Home tour

Yes, as if decorating, selling blinds and home staging isn’t enough – I decided I will plant a vegetable garden this Spring!  Who needs sleep!

If you know me, it is not as strange as it sounds.  I come from a looooong lineage of farmers.  My grandfather was a tobacco farmer and he was probably the 3rd or 4th generation of tobacco farmers.  Fortunately, the family land is still in the family, down in Pender county, North Carolina. My uncle lives on it and keeps a nice garden but of course, no more tobacco.

Also, my house in Silver Spring came with a sizeable backyard and defined flower bed out back. The flower bed had climbing roses originally, I added day lillies and blueberries about 3 years ago. the day lillies did FANTASTIC – they quickly began to compete with the roses for space, but the blueberry bush did not make it. Turns out – blueberries need shade! But roses require frequent pruning and although I like to garden, I grew tired of pruning and probably wasn’t doing a good job at it. So the flower bed just looked a mess most of the year.

So I pulled everything up (except one lily bush at the end) and will plant a garden in the spring. Here are the pics from the prep work…

After tearing out the roses and the lilies, we added soil and lined the flower bed with newspaper.

The newspaper is to hopefully block whatever roots are left from growing up into the soil. the newspaper will just breakdown into the soil, so it makes a good lining. And it was a nice deterrent to the squirrels who live and love my chestnut tree and tried to bury their nuts in the soil.

I will work with Varetta, a friend who I am encouraging to launch her city living/container garden business, and my Mom who not only has a green thumb but a green hand.  Two of them.  Yea – she grew up on that tobacco farm. To hear her tell it, they had to pick a field of strawberries before they could go to school…yada yada yada. I spent some time on family farm as a child but mostly in the reaping season – picking, shucking, peeling, snapping time of year.  Not really in the seeding and planting. So will be learning this part for the first time.

After the newspaper, comes the mulch!  Stay tuned for more gardening fun after the snow leaves the area.

Mulch is added!!

another view of mulch

I had the good fortune to personally tour and view the White House Christmas this year – what a treat! Even though I live in the DC area and grew up here, I haven’t set foot in the White House since I was a child.   So it was great not only returning but also to see the creative and just simply amazing Christmas decorations.  Of course, there are plenty of fabulous professional pictures floating around the web and even a White House Christmas special on HGTV – but below are pictures and commentary from MY point of view.

First I have to give a shout out to my friend Eboni, visiting from Charlotte, who secured the tickets in the first place. You will see her in various pictures below, while pictures of me are obviously on her camera. Our detailed planning had us there about a half an hour before our scheduled entry time, which means we didn’t have to wait in line much at all and were able to basically waltz right in, after the obligatory id checks.  Early birds catch the worms!

The first pair of rooms (after the entry hall and chance to leave note for the troops) are the Library and Vermeil rooms. Each room is only open a single doors width so picture taking was a bit challenging, what with other people around, a hat and coat to maneuver and the need to hold the camera stead. It wasn’t until later that I learned to drop the hat and coat in the corner, take my shot, and then go back and pick them up. At any rate, the Library was designated by FDR in 1935 and included this tree (to the right) just looked stunning. Check out the heavily decorated mantle too!

I have a thing for mantles, so you will see lots of pictures of them. It gave me some great ideas about what to do with my own mantle – which is just full of Christmas cards now. But next year I have big plans for it!

Love this mantle!

The Vermeil Room (on the left) featured decorations in peach, gold and amber. Check out the cool mantle and picture of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. There was another portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy above a table set with former president’s China but alas someone stepped into my shot…:-(. So I couldn’t include it here.

After leaving the Grand corridor, we climbed the stairs to the second level and immediately entered the East room, where lots of bill signings and press events take place.  It is a long hall and feels like the majority of the width of the building. Check out the cool mantle, done with magnolia leaves amongst other flowerings,  with a really large mirror (no doubt used to keep an eye on things from anywhere in the room) and a number of trees in this space.

East Room – trees with Nativity scene

Eboni poses by the elaborate decorated archway.

Hopefully these pictures give a better sense of the size of the space and the number of decorations that were done.  The pair of tree flanking an elaborate Nativity scene was nicely done.

More to come…

This weekend, I attended the Georgetown House Tour which was fantastic! This is one of the longest running private home tours in the country (over 90 years strong!) and I was able to view exquisite and in some cases amazing homes.  One of the requests of tour organizers is that attendees is wear shoe booties, to help reduce tracking of mud and debris into each home.

The shoe booties, provided along with your Tour ticket, became even more important as it was raining off and on during the day. The tour organizers were smart enough to leave chairs and benches near entrances and exits so people could easily add or remove the booties but I was determined to do it while standing up. Yes, it was a little awkward, reaching down to put my foot in the booties, but after the 3rd house, I had it down almost to a science.  (Hold the bootie, just so, lift up my foot, insert shoe and pop the bootie goes on – success!!)


But it reminded me of being conscious of your shoes when entering someone’s home. I personally don’t have any requests for shoes or shoe-less when entering my home but there was a time when that wasn’t the case. When I lived in California and rented a 3 level townhouse, we had white carpets and my roommate was pretty serious about the ‘no shoe’ practice.  When you entered, the home, you removed your shoes.  He was so serious that most of his shoes covered the floor of the hall closet while most of mine ‘somehow’ made their way to my bedroom. It was hard for me to remember, and he did his best to remind me!

So…what is the shoe custom in your home? It is a functional thing (white or light carpets) or a just personal preference? Is it family only or does it extend to guests?