spring at colonial williamsburg

several years ago, i had the honor of working with the colonial williamsburg foundation, creating a book on Williamsburg Style, and stayed in Thomas Jefferson's doctor's house in the historic district. spring mornings i would wander through the streets and take in all the architectural details, gate hardware, the picket fences and especially the gardens ...here are a few of my favorites.

easter morning

forsythia and daffodils

on earth day...

a good day to organize the recycling center to make it easier to keep up with...using old canvas bags, baskets and wood wine crates, it looks good and feels good!
photograph by michael skott
from The Natural Home by Tricia Foley

This is glamourous: five things you need to know about interior design

I had the pleasure of writing my five "things you need to know about interior design" for the wonderful "this is glamourous" blog...it was hard coming up with just five!

http://citified.blogspot.com/2011/04/favourite-five-interior-designer-tricia.html

summer whites coming up!

Matthew Mead has a new "bookazine" called SUMMER and I am so excited that he is featuring my house for his new summer issue...will be hitting mailboxes mid-May,
and you can order copies through his website: http://www.holidaywithmatthewmead.com/2011/02/summer-musings.html

when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

"in the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
with many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
with every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard,
with delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
a sprig, with its flower, I break"...walt whitman

in doing garden research for the mary louise booth house on long island, i found that lilacs were popular and planted to commemorate abraham lincoln's death as poet walt whitman celebrates in this excerpt...a very fitting description of my house and its lilac stand as well as at other historic 19th century houses along main street in this small town....

april showers

looking forward to those may flowers...

bronte country

with the film Jane Eyre just out, I have been thinking of the landscape in yorkshire where my english grandmother was born...she grew up looking over the moors to the village of haworth where the bronte family lived and many years ago, she took me to visit their home...we walked through the cobbled streets and saw the little stone house where the bronte sisters penned their tales that still hold us spellbound today and where heathcliff and cathie walked in wuthering heights...this time of year the moors are all soft and green with the sheep lambing and wildflowers blooming and in the fall it is covered in heather in soft shades of lavender...it is always misty with rain, which adds to the moody backdrop of these dramatic stories...

dry stacked stone walls that northern england is known for

main stairway in the bronte parsonage in haworth

charlotte bronte's watercolor sketch of wild roses 1830

the heather covered yorkshire moors

"the sky is blue and the larks are singing and the becks and brooks are all brim full.."Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte