Glorious Flowers on Capitol Hill This Spring

Since I'm in 'stay- at-home' mode now due to the coronavirus I actually have time to add things to my blog.  In fact, I sort of had forgotten about this blog until I went looking for a photo and remembered I'd posted it as a blog!  So here are the photos from our recent walk in Bartholdi Park gardens, which are at the base of Capital Hill in Washington, DC.  There was maybe one or two other people there, but mostly deserted.  We were able to walk about freely and enjoy the lovely plantings done by the U.S. Botanical Garden Conservatory.  Truly, the hyacinths smelt delicious!  Truly the colors of the tulips were gorgeous!  It was a great way to take our minds off the stress of these troubling times. I will probably be posting more on this blog now that I'm home so much, we've settled into a new home and I've cut back my work hours!

Jus

Saying Goodbye to My Lovely Old Victorian Townhouse

I'm saying goodbye to the lovely old late Victorian bayfront brown brick townhouse I've lived in the past 30 years.  I've moved to something smaller as we just can't do stairs and keep up a garden anymore due to the infirmities creeping in as we age.  So it's basically on the market now with a very friendly realtor, Jake Anderson.
We have had so much family life and good times in this house with my son and his friends and all our friends and family that visited us in the nation's capital city that I feel an era has passed. This was the house my son grew up in as he was 2 years old when we moved in and is now in his thirties.  Over the years we made many improvements, kept it clean and fixed up and all the time just loved the neighborhood, Bloomingdale, and our neighbors.  I'm already missing walks to Crispus Attucks Park and the quick access to Washington Hospital Medical Center clinics!

Had many parties in the dining room

It's a big house with a lot of functional living space like a covered front porch, eat-in kitchen and formal dining room, a back deck and a good deep lot where one can grow veggies in the back yard (or keep a goat, or so they say!). I especially cherished my eat-in kitchen as I finally got it to be totally modern with stainless steel appliances, a quartz counter top and a perfect shade of grey paint on the cabinets!
I hope the new owners will find out how grand it is to live with interesting features that you can't find in new houses such as original oak and pine hardwood floors, chestnut wood door frames and a stamped tin ceiling.

Living room woodwork is awesome!

I will surely miss the mirrored corner cabinetry, a cast iron and brass fireplace and high ceilings. The new owners will surely enjoy a few surprises in the spring when the bulbs (irises, lilies and daffodils) pop up and when the Queen Liz rosebush starts showing off in June, not to mention the glorious blue hydrangea blooms in late summer or the bright pink crepe myrtle that flowers through October.

A very airy modern eat-in kitchen

A super spacious master bedroom

Decorative china coffee or tea set made in Japan drips with gold and pink design

I've put this little tea or coffee pot set up on Ebay again to see if I can sell it.  It's a very decorative piece but basically it's a vintage reproduction Made in Japan as a copy of other vintage or antique tea or coffee services.  This has the little classic French medallion of rustic courtesans playing outside and the whole thing is painted in very bright rosy magenta tone and gold splashes of paint making it light up a lot in a cabinet case.

It has six cups and saucers, each cup about 3 inches high and saucer almost 4 inches across.  The tea pot or coffee server stands about 7 inches high and the creamer and sugar bowl are equally well proportioned and equally well gilded and painted. There's nothing wrong with this set except it says "For Decorative Use Only" stamped on the bottom in gold print, leading me to think that the paints have metallic or other elements in them that might leach into real coffee and tea.  So the set is for decoration only!

It's a shame really as it would be rather nice to have one's coffee served in this over-the-top antique copy coffee service!

At any rate I have partitioned it into two lots and put them up on Ebay for sale. One listing is for the six teacups with saucers and the other is the pot with creamer and sugar bowl.   I've written about them in social media before saying these may be useful for crafts purposes or for decorative uses.  I'm thinking of the people who make bird feeders out of coffee cups by glueing them to wooden posts or who make artful arrangements of coffee pots into water fountains and things.  I suppose I might do something like that myself if I don't sell them first!
Follow up Note:  No one wanted this after two years up on Ebay, so I donated it to a thrift shop, hoping someone would find it. 

Art Nouveau Pieces in Paris, France

 This lovely lamp was created by Louis Majorelle (1846-1940), an artisan from Nancy, France. It is a table lamp created in 1902-1904 by Majorelle and the Daum Brothers and is typical of the Nancy School of Art Nouveau pieces created for various architects and designers at the time.  It stands almost 18 inches high and is so totally stunning I just had to photograph it. It is in Musee D'Orsay, Paris France among a collection of other art nouveau/art deco furniture pieces.  Just super!

This bed was created 1898 to 1899 by Tony Selmershein (1871 to 1971) from Saint Germain En Laye, who created this "chaise de salle a manger" for the Savoy Hotel in Brussels.  It is wonderful and strange looking and was arranged in a room format for view in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, France.

Monet's Giverny Garden Was Beautiful

 While in France recently, we visited Giverny where Monet lived. We especially loved the garden and it was blooming well. There were all kinds of brig

ht colored flowers and lots of paths and walkways through it. The best thing about it was that most of the flowers and plants were not exotic species but easily grown and common plants such as daises and roses.  It was a terrific two hours wandering through and here are just some of the views from there.