The nursery is my linen room most of the time. The ironing board is always set up and ready for ironing or for a suitcase for a small visitor. There's a vintage crib, a trundle bed, and florescent stars on the ceiling that glow when the lights go out. Vintage baby gowns hang as art around the room sometimes just waiting for a button or a mend. Maybe a ribbon. Nothing sweeter than hand-made baby things. Beautiful old bed and table linens often get stacked on every surface on ironing days, and I sometimes have to scramble to make the space ready for sharing on short notice. I love to start the day on some early mornings in the bright clear light of the east facing room by smoothing out wrinkles to the sound of birds singing and with the fragrance of fresh laundry scenting the air. Hours can pass before anything intrudes on the peace of thoughts to myself. I may not always have a baby or two to share a room with, but I'll probably always want to have a nursery. It's my ideal place for hatching plans, nursing ideas, and nurturing dreams.
Here's a photo of my first road trip across the nation. It's pretty fuzzy--just like the memories I have of the journey. There aren't many pictures to jog my memory either. Parents took fewer snapshots in the OLD DAYS. We camped from New Mexico to Pennsylvania where my mother's family lived. At home we had those metal motel chairs that were so cool on the back of your legs in summer, but it was the last time I was to see an Adirondack chair again for some time. I was so impressed with the green and the two-story houses with their peaked roofs and mysterious staircases. The infatuation has never quite left me. I still enjoy seeing little cottages with their charming colored trim and cheery gardens wherever I travel. And when I camp I often remember my turn tenting with my father in those days, listening to the breeze whistle through the flaps as I gazed at the fire before sleep. There was always the murmur of adult conversation just out of range for meaning, peppered with laughter, and now and then a guitar or a song, full of the sound of contentment.
Of all places to celebrate things quintessentially cottage, our town is one of the least likely. We have neither the classic architecture, nor the picture-book garden. Early Spring in our high desert climate is more brown than bloom, and most interpretations of cottage embrace more pueblo style over clapboard. One of the most often heard statements from newcomers to the shop is, "You're not from here are you!" But cottage revolves in every direction: from rustic to romantic, classic to modern, country to city, all American to European (we love French), east coast to west, and everything in-between. Whatever your vision of the perfect cottage, we want to help you create it. Stop by soon. What is more cottagey than Spring itself!
