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 , Discount Office Furniture 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, , Tropical Kids Rooms Decor 2 kitchen , Using Mirrors To Open Up A Home 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 , Use Seasonal Accents To Complement Your Home's Good Looks 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 , Improve The Look Of Your Apartment Without Getting The Landlord Mad 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 , Corner Baker's Rack: Create Extra Storage Space and Style in the house: the kitchen. , Shaw Rugs: Which Style Of Rug Fits Your Style Architects and kitchen designers , Is It Time To Move? Change Your Home Into A House... Have It Staged! stand for the duration of the tour, beaming with pride over the perfectly appointed rooms , Silk Flower Arrangements 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 , How To Stay Focused On Your Bedroom Decorating Project Network junkies by the truckloads, the kitchens , Feng Shui Tips for Apartments on tour scratch our collective itch.

As a wannabe kitchen , Exploring the Futon Frame renovator (my oven is falling apart, my fridge door , Fresh Feng Shui for Spring - Seven Simple Steps to Revitalize Your Life hardly stays shut and my stove is on its last leg), I had a strong desire to see what folks are doing in kitchens , How To Design A Little Girl's Fairytale Bedroom around my neck of the woods. , Bedroom Decorating Ideas can Change and Improve the Look of your Bedroom 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 , Bamboo Furniture - It's Worth The Look! on tour. For we're not talking merely ripping up vinyl flooring , A Themed Bathroom Vanity is Fun to Decorate and replacing it with hardwood here. We're talking six burner professional ranges, imported marble countertops, double Sub Zero's, handmade tile , Is Vanilla Your Favorite Candle Scent? backsplashes and handpainted friezes. Copper , Selecting Indian Banjara Tapestry or Wall Hanging countertops and double-wide limestone farm , How To Create A Visual Balance Using A Living Room Set? sinks. Trips to Europe"â€with interior designer , Bedroom Furniture 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 , Is Vanilla Your Favorite Candle Scent? 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 , Pendleton Blankets- What's Behind This Famous Functional Art it "protecting our investment"Â or "infusing our home , 9 Amazing Tips To Transform A Small Space with beauty"Â or "doing careful research."Â The kitchens , Log Home Interiors and Log Home Interior Design Ideas 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 , Interior Design With A Plasma with things that I love, things that I find beautiful, , Corner Baker's Rack: Create Extra Storage Space and Style 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 , Furniture and Home Furnishings for your Home after house, , Goose Down Comforters - Warm, Cozy, and Lightweight I remained inspired most by understatement, as always. By the antique and smallish house , Furniture and Home Furnishings for your Home that didn't scream "Look at me!"Â Which spoke to me through its quietly unassuming authenticity. Of wonderful proportions, clean color , Shakin' Things Up and organic , Snow Globes materials. Of beautiful, , Finding the Right Home Furnishing Store yet simple, fabrics. I like things that are gorgeous. But I like them to come at me in the same way that nature , What You Should Know Aboout Ventless Fireplaces does. "The earth , Exploring the Futon Frame laughs in flowers, , How to Choose a Futon Mattress "Â Emerson wrote, and certainly their beauty is inescapable for those willing to slow down long enough to fully appreciate it. But flowers , Exploring the Futon Frame don't scream. They softly persuade. They whisper "Come hither."Â

As I go about the initial steps towards a complete kitchen , Design Tips for a Spacious and Family-friendly Living Room re-do, I hope I can translate my need for organic , Snow Globes beauty to the designer , Contemporary Living Room Furniture with whom I will eventually work side-by-side. I hope my desire for open shelving, a rather common solution in kitchens , Types of Wallpaper Borders 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 , Design Tips for a Spacious and Family-friendly Living Room 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 , Steam Shower Design were stir-fried on one of those six burners. Indeed, the phrase "working kitchen"Â has evolved in order to distinguish between those kitchens , Improve The Look Of Your Apartment Without Getting The Landlord Mad which are designed to be merely beautiful , Log Home Interiors and Log Home Interior Design Ideas versus those in which homeowners actually cook.

I'd like to think that some kitchens , A Guide to Mattress Stores 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. , How to Choose a Futon Mattress We have long recognized them as the hearth of the home. , Bamboo Furniture - It's Worth The Look! 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. , Improve The Look Of Your Apartment Without Getting The Landlord Mad And that we are able to translate it aesthetically so that our loved ones can benefit. Via fabulous aromas or soothing patterns and color. , Corner Baker's Rack: Create Extra Storage Space and Style 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 , Using Mirrors To Open Up A 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 , How To Create A Visual Balance Using A Living Room Set? for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, , Is It Time To Move? Change Your Home Into A House... Have It Staged! 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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