These are a few of my favorite things.

Today is my birthday. The weather is beautiful, the kids are home from school but playing outside, I had Starbucks and donuts delivered to my bedside for breakfast. It's a good day. Of course, this has happened, making it not such a good day. I myself have been glued to The Weather Channel. 

So in the wake of that, I'm trying to find my happy place again. And I was thinking this morning, while wandering through the house picking up after the kids, there are a lot of little pieces of my house that I love, but I often don't think about because all I see are the glaring things I don't like about the house. 

 

This is a vignette in my front entryway. I searched for years for a curved but narrow little piece like this, and then my mom and I stumbled upon it on one of our many trips to the Mission Antiques Mall. The blue china bowl was a wedding gift, one of my favorites. The lights were a Costco purchase, and the french country bicycle prints were another antique shop find. The whole thing is really a perfect example of my decorating style, the only problem is the rest of my house does not really match it. In a house full of little boys and large dogs, one cannot put out very many dainty things.

A couple of years ago, I went to Toronto to see and celebrate a friend get married. Being the flea market lover that I am, I managed to find my way to the St. Lawrence flea market during an afternoon of free time before the wedding. And I found these gorgeous little needlepoint portraits, in the frames. I was barely able to negotiate a price with the vendor, such was my obvious ardor for these things. She knew she had me. They hang in my bathroom. 

A terrible picture of an antique card catalog that my mother rescued years ago, scrapped off ten layers of white paint and refinished in a walnut stain to match the wood. I have craved this piece of furniture for years, it's been sitting in her basement collecting dust because she doesn't have a place for it.  She finally relented a few weeks ago and let me have it. It sits in an alcove outside my bedroom door. 

My ten year old son's bedroom. I picked out the boating prints when he was two, when making over his nursery to a toddler boy's room, knowing that they would grow with him into his teen years and beyond. I framed them myself with $6 each frames from Michaels and a glass kit. They are portraits of yachts that have won The America's Cup yacht race; one is called Vigilant, the other was named Mischief. I chose these two for the names. I wish I'd have bought three of them, but that was before I really understood much about decorating and that things work better in odd numbers. 

The little boat shaped bookcase I rescued from a neighbor's curb on trash day many years ago. ON THE CURB. I didn't have to refinish it or anything. She was just to busy to take it to Goodwill, she said. Gah. The quilt is from Pottery Barn Kids, and was a bit of a splurge. Given the price I'd paid to put the rest of the room together, it was worth it. 

My guest room. Probably my favorite room in the house, although I don't spend much time in there. What you can't see from the picture is all the junk stacked up in corners of the room, as nobody ever visits us and it's become The Place We Throw Things That Don't Have a Real Home. It's also the only room my husband let me do without any input from him, so it's very frilly. 

The red iron bed is my grandmother's, I slept on it for most of my life when visiting her house and when she downsized into assisted living it was the only thing I was ready to rumble for. I didn't have to rumble, she knew I wanted it. I also wanted her old hoosier cabinet but we were living in California and didn't have a way to get it at the time, and my mom wouldn't couldn't store it for me. A headboard she could store against a wall, a cabinet, not so much. The quilted bed set is from Pottery Barn, but was another downsized gift from another family member. The flag pillow I made myself from a scrap bin piece, and the lamp and shade are from Ikea. The Mother's Day collector plates are my mother's, which were her mother's and I have a stash myself. There isn't much of a market for them anymore, even among antique dealers, and I've yet to convince her to let me smash them up and make mosaics of them. I keep trying, though. 

 

My grandmother's quilt, which she pieced herself as a teenager and just recently bestowed upon me. I'm still too smitten to even hang it up, it's so fragile, but I will soon. 

 

I bought this several years ago at the Prairie Village Art Fair.  "Little Britches," as he's named by the artist, hangs in my foyer near the front door. I framed it myself, again with a cheap painted frame and a glass kit from Michaels. It's just such a perfect view of the life of a little boy - half naked, but he's got his hat so it's all good. 

I love a lot of things in my house, as it turns out. I don't always love they way they come together, and for every vignette or room I am happy with there is another that needs some attention. It's a work in progress, like everything else in my life.