young adults without prejudice.

Travel requires organization, resourcefulness and flexibility.  Consider a ski vacation with a boy who fears a mountain’s steep terrain at breakfast yet tackles it and is beaming with pride by dinner; or the girl given the task of navigating her family from their hotel to the Louvre with only a Paris Metro map and no other help.  These accomplishments are controlled risks with some serious confidence building rewards.  It doesn’t take a psychologist to tell you that we grow through new, positive experiences. It’s how we get over bad experiences and become more self-aware.

As I look over our busy summer calendar, I will seek small moments to give my kids the gift of adventure I experienced.  Those memories of overcoming obstacles, small surprises and talking to each other on long walks are better than a holiday tethered to a pool’s lounge chair.  Thanks, Dad.

Many of us, in some corner of our minds, have glossy, rich memories of old houses. Houses we grew up in, visited with college friends or rented by the sea.  We recall colors, lively dinners, a porch swing… the singular feeling of running barefoot at dusk across a lush June lawn to a barn filled with an old Ping Pong table, boat parts and baskets.  An old house – over a new – somehow feels more like an experienced witness to our lives: generations of babies toddling, homework tantrums, giggles behind closed doors, early morning smells of coffee and bacon before a fishing trip, late night conferences in the kitchen.  An old house has resonance.  It is satisfying, feels important and, when badly needed, is comforting.

My first memories were of a 1740s house filled with American country furniture. I went on to live in old houses: a Regency flat in London; a 1910 home in Arlington, MA; a Queen Anne shingle style on the water; a rambling Cape Cod house with the wings having a unique history of being 1920’s jelly houses.  Now I live in an 1890′s wooden home near Boston.  Minutemen once camped in what is now my back yard.

When I was in my thirties and in full home buying mode, there was no shortage of reasons why I was suspicious of a new house.  A good, solid “old house” with history and hopefully a name (“Grey Gables”, “The Playhouse” and quite decisively, “The Old House”) had been places close to my heart.  Only in an old house do I sleep in a bedroom that has always been curiously called The Blue Room… although it has been pale yellow as long as I’ve known it.

While mindful of this older home affinity, as I get older I find myself drawn to the simplicity of less, easy, Spartan.  At this apex would be Philip Johnson’s The Glass House.  It seems so relaxing.   No clapboard to repaint.  My to-do list would shrink considerably.   More time for me, yoga or sleep.   A new house would feel like a vacation.  But living in one, day to day, is an unknown.   There wouldn’t be the pencil marks on the door jamb recording my son’s height.

Recently I was asked to be a part of the venerable WGBH television show, “This Old House”.  The project house is an Italianate Victorian in Arlington, MA and is a homecoming of sorts.  I lived a few blocks away in that Boston suburb almost twenty years ago.   Over the next few months I will help a young family make design choices for their old house.

Old houses, like people, have quirks, character and a story.   I’m as guilty as the next person of effortlessly accepting the illusion of beauty in the young and new; as I quietly turn off the lights in my old house tonight, I know that the mellowed and familiar is equally, and often, far more appealing and attractive.

While Heloise can expound with advice for cleaning your home stem to stern, here are a three little, great items that just seem to make life easier when dealing with little household tasks:
-Goo Gone, that citrusy solvent that removes crayon, stickers and gum without damaging stuff.  Perfect for the residue of a sticker that doesn’t seem to come off that platter/tray/glass from a shop.
-Furniture touch up pens that hide minor nicks and scratches in wooden, well-loved tables.
-Stick-um candle wax which works slick to keep tilting candlesticks and tapers in place.

“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future. I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction.”

(The famous Childe Hassam painting – image above – Avenue in the Rain (1917) is part of the White House’s permanent collection.  During the Kennedy administration it hung in the President’s private family dining room.)

I offered to take a friend’s teenage daughter, who is interested in design, along with me to work for a day.  I didn’t really prepare; I figured the day would flow naturally directed by whatever we saw or whatever questions she had.   Since my art history training was taught by experts from the perspective of connoisseurship, that was my example.  I learned by close observation of objects coupled with a visual, hands-on approach.  So we would see something and I would start explaining what it was and why it was interesting or important.

The beautiful things I work with everyday — like custom lighting and wildly delicate, expensive wall paper — were brand new to my pupil.  She was excited and full of creative ideas throughout the day. She accompanied me to a meeting with the President of an international fabric house, picked out decor, chose fabrics and placed orders.

Yet as the day went on it was so more than a one-sided lecture.  We began sharing ideas and exposing ourselves, our tastes, likes, prejudices and general thoughts about the world.   I had mentors along the way who were not only passing role models but people whose behavior, attitudes, values, and beliefs I identified with and often wanted to emulate.  They took the time to develop a true personal interest in a young person.  But that young person was no longer me, it was her.

I’m not declaring that a single color can’t be THE go-to color for the year, however, if the information from last month’s Paris Maison & Objet, the haute couture trends and recent meetings I’ve had with international fabric designers have any weight (and I think they do) I have a few other colors for you to consider.

First, some background: while I admit that a single color can permeate all facets of current design and Pop culture – from painting and interiors to fashion and maquillage – I’m simply predicting it probably won’t be Emerald.  A strong example of one color dominating all was the color puce (a lilac-y pink) shown in all aspects of 18^th century Rococo painting, clothing and decorative arts.

Scene from Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Influencing both color and style, more recently we can think back to the early 1990s Grunge movement (I can almost hear Nirvana playing now) where the aesthetic – in music – was stripped-down compared to other forms of rock with unkempt appearances for musicians.  Colors were bleak: black, grey, nondescript dirty off whites.  That fashion style help lead the popularization of extremely casual clothing in every social situation – and clothing our grandparents would never have worn let alone be seen in public wearing (hoodies, torn jeans, baggy t-shirts, sneakers with every outfit).  This went, curiously, hand-in-hand with two differing trends: the existing home décor trends of Shabby Chic (read: anything copiously draped in worn-out and faded linen and cheap, garage sale finds) and slick urban loft look (black leather, exposed mechanical systems, chrome).

With forecasting for 2013, a few data points seem to keep popping up.  At Maison & Objet, Pantone’s Emerald was nowhere to be seen, instead, pastels dominated and many showed a clear light yellow.  

Recent World of Interiors Cover

Kelly Hoppen, the UK designer writes about M&O in today’s Huffington Post, that, “There was not just one trend as it could be seen before, not the usual colour combination that you can find on all stands and brands like the splash of red ten years ago.” And while she is typically a white and beige kind of designer, in addition to that palette her go to colors this year will be charcoal, brown, black and shades of grey.   Last week I met with the folks from de le Cuona, a sumptuous fabric line started by a South African but based in Windsor, U.K.  Known for their subtle yet luxurious neutral linens, they had a few wonderful stand-outs including a luminous man-made velvet that looked like silk and came in screaming yellow and all sorts of rich blues.  If New York Fashion week is any indication of trends, the common denominator colors are off-white, pale yellow, fuchsia mixed with dark colors, the whole spectrum of gray from pale to charcoal, camel, rust and vibrant Yves Klein blue.  It seems the only time Emerald popped up was in the Lela Rose show and that may have simply been an opportunistic sales nod to the well-heeled consumer who is holding onto the green theme.

For a current 10,000 foot residential project I’m doing a palette of my usual neutral, creamy earth tones of white and warm tan with subtle mixes of blue gray, metallic threads, washed out yellows and ochre.  There isn’t a touch of Emerald.

View from a Mud Room into the Kitchen of a recent project

I’ve designed many Mud Rooms over the years and beyond the obvious storage for all outerwear (coats, gloves, hats), they are a great, dedicated space for:

• Any sports equipment (tennis racquets, hockey sticks, golf bags, ski  boots)
• Hunting or fishing gear
• Gardening items like secateurs that are too precious to go in the shed (like my trusty Swiss Felco pruners)
• Outgoing mail, or package pick-up area
• Dry cleaning area
• Laundry basket
• Keys
• iPhone charger space
• Dog leashes
• Memo board for messages
• Place to sit when removing shoes
• Umbrella stand
• Bins for separating recyclables

Here, is a project where we designed a dedicated hanging area with two shoe drawers below for each family member.

A friend has a successful Mud Room design with hanging and cubby space that also incorporates the Laundry Room.  It is the first room you enter from the garage door, so all sports clothes, mud and snow is isolated immediately from the rest of the house.

It is such a utilitarian room but there are ways to make it special.  From a few recent projects I propose Four Great Design Elements to keep in mind when a designing a Mud Room:

-Hardware: Since this is a room where you will touch the handles on the door, the knobs on the cabinets and the pulls on the drawers many, many times a day, they should feel good in your hand.   Rocky Mountain Hardware produces items that are like a little piece of sculpture.  Even their coat hooks are substantial and stunning.  I love their White Bronze finish.

-Lighting: good lighting, whether recessed or decorative features, can be played up (below, right).

Surface mount lighting adds a touch of panache to a Mud Room in this project for a young family.

-Floors: a durable floor is the first concern in this room but there is no reason it should not be beautiful.  I’ve used stunning French tumbled limestone recently as well as bricks in a herringbone pattern.  Over any floor you can add a softer touch.  I have a large, custom cut piece of Chilewich matting in a basketweave pattern in my Mud Room which has held up now for a few years and still looks brand new and very attractive.

Cabinets in figured mahogany

Finally:

-Color: White is not the only color for cabinetry and here is a great place to have some fun with paint or using a species wood for the cabinets (like mahogany,  right).

The center of the room revolves around the bed, this walnut and iron forged crafted Rose Tarlow Oppede Bed with upholstered headboard gives a comfortable resting place for your guests to sit up and read or lie down for the night.

To top off your bed, Matouk’s Venus Bedding, is a terrific design I’ve used before. A sumptuous 600-thread-cound Egyptian cotton sateen inset with traditional scalloped border.

I strongly feel nightstands should be functional, not just a table top without drawers. This Flexform Romy nightstand of wenge and burnished metal is the perfect size.

Palmer Hargrave Lyon Sconces, on either side of the bed for reading gives the guest bedroom a comforting gleam. These sconces work with a variety of styles, classic aged brass or polished nickel for a more transitional room.

While I was married I always carried on the same style of Christmas both my then husband and I enjoyed.  Both having ties to Europe and England, Christmas eve started with spiked eggnog and dinner ended with port (a vintage Warres).  Stockings were hand-knit, tree ornaments were needlepoint and heirloom antique German mercury glass (quite rare); and Christmas Day brunch was always Eggs Benedict.   For some reason a Satsuma (or in the US, a Clementine) was put in the toe of our stockings and I still do that.  And a toothbrush (a feeble approach at encouraging good oral hygiene to counteract all of the sweets)!  While the “little ones” are now a tween and teen, and I am no longer married, I’ve tried to carry on that same tradition of old fashioned continuity in this fast-paced world.  The touch stones that “feel” like Christmas to me are Swiss and German fabrics (I have a bunch of vintage tablecloths and ribbons I use to decorate during the holidays) and Pierre Frey has a terrific selection of similar fabrics:

(L to R) Swiss Handiwerk woven ribbon from the 1950′s, a bear ornament in Liederhosen, and a mercury glass German ornament on our tree:

Lastly, the day after Christmas we either headed to sunny St. John (U.S.V.I.)  for swimming, or north to Vermont for skiing (and the usual fondue dinners).  Now, they are older,  so just simply spending time with my sons during a school break when there is no homework is the greatest fun of all!

Happy holidays!