Another View

Another view of the current zinnia arrangements in the livingroom. On the right, you can see how cool the white zinnia is shaped, even before the petals fully open; it's like a drawing of a sun with its rays outstretched. A few stalks of ageratum can be seen at the top left, the lavender flower. The taller, flowing stems of tiny, off-white flowers is a native variety of bamboo. It's quite invasive when left on its own, but can be a great boon to a perennial garden that is well tended and regularly thinned out. Most people consider it a pervasive weed and won't allow it in their yards, but I always like to have at least a few. I love their foliage and their subtle flowers. 

The arrangements are standing on a new-ish footstool. I stack furniture on top of each other in arrangements, too. This footstool is stacked on a large piece of smoked glass on which I have my printer/fax/copier/phone, and the glass lays on top of a very cool 1920s oak table with spindle-turned legs and leaves sculpted into the horizontal surfaces. I'll have to get a good shot of that table one of these days. My dad refinished it in a high gloss that really shows off the amazing oak grain, and used gold leaf to pick out the leaves. For the footstool, I've done an aged paint treatment, a nice low gloss ebony black, sanded to reveal the paler blond wood underneath. The secret to realistic looking aged new pieces. is to sand the paint off in places that the piece logically would have been touched/rubbed, as if polished for decades for example. So the edges and corners are especially worn away on this footstool. The "old piece that needs work" look is what fits in best with everything else I own.

I'm finishing up a book called Chicago Curiosities, so I might not update the blog until tonight. Have a great Monday!