What Pleases Your Eyes?

This is my library, at the back of the first floor. It's what I see each time I walk up the stairs to the bedrooms or family room. It pleases me.

Every time I glance over into that room on the way up the stairs, I smile. My mind pauses from whatever race it's on and says, with awe and wonder, "This is my house!"

I often contemplate the elements of that room—in what way are those components coming together to please me so much?

I think the first element is color. Much as I almost always wear black so I can adorn it with some spectacular piece of jewelry or shibori'd jacket or hand-knitted scarf, this room with its ivory couch and loveseat and the mahogany leather bench are a canvas.

Wanna see the original couch and loveseat? This is one of the pieces I refer to as "legacy to the house". It remained after the previous owner's departure. See the cat-scratching on the front? It was a M*E*S*S! I took them over to Mark Shaw Upholstery in Girard. Mark did a fabulous job of reupholstering these pieces, and I absolutely love them!

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So the ivory upholstery and the ivory rug from the mountain cottage and the leather bench form the cake, which is then iced with two mixed media pieces by Tucson artist Carol Thayer.

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Tossed over the back of the sofa is a throw I knit from a rayon/cotton tape yarn. This yarn started out to be a vest for me, but quickly let me know it would rather be a throw. And isn't it gorgeous in this environment?

This is a room for Sunday mornings with a cup of tea and the New York Times crosswords. This is a room for a glass of wine and tealights in those lovely glass holders. This is a room just right for pondering life.

I love this room!

So think about your environment. What pleases you? What do you love to stop and look at? What brings you joy each time you think about it?

(As long as we're walking backwards through the cobwebs of our minds, here are the two Carol Thaler pieces in their original home in Tucson. Isn't that a lovely room?!)