Infusing Heart into the Hearth of the Home

Article by: Carolina Fernandez

"There is no reason, either in prose or in rhyme, why a whole house , A Look at Memory Foam Slippers should not be a poem." Ella Church Rodman

With any luck, your Mother's Day weekend was as wonderful as was mine. As one day cannot hold the full celebration, the "holiday"Â has been elevated"â€in my family anyway"â€to the entire weekend. It starts on Thursday night and extends 'til midnight on Sunday. Extra lounging in an excusable indulgence, as is extra chocolate, extra newspaper perusing, and extra sleep.

And if that's not quite enough, in this section of Connecticut where we make our home, , A Look at Memory Foam Slippers kitchen , Wedding Picture Frame tours have been perfectly calibrated to Mother's Day "weekend,"Â and so I became happily transplanted to two different towns"Â¦with a third this coming week"Â¦all in the name of "Happy Mother's Day."Â Call , Setting Up Your Home Office it wonderful coincidence or perfect event planning: celebrating the hearth gets to us mothers' hearts whether we like it or not.

These tours, quite spectacular in every imaginable way, go beyond the familiar house , Why Luxury Bed Linens are an Important Investment tour offered by many historical societies or trusts for historic preservation in cities across the country. They zoom in specifically on the most honored room , Setting Up Your Home Office in the house: the kitchen. , How To Prepare for Your Next Decorating Project Architects and kitchen designers , Contemporary Bathroom Furniture stand for the duration of the tour, beaming with pride over the perfectly appointed rooms , Add A Little Spark To Your Bed With A Satin Comforter! they have created for their clients. As they should. Most of the work is exquisite and deserves recognition.

And recognize we patrons did in full force. Attended by hundreds of would-be renovators scourging the tour for ideas, curiosity seekers anxious to see what the next-door neighbor has been up to, professionals simply checking out the competition, and HGTV and Food , Wedding Picture Frame Network junkies by the truckloads, the kitchens , Decorating with Authentic Zebra Decor on tour scratch our collective itch.

As a wannabe kitchen , Interior Design Ideas renovator (my oven is falling apart, my fridge door , Decorating For Spring hardly stays shut and my stove is on its last leg), I had a strong desire to see what folks are doing in kitchens , Custom Mini Blinds around my neck of the woods. , Vanities are Not Just Plain Anymore Granted, Fairfield County, Connecticut can be a rather daunting neck to grasp; the most difficult part is simply getting my brain wrapped around the scope of the kitchens , Now You Can Have Your And Decorate It Too on tour. For we're not talking merely ripping up vinyl flooring , Daybeds: The Flexible Furniture and replacing it with hardwood here. We're talking six burner professional ranges, imported marble countertops, double Sub Zero's, handmade tile , Interior Design With A Plasma backsplashes and handpainted friezes. Copper , Finding Furniture That You Can Enjoy countertops and double-wide limestone farm , Patio Furniture Extend Your Living Quarters sinks. Trips to Europe"â€with interior designer , The Art of Choosing the Right Window Shades Including Roman and Roller Shades for Your Home in tow"â€in search of that perfect armoire. Or vacations spent trolling through the Paris flea market for the grandest chandelier. One of the homes , Rustic Furniture - from Grandfather's Log Cabin to My City undertook a four-year renovation; granted, its 10,000 square foot size required a committed team of experts in order to eventually pull it off. But its final result"â€impressive, certainly"â€boggled my mind.

Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with any of these indulgences. We can call , Eye Catching Sun catchers it "protecting our investment"Â or "infusing our home , Chairs - History Part V with beauty"Â or "doing careful research."Â The kitchens , Goose Down Comforters – Warm, Cozy, and Lightweight on tour were, with few exceptions, veritable works of art.

And as a visual artist, I appreciate the need for transformative beauty as much, if not more than, the next person. Indeed, my need to fill my kitchen , Goose Down Comforters – Warm, Cozy, and Lightweight with things that I love, things that I find beautiful, , Where to Find Cuckoo Clock Parts is a highly motivating adventure for me. Ever in search of wonderful roosters or lamps or linens or candles: I'm almost always on the hunt.

