TIPS

1.  Turn off the overhead lighting in favor of floor and table lamps.  You’ll feel the softness right away.

2.  Place lamps in corners of rooms, and turn them on.  The illuminated corners wrap the space in warmth.

3.  Create cozy reading spots with a very comfortable chair and stylish, effective lighting.  Choose 3-way bulbs for this space.  Sometimes you’ll want the quiet, low light, but when you’re reading you’ll be happy to have that extra brightness right where you need it.

To read these books, you'll need the light coming from this cherub lamp.

4.  Invest in candles, fake and real.  The flicker of candlelight is one of the happiest details you can add to your home this season.

DESIGNER IDEAS

I love to put a lamp on a long dining table. Clear one end, and put the light and all the food and flowers there. It makes a lovely still life and floods the scene with warmth.” —BARBARA BARRY

“We designed a dismally dark New York apartment on a low floor, where all the rooms faced a brick wall. We installed full-spectrum lightbulbs all around the window frames — eight bulbs per frame — and then I hung elegant plantation shutters with very wide louvers. You tilt the louvers in any direction and they scoop up the light and shine it up to the ceiling or down to the floor. The electrician and I rigged up a timer tied to the fall and spring equinoxes, so that the light changes throughout the day and year, simulating the arc of the sun across the sky from east to west. It looks real!” —ERIC COHLER

Play with shapes in lamps and their surroundings.

Look at what a spot of warmth that lamp provides.

This beautiful bed by Caroline Westbrook (of Caroline Westbrook Home) is made so much more inviting by the charming bedside lamp.

Who’s really going to miss the sun, with such fabulous lighting options available indoors?

We've been getting the barn ready for our tag sale this weekend (Friday - Sunday this week). Plus, we've been hauling furniture to Lucketts for the great Spring Market held there this weekend (Saturday-Sunday).

Here’s a snapshot of  ’a day in the life of a Chartreuse girl’:

Chartreuse & co trucks it to Lucketts!

And here are some photos of the best little truckers on earth:

Here's the crew after filling just one of the four box trucks we loaded and took to Lucketts today.

That last caption was a lie. These are the guys who really make it happen. We just show up for the photos and look cute.

But honestly, we couldn't do it at all without these terrific (and very strong!) fellows to help us out. Thanks guys!

Wow! All our fabulous finds, crammed into that space. Exactly how are we going to get it all set up, decorated, and ready for you by Saturday morning?

Ooh, can you pick out your favorite treasure from this tantalizing photo?

And look at the goodies filling the barn this weekend! We're open Friday-Sunday this week. It's fabulous, fresh, and ready!

This 120+ year old chandelier was originally gas powered.  Yup.  It’s the real deal!

I just LOVE this amazing, 11' long farm table. It's absolutely perfect for al fresco dining. It's a jaw dropper! And I love it with the adorable little industrial stools. Grab a glass and have a seat!

Stunning vintage statue! Her wear gives her just the right patina. While she'd be fabulous is your garden, imagine her atop a french chest or a rough table. Stunning!

This diminutive server is so versatile. As a hall stand, converted to a sink vanity, tucked into the small guest bedroom. And the color/paint treatment is so neutral and sophisticated. Love it!!

Donna of Hunt & Harvest has found, and put together a great collection of vintage items. Notice how the grouping, assembled like that, makes each piece more significant. Collections, displayed together, make a statement in your home.

Distance is nothing to us, if it means great finds! Lew of Bountiful Harvest just returned from the big antique fair at Brimfield, Massachusetts. It was days of great shopping, and she brought her treasure back to share with you this weekend.

See you this weekend!

Virginia

Hungarian table clothes, German feed sacks

Handworked linens, striped French tea towels

Beautifully handworked pillowcases

Yes, I brought 43.5 lbs. of textiles home in my checked baggage, and another 15-20 lbs. came home via UPS.   I may need an intervention.  This does qualify as a problem, doesn’t it?

We spent 6 days in Texas.  More details to come.  For great pictures of our adventures, click on the pictures below:

Maria looking elegant as I snap a picture of this beautifully crowned Madonna

Come see some of these treasures this weekend at our Tag Sale, April 16-18.  Click on the pictures below for previews of this month’s sale:

Yummy linen bedding on an elegantly simple bed - perfect!

Wear sturdy shoes – it’s going to be muddy.

See you soon,

Virginia

But with that behind us (at least until Monday, when, yes, they’re calling for MORE SNOW!), I look ahead to the first flowers of spring:

I don't usually even like grape hyacinths, but the fresh, simple shape and color just makes me smile.

And this brings me to my other focus these past weeks:  our upcoming February Tag Sale.  Yes, we’re having it as planned!

As soon as I was able to get into the barn, I grabbed my camera to shoot some photos of what the Chartreuse girls have in store for you this month.

Here’s some of the highlights:

tole chandelier w/ shade

They're all over the store, looking like a garden by themselves!

Okay, this is the last one I photographed, but isn't it adorable!?!

Love the swedish clock, garden urns, and chippy door together.

These totally real-looking leaves are fantastic as placemats, a runner, anywhere you want life and green!

A vintage flower power clock - in daffodil yellow - perfect!

Get playful, and colorful, with this elephant pillow - the cool ikat-style pillows have a matching ottoman!

This mammoth basket/crate has to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. The patina is THE BEST! aged wicker, canvas, and leather. It's just too cool!

Great storage piece with excellent detailing. Dress up that flat screen's home!

Okay, here's the best for last - these delightfully hand-painted pieces sport the prettiest toile scenes!

