DECORATING MANIA!!

This year we decided to use part of our time together to help each other decorate our houses and Shirley’s classrom.  For me, I had two bedrooms to convert after Caroline moved out of Taber House and after Shirley’s son, Drew, moved to Monterey (oh, so sad that he had to move to beautiful Monterey – LOL).  This is what we've been calling the pre-trip and I hope you have already read about our adventures at Opera in the Park and the first guest bedroom, Harrison Suite.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I name everything at Taber House…..closets, cabinets, garages and rooms!  I think I started this because we lived so many places as a pastor’s family that it was hard to know where the scissors, tape, music and china were stored!  Joanna and Caroline (my girls) think I need to print maps for guests (smile).   The downstairs set of hall cabinets with the music library and puzzles and games is called That’s Entertainment!  The upstairs set of hall cabinets with photographs and memorabilia is named Memory Lane.  AND, the sewing/quilting/craft room is named Three Thimbles.  That name is a little more elusive…..but it’s named after our Grandmother Harrison and our mom who were both professional seamstresses and me --- hence, three thimbles.  I used it as a business name in 1983-1984 when I had a sewing business for a short time until Joanna started to attack a custom made wedding gown with peanut butter on her hands.....then it was time to go back to work at the university.  After retirement I was able to re-activate the creative side of my brain (Thank God it hadn’t atrophied!) and Three Thimbles was born!  My good friend, Joyce, and I installed the Elfa shelving and the pegboard.

Sooo --- Rosemary and Thyme!  Shirley and I love, love, love the British series called Rosemary and Thyme.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s a mystery series with two women; one is a professional botanist and one loves to create gardens.  Caroline has been the Taber House gardener so it only seemed fitting to name her former bedroom, Rosemary and Thyme and decorate it in a classic English style with our Great-Grandmother Neff’s rocking chair, a matelassé bedspread and botanical prints on the walls.   Ok – that’s a great description of a relaxing guestroom EXCEPT  I decided that we need to hang eight botanical prints by one of Caroline’s favorite artists on the wall instead of using a headboard.  Can you say CRAZY WOMAN?  Shirley and I were measuring, tweaking, leveling, and saying bowling words as we discovered that the matching frames varied in sizes by minute amounts which threw the whole plan off.  But, I have to say the end result was beautiful.

I left the closet doors off with a small amount of hanging space for guest clothes and placed our Grandmother Harrison’s buffet in the closet.  The round, glass side tables have metal leaves and birds welded to the frame and the reading lamps are mounted to the walls – I have yet to find the perfect cord covers to finish them off!  The drapes have silver leaves and the Ikea terrarium has artificial succulents in it.  The room is finished off with a lamp with a bird on it and a large, round silver  mirror on one wall.  I love this bedroom because it has so much natural light – two large windows and three small windows mounted high in the room.    All of this was accomplishd by many trips to Ikea and Pier One and Home Depot --  and deliveries over the last several months from Overstock.com and JCPenny sale items.  There isn't a thing in the room that was less than 50% off EXCEPT the curtain rod.  Hey, how come curtain rods are NEVER on sale????  We learned a great new shortcut way to hang curtain rods and would be happy to come to your home and install your rods --- ok, that last part about coming to your home to install your curtain rods was a lie.  Shirley is yelling at me “Don’t volunteer to hang curtain rods OR pictures instead of a headboard!".

Whew!  Bedroom Two is done!!!!!!!!