Recent awesomeness

I've been coming across a lot of eye candy lately.  Like this from James Van Sweden's "The Artful Garden", which I read this week:

The bronze snake is a handrail for the pool.  Insane!

This shot make me happy too.  It feels wonderfully tranquil, though I like to be barefoot in a garden and just the thought of pebbles makes my toes cringe:

I'm sure there are other ways to use the idea of contrasting these materials and deploying that smashing color palette.

This week I also devoured Robert Malett's "Envisioning the Garden", which I preferred to the van Sweden (van Sweden's tone and modernism irk).  How evocative is this shot?

Later on I was flipping through the new Anthropologie catalogue and hit this:

Bam!  Are those baseboards crazy or what?  Who'd a thunk of scalloped skirting?  Gaudi, apparently.

I've been fantasizing about adding a (very) small reflecting pool to the roof garden.  I'd had a quatrefoil shape in mind, but stumbled across this undoubtedly priceless work of ceramic art last week:

Then I saw this reasonably-priced version (24" diameter and $275 for the small) today on Burke Decor:

I'd want to sink the vessel into the ground though, so I might be able to find something even more economical (and with a wider flat lip, since that's the part you're going to see).  First time on that site though; they have some fun stuff.

Fall Balcony Urns

After the Patriots game on Sunday, I finally got down to planting the balcony urns with their fall display.  They didn't end up with as many rarified types as I'd hoped, but I'm still pretty pleased with the results (so long as the lambs' ears perk back up after the very unceremonious hacking I had to do to in order to divide one big clump into a half-dozen little ones.)

The urns are anchored by Euonymous 'Silver King', then pale pink mums, leftover white verbena from the summer planters, variegated vinca, Erica x darleyensis 'N.R. Webster', and the aforementioned Stachys byzantia.  I also had some really pretty pink-tinged lettuce to put in but ran out of room so I guess it's salad now!

A few more interiors purchases

The purchasing I did for inside the redbrickbuilding last week has been trickling in.  I liked quite a few of the items enough to keep them, but of course they're spread out all over the house, so no completed in-room photos for you yet.

To start with, I got a medium sized Olive Jar planter from Crate and Barrel: 

It's good in the master bathroom.  So good that I just ordered a small one too.  And massive.  The medium is 24" high and 18.5" in diameter.  It reads a bit more 'ancient Egyptian' than I was looking for and it's a bit of a darker brown than in the online photos but it definitely works with the red brick tile.  I'm now on the hunt for appropriate vine-y occupants.

I also ordered this knock off of the Restoration Hardware Baby and Child patchwork hide Rio rug from Rugs USA:

It was half the price of what the RH version would have cost me, even after my RH trade discount.   I'd planned on using it in my stepdaughter's bedroom but the tones are cooler and grayer than I had expected so I tried it in the exercise room and it actually looks really good there.  We need to rearrange some of the furniture in there before making the final decision about whether it's the right size for that room.  But bottom line, I love me a good knock-off.

A pair of these outdoor teak chairs arrived from Ballard Designs:

They're definitely too chunky to use indoors in the off-season but they're pretty good for outdoors, especially on sale at about $200 a pop.  You know my beef with North American garden furniture, but these have more curve and detail than most.  Plus they'll easily support my husband's burliest guy friends.

I also bought these Saxon Accent Lamps from Restoration Hardware:

The quality is extremely good: weighty, plus they take a 100 watt bulb if you want it, with a 3 way dimmer switch.  (I have no problem with RH's prices when they go above and beyond on quality.)  I paired the glass bases with these shades I got on sale from Anthropologie a while back:

They're playful and unexpected during the day but maybe a bit energetic for my taste in the evening when I want to settle in and be soothed.  I'm considering getting some more-subdued-yet-not-totally-generic silk shades down the road.  For the time being, the scale is a bazillion times better than the puny things we were making do with before.  Relief.

A major gardening day

Saturday was a big day for gardening.  All the fall perennials and shrubs that I mail-ordered arrived late last week and they needed to be planted.  First, though, I had to dig up quite a few existing plants and find them appropriate new homes.  That was actually the more challenging and time-consuming task.

Before I rearranged everything, I took a lot of photos, so I'd have a record of how the roof garden looked 6 months after planting.  Here is what the garden looked like before I re-planted:

That's the so-called "right-hand side" of the garden.  (It's to the right when you step out onto the stone patio.)  To the left, it's a real jungle, not helped by the fact that the kosteletzkya virginica turned out to be much larger and more unruly than I'd imagined.  (And adding insult to injury, it has lots of buds but is taking its sweet time about flowering.)  Too much of a wildflower for me, I am definitely going to be moving it to the beach house in the spring!

The Turtle and the Rabbit

I was searching eBay a couple of weeks ago and randomly came across this charming antique rabbit-shaped vessel:

I find it hard to resist a good, life-like rabbit, and even more so when it's functional, so I bid...and won.  I'm going to display her in a vignette with the turtle-shaped change dish I picked up from West Elm a few months back, currently on my husband's bedside table:

I think they'll make a cute couple.

A furniture and a decor purchase

This week I've shifted some of my attention back to the interior of the red brick building, starting to think about which pieces are still missing before I can declare certain rooms "finished".  I made some mood boards and am in the midst of placing furniture and decor orders.  I stopped in at the Restoration Hardware outlet to see if they had any of the items on my list and had some luck.  They had the Scrolling Corinthian Capital side table

...for $170!  Sold.  It's made of resin and hollow on the inside, so although it looks substantial, it weighs about 50 lbs.  It's going to live in the garden next to the chaise lounges in the summer and in the master bathroom next to the bathtub in the winter.  Here it is, together with some of the other bathroom elements:

Seeing it there makes me realize that I really need to get some plants in place.  And I also have to figure out the planters.  My first instinct is to look for something that ties in with the bathtub.

This is the moodboard I put together for the powder room:

The wall shelf arrived yesterday.  It's from Urban Outfitters so I wasn't sure what it would be like in person.  I'm not a fan of the black plaque on it, but think I might be able to take it off.  Also, I might end up painting the bare wood white: I'm not really going for rustic in there.  The constraint is that the wall the sink is mounted on is a scant 21" wide and I really want a surface in the room where we can place a small bouquet of flowers or a candle.

The mirror is from Pottery Barn.  I've been looking for an antique for over a year but it's very hard to find one that's narrow enough.  I was hoping for something with a really luxurious frame, like tortoiseshell, but nothing has turned up and it's really annoying not having anything in there at all.  While design-wise it's nothing special in itself, the PB mirror seems like it would blend inoffensively with the look of the light fixture.  I'm trying to find it in stock at a local store before ordering it online and paying the shipping.

3 Prettiest Things: Mid-September

 I've been exclaiming over my white 'Immortality' irises all week.  They're blooming for the second time since I planted them and I am beyond excited to see these spring favorites again in early fall.  I love their wide blue-green leaves.

Also looking amazing is my sweet autumn clematis:

It's all over the iron railing, is smothering the top of the parapet wall and is starting to spill over the front facade of the red brick building.  It's the first roof garden plant that you can see from street level.  Rock star!

My third favorite plant right now are my 'Honorine Jobert' anemones.

They've been blooming for a couple of weeks now and are going strong.  The shape of the flowers is so pretty - I especially like their orange anthers - but the petals and stems also seem quite sturdy.  I have five plants and am looking forward to finding out how much they grow from season to season.  Then I'll be able to give in to my temptation to cut some of them for indoors without diminishing the display in the garden.  (They have lots of buds but the flowers only seem to open a few at a time.)