Our First Grandchild

Our first grandchild arrived ten days early, looking well prepared for this wonderful world at 7.5 lbs. and ready to feed. Congratulations to proud parents Nina & Alex and a most loving welcome to sweet baby Alex!

A Little Landscaping

I have had Rutger's Nursery come for advice after hauling fallen trunks and large branches from much of the front yard forest at Leif's. We burn branches in the fire pit while taking down more dead ash trees, which has allowed the property to take shape this Spring. I am advised to do what we are doing...clear to the historic tall rock wall & repair it while creating as much lawn as we like. Dot in a few flowering trees and enjoy the tree protected property, magnificent creekbed view and hillside behind it.

Here is a Garden Stone of Bill's placed next to pruned ornamental grasses in the backyard. It is analagous and echoes the house colors as you look towards the creek from the back deck. Nice!

Bill has made beautiful garden stones lately, which are a bit more bulbous while illuminating his painterly glazing techniques wonderfully. It displaces an old planter left behind. 

The attached second lot being cleared.

Missing My Anders

 

This month I have been missing my dog Anders who passed last month. He was such a dear "Valentine" and companion to me, I never realized just how much. Anders always desparately missed any in our family, how ever long they were gone. His greetings were overwhelming and sincere. He pranced like a circus pony when he walked or played with sticks, ran like the wind in chase, and stopped traffic with his sheer beauty. He sat like a soldier with perfect posture and attention for us.

I loved him.

Finding Leather Furniture

It helps to find large pieces of furniture like couches, locally! In our borough, we have a Home Front which sells donated estate items etc., where I purchased Leif's second hand Pottery Barn leather sofa this week. The cost is tax deductible and Christian easily helped us move it with his truck. It is just old enough to have wonderful patina on high quality; lovely colored leather with dense down in the cushions. At 42" X 91" it is very deep and as wide as the window frame behind. We built a roaring wood stove  fire in front, right away. 

The brand new Mid Century style cowhide leather chair in Leif's living room, came from the same source.

Installing Marble Counters

I went to "GRANITE CORNERSTONE LLC" in Highstown NJ, to approve a Carrara White Gioia Marble layout for Leif's kitchen. It was a good trip to a barn in a farmfield with wooden templates easy to move about. Having a "waterfall" end and veining to line up, this was critical. The exceptionally long slab of marble allowed us to choose the parts we liked most. 

Before counter install, the two beams in the kitchen ceiling left, are primed and being painted "White Dove" in high marine gloss from Fine Paints of Europe.

Beautiful Birthday Gifts

 

Today is Leif's birthday and his new kitchen will be "furnished" with '30's Fiesta glasses, vintage whiteware and crystal stemware from Hopewell's Home Front. He also got a Serge Mouille white Three Arm MCL-R3 light by France & Son, for his dining room. All flawless & beautiful.

Serge Mouille designed his angular, insect-like lights as “a reaction to the Italian models that were beginning to invade the market in 1950,” which he criticized for being “too complicated.” His large-scale Three-Arm Lamps (1952) have a kinetic, sculptural aesthetic that evokes a sense of movement in space. All of the arms can be rotated in various directions, allowing for ample, well-directed lighting for any task. Mouille designed the Three-Arm Lamp for a client whose instructions were simply, “I want a big light because I have clients in South America who have huge rooms.” All of his lighting solutions feature Mouille’s hallmark signatures as a designer: the way the arms are joined to the diffusers, the washer and six-sided screw hardware, the form of the reflectors, and the refined lines of the steel tubing. Floor lamp below. DWR

Happy Birthday Leif!