June is certainly a welcome month, isn't it?  I myself am wholly ready for softer schedules, later sunsets and a refrigerator oozing with summer produce  ... would you like to join me in a dish of watermelon for dessert?  How about starting your morning with a juicy peach dripping down your chin into the kitchen sink?   I'm dreaming of guilt free afternoons spent sipping peach iced tea with mint while reading a book on a beach or in my garden.

But my day planner has other ideas - it's telling me, "We're not quite done yet here sister".  I'm actually on a train to NYC for garden club meetings as we speak.  I really do love New York in the summer - you can get into restaurants, museums are less crowded and the weather can be lovely for walking.  More on that below.  READ MORE

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How was your weekend - besides wet?  I've been thinking about all the families out there who packed their cars, hauled the coolers, organized the kids and the long handled shovels and the pool noodles, and are looking at a scene like this one above, with a traffic filled drive home not yet in their rear view mirror.   Memorial Day is one of only two precious long summer weekends that American life still grants to our working folk with limited vacation, and to have one with constant rain just seems unfair.  My heart goes out to everyone in this scenario.

And yet I must confess, this steady gray drizzle has felt like a welcome home gift to me.   I returned late Friday night from the Museum Store Expo in Philadelphia where I was showing my custom line of scarves, bangles and valet trays based on my paintings of bespoke places and collections.  Exhibiting at a wholesale market is a LOT - three days in a dreary windowless convention center, setting up a 10' x 5' booth which you hope will communicate your dreams.   But if just a few of the interesting conversations I had with amazing non profits on my dream client list come to fruition, I will be doing cartwheels on the beach like a second grader.  So cross your fingers for me.   

Remember those family vacations when your mother let you bring a friend along?   READ MORE

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Isn't this a fascinating concept?  How to blur the line between interior and exterior spaces through thoughtful design.   Are you like me, feeling the urge to throw open every door and window?  I think we are craving permeability, air, light, movement.  This spring especially, we're inviting the birdsong and breezes to drift indoors.

Today, we're taking a look at steel casement doors, garden rooms and loggias.  Rooms that breathe the outdoor air, houses that invite the garden in.  Let's wander together over vanishing thresholds, as butterflies drift by, seemingly oblivious to boundaries between inside and out.  READ MORE

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