My Wonderful Life: relax

Showing posts with label relax. Show all posts

Monday, November 7, 2011

Soothing the savage beasts

please pause the playlist on the right sidebar to watch the movie, it'll put you in a good mood for a Monday morning!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

The Final Post about the Tartan Thistle Bed and Breakfast.

Hello folks, and welcome back to our tour of the Tartan Thistle Bed and Breakfast!

This is a 3 part post. If you missed the beginning, Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

For this part of our tour we shall journey up that beautifully carved staircase and take a peek at the second floor. As I said before I was the only guest on the second floor and Karen was nice enough to leave the other rooms open so that I could wander around at my leisure and bask in the beauty of my getaway! There are nice pictures of each room and a description of it's accommodations on their website so I'm not going to duplicate that here.

This lovely lady greets you at the top of the stairs.

Isn't she just a doll?!

Hanging in the hallway is this gorgeous bedspread.

As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time looking at this.

As a matter of fact, the love seat in my room faced the door and this hung directly across the hall from my door. So most of the time my door stayed open where I could look up and see such gorgeous handiwork.

Karen told me they found this beauty on eBay. Here is what is known of it's history:

Started in 1914 and finished in 1951! That'll keep you from giving up on all your UFOs!

Some of the rooms were more "girly" some more neutral. I was overwhelmed with girlieness in the Tower room. Pink lace curtains on the brass 4 poster bed. Frills and ruffles everywhere! Even the lamp was dressed in her finest!

This room also boasted this gorgeous hand sewn and hand quilted Double Wedding Ring quilt!

Can you guess what it's draped over?

In the Moors room I found this! And I sooo badly want one for myself now!

Can you tell what it is? Here, this'll help.

It's a very short tapestry footstool. Only about 4-5 inches tall. Perfect for resting your feet on when you don't really want them "up" but don't want to sit with them on the floor either!

And now, for my little piece of heaven for the night. I stayed in the Tartan Room.

A key to the front door and a key to my room and I'm on my own! In my teacup is the 4am Hot Cocoa I told you about....mmmmmm.....

I'd say that the Tartan was the most "masculine" of the rooms. I thought my husband would probably be comfortable with it's decor, whereas he'd probably be nauseous if left in the Tower room for too long. This is a part of the beauty and charm of this B&B. Everyone can find a room to their liking.

When Karen heard that my plan was to sit and sew all night, ever the accommodating hostess, she brought this floor lamp and set it up by the love seat for me. Even going so far as to change the light bulb from a softer pink to a bright white light!

This is the little writing desk with chair next to the bed. I tried and tried to get a good picture of the top of that chair there are beautiful flowers carved into it but none of my pictures came out. Incidentally, this lamp just made me laugh! I had one that looked almost just like that growing up....except it WASN'T on a writing desk. Can anyone guess what kind of lamp that is and where I might have used it??

And then.....my oasis!!

The pictures all came out dark, but that, friends and neighbors, is a very large claw foot tub! (the sink and toilet are on the other side of the room) It was soo long that I had to keep my feet on the faucet to keep from drowning! Pure bliss let me tell ya.

I had to wait till sunrise to get a good pic of this pretty window.

Can you tell how tall that lamp is?? Downstairs the ceilings are 13 ft high coming down to 11ft on the 2nd floor. The doors must be about 9-10 ft tall. I wish I'd gotten a good picture of the carving in the door frames.

I had a wonderful retreat! It was peaceful and beautiful. To calm the soul and delight the senses!
Everyone should spend a night here!

And yes, I already have plans to go back!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Tartan Thistle part 2 of 3

If you're just stopping by, part 1 can be found here.

And yes, you were right! these are Kleenex box covers! and there were several of them throughout the house. Too Cute!!

This post will show the First floor of the house.

This is the inside of the front door, if you've known me long you know I'm a total sucker for lace and to see this window treatment made entirely of rose/mauve lace just made me melt!

Stephanie asked how far I was from home. About 20 min, give or take if you count drive time. About a million miles if you count mental distance.

This guy sits just inside the door. And you can see that I spent my time talking on the phone and taking pictures....simultaneously! It's sad I know, but one of the things I was looking forward to was making a couple phone calls....and being able to talk UNINTERRUPTED FOR AS LONG AS I WANTED!!! felt soooo good!