But as I tromped through house , What are HEPA Air Filters? after house, , What are Murphy Beds? I remained inspired most by understatement, as always. By the antique and smallish house , Chairs - History Part V that didn't scream "Look at me!"Â Which spoke to me through its quietly unassuming authenticity. Of wonderful proportions, clean color , Finding Furniture That You Can Enjoy and organic , What You Should Know about the Correct Paint Job materials. Of beautiful, , The Art of Choosing the Right Window Shades Including Roman and Roller Shades for Your Home yet simple, fabrics. I like things that are gorgeous. But I like them to come at me in the same way that nature , Using Color To Change The Size Of Your Bedroom does. "The earth , Finding Furniture That You Can Enjoy laughs in flowers, , Bamboo Furniture "Â Emerson wrote, and certainly their beauty is inescapable for those willing to slow down long enough to fully appreciate it. But flowers , How To Prepare for Your Next Decorating Project don't scream. They softly persuade. They whisper "Come hither."Â

As I go about the initial steps towards a complete kitchen , What are HEPA Air Filters? re-do, I hope I can translate my need for organic , How to Choose a Futon Mattress beauty to the designer , Contemporary Bathroom Furniture with whom I will eventually work side-by-side. I hope my desire for open shelving, a rather common solution in kitchens , Goose Down Comforters – Warm, Cozy, and Lightweight across Europe, overrides designer's dreams of expansive (and expensive) full-scale cabinetry. I hope that my desire for a glass-doored refrigerator, one which I've held for more than two decades, is not met with skepticism by well-intentioned planners who worry that children's fingerprints and messy living habits will intrude on the assumptive need for impeccable order and cleanliness. I hope that my desire to impart my own stamp, through my collections formed over nearly a quarter century of marriage, will not be met with a "professional's"Â desire for something less artsy. Or for something that appeals to his or her aesthetic, rather than to mine.

For the one thing I had hoped to see more of in these wonderfully designed kitchens , How to Choose Color Schemes for Your Rooms' Decor and Window Coverings was the owner's handprint. Or that of their children. I would have loved to have seen a crumb or two. Or some suggestion that the owners actually cooked there. That dough was, on some days, actually rolled out on the marble countertop and that vegetables , Custom Mini Blinds were stir-fried on one of those six burners. Indeed, the phrase "working kitchen"Â has evolved in order to distinguish between those kitchens , Wrought Iron Baker’s Rack: Beautiful and Elegant which are designed to be merely beautiful , Creative Curtains and Window Coverings versus those in which homeowners actually cook.

I'd like to think that some kitchens , 7 Design Ideas stand"â€from decades of use or from recent renovation"â€where roasts are basted and hearts are repaired. Where bills are paid and where lunchboxes are packed. Where we value the notion of nurturing: through meals and through conversation. With preparation along with presentation.

Few things tug at our heartstrings as do our kitchens. , Bamboo Furniture We have long recognized them as the hearth of the home. , A Look at Memory Foam Slippers Let's just hope that in the real estate frenzy"â€as well as in the overly-consumptive age in which we find ourselves"â€that we keep the heart in the hearth of our homes. , Ideas and Tips for Small Kitchen Remodeling And that we are able to translate it aesthetically so that our loved ones can benefit. Via fabulous aromas or soothing patterns and color. , Vanities are Not Just Plain Wood Anymore Through folk art collections or through hand-crafted dinner plates. Through pottery or placemats.

For therein lies the challenge. As always. Infusing the hearth with heart.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home , Antique Chandeliers to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; ten years of homeschooling and raising four kids provide fertile soil , What You Should Know about the Correct Paint Job for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, , Ideas and Tips for Small Kitchen Remodeling in bookstores or through 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via seminars, workshops, keynotes and monthly meetings of the ROCKET MOM SOCIETY, a sisterhood group she launched to "encourage, equip and empower moms for excellence."Â Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com

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