Halloween is coming

Welcome to our home - mini pumpkins in the front entry.  Taken with my Bb

Do the seasons evoke memories and feelings for you? 

When I was small, autumn meant the start of school.  October was the ramp up to my birthday, and then a few days later, Beggars Night and Halloween.  Halloween has always been tangled up with my birthday, so that they seem to be one in the same.  Cooler weather, carving pumpkins, pressing leaves, candy and Halloween costumes were all part of one big celebratory period.  In my mind, it was a magical time, full of promise, mystery and surprises.

When I was a little older, we moved south to Florida, and autumn was very different - gone were the colored leaves, cooler temperatures and the significant change of the seasons.  Halloween and my birthday were no less tangled, but the atmospheric indicators were no longer so strong.  I spent most of my life in Florida, and we developed our own traditions of what Halloween should be, and how it should feel.  Mostly it was very warm and the faux autumn leaves that stores attempted to foster on us, felt strangely hollow and inauthentic.

Since 2001, I've been in DC, and the old autumn feelings of my childhood stir, the cool weather, changing leaves, and the magic that Halloween can bring, has come full circle. 

What does this time of year signify for you?

Adult Milkshake

We had this yummy drink when we were in New Orleans for Halloween in 2009. The name sounds disgusting - Frozen Bourbon Milk Punch - but oh boy was it amazing! This is the Bourbon House restaurant's signature drink.

Enjoy!

4C Milk
1C Bourbon
¼C Vanilla Extract
¼C Simple Syrup
1pt Vanilla Ice Cream
Dash ea Nutmeg

Combine all ingredients & blend for 8 seconds.
Garnish with nutmeg.

Yield: 1.5 Quarts

Our Favorite Cocktail

I've been a bit absent lately, due to recuperating from knee surgery and new responsibilities at work. Since my blog is about more than just decorating our home, its about living life. In that spirit, I share with our our favorite drink,the Dark n- Stormy. Someone recently commented that its more than our favorite, its become the house drink.

The traditional Dark n' Stormy is the official cocktail of Bermuda, made from Gosling's Black Seal Rum. Its a blend of muddled limes, ginger beer and dark, almost molasses black rum. Sounds yummy, right? I first heard of it from my buddy Bob Morris, who was on tour promoting his book Bermuda Schwartz and his tour sponsor was none other than Gosling's Rum.

Last summer while dining at Cityzen, I discovered they made a slightly different version of the classic Dark n' Stormy. The ginger beer version will do in a pinch, but Cityzen's version is heavenly. The difference? Cityzen makes ginger infused simple syrup and instead of the ginger beer, giving the drink a fuller, rich and spicier taste. Since February, we've been experimenting with making the Cityzen version. Many times we came close to perfection, but not quite there. Hoping to recreate the concoction from last summer, I wrote to the restaurant and groveled for their recipe. I don't know if I was especially good at grovelling that day, or they're really nice. (I'm leaning towards they're really nice!) Turns out I need not have groveled, they were more than happy to share, as well as give me some important pointers on the making of the ginger syrup. And now their recipe is available for you to enjoy!

• 2oz Goslings Black Seal Rum
• 1oz Fresh Ginger Simple Syrup – (equal parts sugar, water & ginger root. Bring to boil, let sit 2hrs, strain)
• Juice of ½ a lime
• Splash Club Soda

Image Source

A Tale of Two Doors - Part One

This summer there were two projects we tackled and both projects involved doors.

The first project was a restoration of the front porch storm door.  There were cracked panes of glass, the bottom was coming apart, the house numbers were mismatched and the paint was cracked and peeling.   Additionally, the front porch light has had no cover (for almost 4 years) and the doorbell was just a hole in the exterior trim that carpenter bees were increasingly drawn to explore.  What a fabulous welcome to our house, right?

Our house - from designGumbo's Bb

Here's the house before the storm door work, new light fixture, door bell, pressure washing and planted containers.  It doesn't look too bad, but that's because its not a close up shot and the lawn has been done.  I truly believe a well manicured yard hides a multitude of flaws.  

The project occurred over two weekends and involved fixing all the wrongs to the storm door, buying a replacement light cover (we look much less ghetto now) and re-wiring the doorbell that Tim accidentally broke during our first few months in the house.

Bee's wanted to move in the hole!

Additionally,we added a great plastic applique from Piccadilly Peddlers on Etsy for the house numbers so folks would actually be able to read our address from the road.

Oleander topiary

Our home is a Cape Cod,  and symmetry is one of the hallmark features of this style.  To enhance that, I planted several containers with white oleander topiaries under planted with 'Lemonade' Lantana and 'Marghertia' sweet potato vine.  Being from Florida, I was so excited to see the Oleander topiary and Lantana at my local garden center, I saw a chance to use Florida flora give the front porch a tradional look.  A second container on each side of the door contains large ferns from Home Depot.

After a thorough cleaning with a pressure washer, the front porch was ready to be assembled.

The finished product...for now.

After looking at the front porch I'm thinking I might need some nice black accents to really make the entry pop.  So I'm on the lookout for black containers to tie in the black shutters on the front of the house.  What do you think?  What else could we do?  Paint the front door and trim black?

The Ikea Pillows

Source: designGumbo's Blackberry

My $8 Ikea pillow covers were the perfect color match for our living room.  I already have have a number of feather and down pillow inserts, so it was nice to only pay for the pillow cover.  More later why our living colors are challenging.   I'll apologize now for the crappy photos from my Blackberry. 

 Here's what they look like in place on the vintage bamboo sofa:

Source:  designGumbo Blackberry

The rougher texture adds visual interest against the smoothness of the sofa fabric and the lushness of the berry velvet throw pillow.

Source: designGumbo Blackberry

 I like that they're silk, but they have more texture than the usual smooth texture that dupioni silk imparts. Now, our biggest challenge will be keeping our two Grrr Girls off of them.

High end find at Ikea

Source: designGumbo

Recently, the interior design blogisphere seems to have rediscovered Ikea and found a lot to love. We live within 10, 45 or 60 minutes of three Ikeas, and stop in the closest one a half dozen times a year.  Their regular updating of merchandise assures that there is always something new to discover. There's one particular area of Ikea I visit regularly, and within it you'll find a world of affordable accessories, textiles, lighting, rugs, mirrors, picture frames and a regular and a good selection of house plants. Yesterday, I went to pick up a pair of silk pillow covers I saw a month ago. They were $8 each, which is dirt cheap for pillow covers, silk or otherwise.

Source: designGumbo

On my way to pay for my frugal purchases, I passed through the rugs department and in front of me was a display that made me rub my eyes, to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Hanging right in front of me were large swaths of beautifully colored cowhide. For. $249!!!!

In our store they have the traditional Holstein cow black and white, two chestnut brown versions - one a medley of brown shades, the other a chestnut dappled with white spots. The last one was a solid black hide that was sumptuous in its glossiness. That would look amazing draped across a Hollywood Regency style bed. You can see some examples on the Ikea website but they cannot be ordered online, in store purchase only.

Source: Ikea

Source: Ikea

OMG! Could THAT actually be a kitchen?

After much ado about a lot, my kitchen almost existed and was almost no longer a figment of my imagination. I say almost because the dishwasher, range hood, sink and disposal would arrive and get installed in a few days. The finished product looks better than I could have ever imagined!

In a mere 4 weeks since closing on the house, we:

• Gutted the kitchen down to studs and sub floor
• Tore down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, effectively creating an eat in kitchen
• Installed doggy door for our Beagle so she can come and go as she pleases
• Dry walled ceiling we messed up when tearing down old wall, and leveling areas that once had a wall between them.
• Installed new floor in an attempt to match 80 year old wood floor in kitchen
• Ripped out three rooms worth of 1936 paneling from the master suite
• Re insulated the master suite
• Installed almost all the drywall in the master suite
• Took over a week to move 2 households into 2 storage units
• Sanded, stained, varnished kitchen floor, in addition developed allergic bumps to either floor stain or varnish
• Bought kitchen appliances
• Installed 75% of the kitchen cabinets

Yet to do:

• Finish mudding drywall seams in master suite
• Build storage cubbies to hold all our stuff
• Carpet master suite
• Refinish balance of first floor hardwood floors
• Move all of our stuff from storage units into house
• Install some sort of closet system in dressing room
• Install return and registers for kitchen and upstairs
• Paint - EVERY ROOM
• Have driveway poured
• IMPORTANT NOTE: By the time you get to this finished product, (photographed almost a year after purchase) we'd painted the kitchen walls three different times:
  • first a blue gray (a la Pottery Barn)
  • Palm Green (a la the den color)
  • The inside of an avocado (ceiling and walls) - final color