Clean and Simple

After the excess, flash, and color of the holidays, I feel ready for a neutral, calm look.

We had some new friends over for dinner, and I didn't know their taste, so I decided to keep this clean and simple.

These dishes are from Z Gallerie and they are so versatile.  I picked these natural rough linen napkin rings up at the Atlanta gift show from a beautiful booth by Tourmaline Home.  I also bought them in a pale aqua linen, and a beautiful rust colored velvet.  I'm so tickled with them and I could have ordered everything in their booth.  Check out their site here.

These very fine linen placemats are used over a white cotton caterer's tablecloth because they are so sheer and the embroidery doesn't show up on the wood. I chose this dark wooden-handled flatware again.  It has somehow become my go-to choice.

These tortoise colored  water glasses and raffia covered stemless wines added a little weight to the table.

In place of a bread and butter plate, I chose these little square fluted dishes and they added a bit more interest.

Doesn't this say "stay a while and re-group with us"?

Marching down the table, I placed three single potted hydrangea blooms.......

placed in birch covered pots with reindeer moss over the dirt.

I thought they looked fresh and were a nice change from poinsettias.

Antique barley twist candle sticks with simple white candles gave interest but subtlety.

A simple white porcelain covered butter dish,

and these faux  bois salt and pepper shakers are some I use everyday.

It made for a serene table where the food was the star.

Don't you love it when casual acquaintances put their feet under your table and become friends?

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Brown, Green, and a Pheasant

We are expecting guests this weekend, so I set the table today, since I have plans the rest of the week.  I'm  loving the way the items came together for this semi-casual table.  The lime green and brown polyester silk runner is from the floral wholesaler, and it comes quite a bit wider than most runners.  These seem to be my go-to colors since we moved into this house.  It's a bit rustic, a bit woodsy, and still a tiny bit refined.

These plates make my little heart sing!!!!  My dearest friend from Charleston gave me these when we moved into this house.  You know me.......they're toile.......they're lime green and brown.  How I love them!  I have two set and each set has four different scenes.  I photographed this in the evening with the lights on, so I'm afraid that I'll have a bit of glare.

I also love these chargers.  They look like birds-eye maple and give a nice bit of pattern without overwhelming the toile.

Then these dark brown linen napkins with faggoting, a tortoise shell patterened napkin ring, and a bit of green hypernicum make the napkin work with this dark wooden handled flatware.

A green wine glass and an amber water glass continue the color scheme.

Can you see the etching on this?  It is from the Bobby Flay line from Kohl's.

Phil the Pheasant was the obvious choice for the centerpiece.  He's cast resin and I use him a lot.

I set him in this wonderful wreath I found at the floral wholesaler.  It is gold, green, copper, and brown.  It really makes this table sing.

See?  

These old barley twist candlesticks are work horses around our house, too.

I wasn't going to add flowers, but at Kroger this morning, I found one bunch of these Kermit mums.  I had already purchased the hypernicum berries.  I thought these tall, birch bark covered pots would look good with the similar votives.   

Here's the way the flowers turned out.  I s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d that one little bunch of mums.

Phil's black forest friend joined the table to serve the sugar for coffee.  I'll just use clear glass for cream and sugar.

I've had these chocolate brown plates from Target for years, and I pulled out this old antler-handled server for our pecan pie.

I expect this to be a cozy evening where we sit at the table for hours.

I left this woodland scene under this cloche on the chest.

Another corner holds this chalk and cement piece with a white pumpkin.

And I left the sideboard with our white and green vegetable vignette.  

Sorry, the color is very washed out in this photo.

This is better.  

Now, I'll cook on Friday and look forward to a relaxed, fun evening with special friends.  More to be thankful about!

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Bird Cage Fabric

Here's the table I set for dinner tonight.  We have been so busy and I have cooked so little lately, that I thought I would fix a nice dinner and set a pretty table for the two of us.

This cheerful fabric was the inspiration, and I knew I had lots of turquoise and pink to go with it.  I thought about doing a bird theme, but decided to just let these clear, pretty colors shine.

And this was the inspiration for the location.  This is on our lower stone terrace and the beds here are filling in so nicely.  Of course, like most of the country, we are ahead of the game seasonally, so I decided to use this space which we almost tend to forget about.

These dishes picked up the turquoise and the strong pink. The flower shaped plate is plastic and came from Target a couple of years ago.

This is the back of the china.  I picked it up many years ago at a consignment shop in Cleveland, Ohio and it has a ton of serving pieces.  I think I got a treasure here.

Our peonies are getting close to the end.  I wish I knew what variety these are, because I would love to plant more.  The pink has a touch of salmon in it and is almost shocking.  This is an old McCoy vase.

I was willing to let the peonies be the only flowers on the table, but then I spied these blue hydrangeas in the fabric.

I simply turned to my left and picked matching flowers to tuck into the napkins.  How often does that happen?

The glassware consists of Waterford Lismore stems for water, and turquoise Martha Stewart (for Macy's) tumblers that I was going to use for wine.

Mis-matched silverplate with a mother-of-pearl handled knife worked fine for flatware.

Just for a bit of earthiness, I added old oak barley twist wooden candlesticks.

It made such a fresh, pretty but unfussy table.

I forgot to take two chairs away before I was snapping pictures.

Here's the long view.

Here's the view taken from the upper terrace.

And this angle shows you a bit of the lake.  Those yellow things you see are kayaks on the dock.

As I was loading these photos, I remembered that I did a very similar table in this same area last spring when our peonies were at their peak.  Here's a picture of it.  These same colors were on this table, but have a very different feel.  You can see that whole post here.  If you go to that post, notice how much difference there is in the maturity of the flower beds this year compared to last.

Here's irony for you.  Last year, after I set that table, I heard the weather channel say that bad weather was heading in and I reluctantly brought the whole thing inside when it began to look threatening.  It turns out that it was a devastating tornado that went through the area and we could never have eaten outside without being blown to Kansas.  And today.....I had to bring everything inside again, as it began to rain about four p.m.  It just wasn't the same in the breakfast room, but we were dry and safe. My heart still goes out to those who suffered such terrible loss last year.  Many are still re-building and many lost so much more than material things.  How do you heal?

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