This guy also greets you as you walk in....for some reason I was quite smitten with him!

As you might imagine tartan (or plaid) and thistles can be found everywhere at The Tartan Thistle. From this table setting in the foyer to the dinnerware.

From the Foyer we'll move into the Parlor.

Looking at the front of the house you will notice an octagonal tower. This is the inside of that tower on the first floor.

This part of the house with its amazing woodwork is all original to the first 1880's one story home.

isn't this piano beautiful?

I just love these details!

Flowers, fresh, dried and silk were everywhere.

This is just the neatest little dish with edges turned in and gilded.

From the Parlor to the canopied Dining Room.

Part 3 of our tour will take us up to the second floor. I was fortunate to have the entire second floor all to myself as the only other tenant was a business traveler in the first floor room...whom I never saw or heard!

If I ever have a 2 story house I'm remembering this lamp! What a great place to put a lamp! and I tried to pick it up...it's bolted into the top of the banister!

And no searching for the cord to turn it on either!!

I sooo love this idea!!

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Tartan Thistle Part 1 of 2 or 3.....

Okay folks. I have 48 pictures that I took during my overnight getaway at the Tartan Thistle Bed and Breakfast. I am trying not to duplicate pics that are on their website...so follow the link for even more views of this beautiful home! (especially of the outside because I didn't get a good pic of the front of the house). In order to make all these pictures something better than a slide show of someone else's vacation I'm breaking them into more than one post. Hopefully I'll get them all posted over the weekend.

This post will be views from the wraparound porch....and FOOD!!

Speedy heard me mention food and decided to stowaway in my quilting bag!

The history of this home is very interesting! Apparently, according to my Hostess, Karen Watson, in the 1880s the original one story Victorian home was owned by a woman. She was probably the mistress of the school located next door.

Around 1900 it was purchased and expanded by the Scott Family to it's current 3 story Neo-Classical Victorian grandeur.

ain't he cute? He's one of Karen and her husband Tom's two Huskies that live in the yard between the main house and the carriage house. I don't have any pictures of the carriage house as it's currently a private residence.

This is the yard off the porch. A beautiful meditation garden in good weather!

A century after the school mistress sold the house it found itself once again owned by a woman. Although it stood empty and was steadily falling into disrepair, this lady held onto the house for about 10 years. She was loathe to allow the house to sell to someone that didn't cherish its history and beauty.

I don't know why blogger turned this picture of the lovely table. Everyone lay on your right side and enjoy.

Fortunately for me and my fellow travelers the lady sold the house to Karen and Tom Watson. The Watsons spent 4 years restoring the home and carriage house doing almost all the labor themselves...with the help of their then teenage sons. They have been hosting folks like me for about 10 years now. And I must say Karen is a perfect Hostess!

So grab a drink from this coke machine on the porch and let's go see if we can protect ourselves against starvation.......

If you'd like something cold to drink this lovely buffet in the upstairs hall is always accessible. Karen made sure I never ran out of ice....or Dr Pepper! (yes, the missing glass and Dr Pepper can were MINE!) Karen said something about fruit juices.....but I didn't listen as that seemed waaaay too healthy for my getaway plans!!

And if a hot drink is what you're after head to the downstairs parlour under the tea cozy is a hotplate/teapot that you can turn on to warm your water at any time! It made wonderful Hot Cocoa at 3am I must say!!

Now, for dinner I had.....

yummmmm It's been YEARS since I had a Pappa John's pizza cuz they don't deliver out to my tiny town. Karen was a sweetie and stuck my leftovers in the fridge for me to take home!!

Then came the REAL TREAT!! warning! you might drool.......

I came down in the morning and found this on the sideboard....

at the table....

Knowing that I was the only breakfast guest I'd brought my book along, but I was too busy enjoying my breakfast to read any.

This pic is dedicated to my late Mom Baker (my stepmother's grandmother)! She had blackberry bushes in her garden and my fondest memory of her house is eating fresh picked blackberries in milk with sugar! oooooo they were good.

yeah, the spinach quiche was so good I had to sample before I could stop and take pictures!

and if ALL THAT wasn't enough...she offered me DESSERT!
blackberry cobbler...oh my!

now I didn't get pictures of the trays of treats that were available at all times....or the little bowls of chocolate that were around....but just trust me. No one will starve in Karen's house!!

In the next installment...I'll tell you what this is: