This month welcomes you to our homes issue. As temps begin their rollercoaster ride downward, September nudges me back into home décor mode.
By this time, our college-age daughter and her living-her-best-life piles of must-haves have departed for another academic year. Somehow, I feel like we’ve gained two extra rooms in our house after the latest departure of “stuff,” and I sense the return of my penchant for editing home décor elements—adding, deleting, rearranging and redoing are in order.
I’m inspired by Kelly Cochrane’s article about Druk Upholstery. While I’ve refinished my fair share of furniture pieces, I don’t possess the expertise to work with upholstery. That’s an entirely different game. One shouldn’t underestimate the amount of artistry and skill it takes to properly bring treasured furniture back to life.
Expertly dressed furniture needs an equally wonderful place to live. Jennifer Pitterle shares exquisite details about a Lake Minnetonka guest house, delightfully described as “a smaller, ‘jewelry box’ version of the main home.” I’m intrigued!
I am also intrigued by author Robert Schneider. During a call, we got to talking about a few whisps of life. He followed up with an email to round out some thoughts. “I am also overseeing the renovation of my mid-century contemporary house. The two rooms on the first floor will become dedicated art galleries with nothing but art on the walls and a bench in the middle of the rooms to enjoy, reflect, contemplate and learn,” he writes. Pause to consider this notion: How lovely would it be to have a personally culled gallery in your home?
What is even more lovely is the passage he shared for his planned website: Robert Schneider grew up in an idyllic setting at the confluence of the Plover and Wisconsin rivers in Central Wisconsin. He had a fun-filled childhood of exploring the outdoors, learning, reading, eating (home-cooked dinners with pies, pastries, breads, cookies and cakes made from scratch by his mother), gardening, picking apples and making maple syrup. He possesses fond memories of boating, ice-skating, sledding and tobogganing, picking wild berries for his mother to make fresh pies, collecting stones with his oldest sister, spending time with his father at his workplace laboratory and late night snacks on the screen porch off the large kitchen.
I wrote in response, “You, kind sir, are an intriguing person who I’m glad to have come into contact with—if only for a brief chat, but I hope we connect again to discuss your new book and/or your gallery space. And don’t we all need a gallery space in our home? Truly. The description of your childhood warmed my soul, which longs for similar days of my youth. You are a blessed man with your personal history and current pursuits.”
Readers, I hope your lives are filled with “late night snacks on the screen porch” and interesting pursuits that fill your soul and home with beauty.
Until next time,
—Renée Stewart-Hester
