Today I went to the home of a client.  Customer.  Whatever, a guy who buys tons of my work.  He usually orders special things and I enjoy designing them because they're fun, different and money is never an object.  Frequently he buys things I didn't design just for him and he always puts his unique stamp on them.  A couple of years ago, for instance, I designed a huge footstool.  It was round, with a nine inch drop.  It was the first stool I'd done which was designed for the needlepoint to cover the drop, but not the top.  Usually we put needlepoint on top and fabric around the sides.  For this, we switched.  The top was leather and the design that went around the side was a panorama of the old west, inspired by the work of N.C. Wyeth and Charlie Russell, two of my favorites.  It was one of my favorite things that I'd ever designed.

W. bought it before it ever made it to the showroom floor.  Then he proceeded to work it in metallic threads.  He brokebacked my mountain.  When he had it finished, he put fringe all around it.  Leather fringe.  Jay saw a photo of the finished piece and declared it the ugliest thing he'd ever seen.  I have no control over how my work is finished.  I'm like a director who doesn't get final editing power.

Anyway, today I went and saw his house.  He lives in a very very upscale neighborhood, on a lot that had to have been an acre and a half.  The house was originally a brick rambler of little consequence.  He expanded it, added windows and glass doors and popped up ceilings and decorated it beyond all reason.  Every ceiling is hand painted.  Every light fixture is a chandelier, bought at auctions and antique dealers.  The one hanging over his dining room table is from a theater.  Each chandelier hangs from a coved ceiling that is painted, gold leafed and decorated.  There are custom stained glass windows everywhere.  The kitchen cupboards are hand painted to look like foliage and the handles on every cupboard and door are ornate brass doorknobs probably salvaged from some ancient house.

The entire house is filled with gorgeous antique furniture.  The paintings on the walls are uniformly bad, but the furniture is extremely good.  Everywhere there are art pieces, every nook and cranny of the house holds little treasures that are twinkly, sparkly and pretty.  Gold leaf is everywhere.  Needlepoint is everywhere; chairseats, pillows, cushions, footstools, armchairs, benches.  It's as if he lives in a jewelry box.  His bedroom cieling is completely coved and covered with stainglass panels (that he had made) of a blue sky, clouds, tree branches and birds of minnesota covering it.  The glass is lit from behind like a giant tiffany lamp.  The rooms whose walls weren't hand painted in faux finishes were covered with hand made metallic papers.  The guest bathroom looked like an abatoir with metallic red walls and a ruby glass basin.  The master bath had a marble fireplace.  Everything in the house was exquisite, real and very expensive.  But it was like a woman going to Harry Winston and wearing all the jewelry at the same time.  There was so much you could barely see any of it.

It's not my taste, but it sure was fun to see.

The gardens surrounding his house were very much to my taste.  The entire property is lawns broken by gorgeous little gardens, seating areas, punctuated with statuary, tall antique plant stands, a coy pond with a water fall and an ornate fountain.  All I could think of was that I wished I had my watercolors.

Then I had to go pick up Zack from school.  I spent the afternoon trying to scrape the old paint off of a pair of adirondack chairs that need repainting.  Later, after Josie went off to Meg's house for fun and Karate class, I picked up my uncle Micky and we went to the reviewal of our cousin (his first, mine once removed) Marjorie.  The wake was fun, I got to touch base with some second cousins I only see every few years.  I had to hustle Mickey out of there after an hour, because I had to pick up Josie from Meg's and get her over to track practice.  It wasn't easy getting Mickey out.  Picture it: a room full of Irishmen, talking.  They would've gone on all night.  But Mickey understood that Josie was waiting, so off we went.

Josie was almost too tired to go to track practice, but she was excited because next week she gets to test for her next belt in karate.  At track she had to run a mile and she hated it, but she ran it faster than I do.  Then she found out that she holds the team record in softball throw for her age group!  Not a bad practice.

Home, to find Jay cooking brats on the grill.

Not a bad start for the week.

 

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