And would you believe we’ll be bringing tons more in this week as we get ready for you?!?

If you’re coming to our sale this weekend, be sure to wear your boots, and park in the school lot next door.  We’re ready for you, even if our parking field isn’t!

See you this weekend!

I love this view out our huge glass windows along the north side of the house.

I love the long nights for cozying up with a good book.  I love the grey afternoons that just beg for a pot of tea.  I love having my girls home for a little while.  It’s all good.  My grandmother, Virginia, always said that every age has it’s compensations.  I’d say that every season has its compensations as well.

I’m embracing this winter.  And I’m doing so with contrasts.  With the icy greyness outside, I’m creating gardens inside.  I’m creating crisp, clean space.  But I’m softening it with warm lighting and down cushions.

Faux greenery lasts all winter, as do the gardeny, iron lamps

Planning ahead:

I’ve also just made plans for my favorite ‘business trip’ of the year:  the fabulous Roundtop, TX Antique Week this spring.

And it’s not just the great stuff I love.  It’s the excitement, the party, the great food, and, most of all, the inspiration I get from the amazing, creative, sophisticated, and forward-thinking designers and decorators who merchandise the amazing displays that cover acres of Texas hill country.  Check out these pictures from last year.  You’ll see what I mean:

Check out the contrasting textures and how they add so much to this simple display.

Robin, of Flea Market Chicks, and I loved it all, in spite of the rain!

A feast for the eyes! I just wanted to live in this space! The lamps and all the fabric on the walls create such an inviting space. And the unity of tone and color is totally soothing.Each tent (and there were miles of fields filled w/ tenets!) was loaded with goodies, displayed so temptingly.

Tarnished silver, mossy ferns, a concrete urn. Simple. Beautiful.

Creative uses and display ideas for all that vintage ephemera we love.

Notice how the variety of shapes and textures draws your eye, while the restrained palette holds it all together.

Like the walls? They're covered in rumpled kraft paper! Great idea for a party, or quickly shaping up a rough space.

Sometimes it's just about scale. This garden display wows you because of the over-the-top scale of that amazing metal ball.

Use this technique with vintage paper, sheet music, old photographs. The charcoal grey walls are the perfect contrast. The milkglass is another nice textural element.

You will find yourself enjoying your vintage things more when they are displayed in a way that invites you to touch them and explore them. Try it!

I’ll take loads of pictures this year, too.  And you’ll be the first to see them.  I promise!

In the mean time, embrace your winter, and plan for spring!

Talk to you soon,

Virginia

Here’s a sampling of what makes me happy right now:

Soothing colors, great texture.

My house is of the era of this one, and I just LOVE the use of the soothing grey walls, white trim, and reed blinds.  What a great way to lighten up an otherwise serious room.

There's never too many books.

Check out the library below, brimming with books.  A favorite detail:  the picture hanging from the bookshelves.

Here’s a departure from the neutrals, yet the print (in my favorite color!) put together with quieter elements (and, of course, the sun-drenched lighting doesn’t hurt) still creates a comforting room.

Efficient living!

My poor plants die way too often.  What a great solution!  Shower them while you shower yourself.  But seriously, wouldn’t this wake you right up each morning?

And on the Chartreuse & co front:

House Beautiful has featured two of our hooks in this current online issue:

One of my all-time favorites. It's the bird that gets me.

Love the lead grey of this cartouche design.

The shop will be open for just one day this month – January 16th.  It’s too cold to do any more than that, so mark your calendar, and don’t be late!  Doors open at 9am.

A dear friend of mine suggested we all just decide to leave up the Christmas lights throughout the month of January.  Let’s face it.  January is depressing.  Why not leave up the cheery lights and festive displays?  Is there something bad about them?  As for me.  My tree, and all my decorations, stay up at least through the 12th day of Christmas:  the Epiphany on January 6.  I still get happy popping over the hill and seeing our 11 foot tree brightly lit and guiding me home.  It may just stay up all month . . .

Nonetheless, they are approaching and the spirit is wrapping me up.  The shop is totally charming right now, and once the music started (enhanced by all the twinkling lights!) I found myself caught up in it, too!  (Of course the Chartinis at the Kick-off party didn’t hurt, either!)

I just love the variety of colors and moods everyone has brought to this Christmas season!  Like the earthy warmth of this scene.

Or how about the cool, funky flavor of these playful, pink trees?!?

And don’t you just love that amazing vintage brocade pillow?  You can be jealous now: I’ve already got 4 stockings ready to hang, made from that same great fabric – you’ll get to see them in all their glory at our Christmas Open House the first weekend of December.

Here are some more of my favorites from soft brown velvet to elegently inscribed butterfly ornaments:

I’m off now to finish planning for our amazing, first-in-my-lifetime, trip to the Metropolitan Opera in NYC.  The girls and I (for them a quick break from college, for me a quick break from life . . .) are running up there this weekend to enjoy Puccini’s Tourandot (don’t tell the girls, but I’m going to check out the Columbus area flea market, too!).  We’re pulling out all the stops, dressing to the nines, and having a great birthday celebration for them both!

Talk to you soon!

Virginia

Katherine in her dorm room @ Hollins.

These precious words of wisdom came from my 18-year-old daughter as I left her behind to start her sophomore year at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. The 3 1/2 hour, solitary ride home was a bit melancholy (except for the few moments of rage directed at rude truckers on I-81), but here I am: home alone. And what am I doing with this new-found situation? Duh! I’m rethinking my house.

Hmm, shouldn’t I just paint all that dark woodwork that my grandmother left for so long?!?