Girl About Town: A Final Resting Place

The ashes of Jack and Charmian London (deceased in 1916 & 1955, respectively) lie together on a wooded knoll, beneath a massive stone pulled from the ruins of Wolf House. It's a secluded spot, beautifully green with none of the oppressive claustrophobia of a modern cemetery. But neither is it lonely.

Steps way from the Londons' memorial are the mossy headstones of David and Lillie Greenlaw, a brother and sister, the little children of a pioneer family who settled on the land in the 1870s. 

How much it must have stung their poor mother's heart to leave her babies behind when the family moved on. Jack London is purported to have selected a gravesite next to the children to feel less lonely in death- but think what a kindness he did in ensuring that their tiny graves would be tended to as well. It's an act of intentional generosity that I found very moving.

That wraps up my tour of Jack London State Park... I've shown you some of my favorite vignettes from the large estate (the country kitchen, a sentimental display, and many more on the Shock the Bourgeois facebook page) as well as Jack's dream house that never was- but there's much more to see for yourself. If you're a resident of Northern California, I encourage you to visit before the park closes permanently in July of 2012. 

Girl About Town: Wolf House Ruins

Walking through the grounds of Jack London's Beauty Ranch, it's easy to see why he wanted to build his dream house there. The landscape is lush and varied, suitable for farming and ideal for peaceful reflection. Nestled in the Valley of the Moon, it's close enough to San Francisco for lively social calls, far enough away for a writer's solitude.

With a dining room large enough to seat 50 guests, and a private writer's retreat in the treetops, Wolf House was designed to accommodate every aspect of the London's lifestyle. It burned in 1913, mere weeks before they were to move in.

It's an impressive ghost, even reduced to a skeleton of lava rock and metal. Built to last, stone archways and  beautiful brick fireplaces gape eerily above the hollow structure. Now swathed in moss, it remains a dream of a house.

If you're just joining in now, we started our walk through Jack London State Park yesterday with a look at the cottage kitchen, interiors from around the estate, and a dining room with inspiring significance. This afternoon we finish our tour at the London's grave site.

Girl About Town: Jack London's China Cabinet

Well, Charmian London's, to be exact. This is the dining room in The House With Happy Walls, a home built after Jack's death. It currently exists, per Charmian's wishes, as a museum at Jack London State Park to showcase her husband's adventures and accomplishments. The house is a gallery of photographs, publications, and prized possessions from their worldly travels. My favorite part was the oddly extravagant dining room, with an indoor fountain, a massive bank of windows, and three walls of cabinets specifically designed to display a very special set of dishes.

If you look closely, you'll notice that the cabinet knobs are off-set.

Look closer still and you'll realize that the hardware and cabinet trim have been painted to match the china within. The floral shape of the knobs emulates the leafy ornaments on the serving pieces, and both are given an illustrative quality with green outlines.

I love the idea of decorating to celebrate an heirloom or beloved artifact. Even more, I love the significance of these plates and bowls to their owners: Jack London purchased the set from the estate of Robert Louis Stevenson, a man he greatly admired but never met. 

Today I showed you Jack's enviable kitchen sink and some of the interesting interiors on the property. Tomorrow I'll take you on a hike through the grounds...

Girl Around Town: Side

What was it that lured me into Side, an up-cycled furniture boutique on Berkeley's San Pablo Avenue... could it have been a glimmer of aqua blue, or perhaps the enticing aroma of fresh paint? 

The Side business card bears the Sister Parish quote, "innovation is often the ability to reach into the past and bring back what is good, what is beautiful, what is useful, what is lasting." Apt, because that's precisely what owner Carolyn Pickell is doing. While so many contrive to make new furniture appear old, Side celebrates vintage furnishings made young. The tiny shop features an ever-changing assortment of meticulously refinished antiques wearing unexpected paint colors and clever detailing (even pinstripes!). Every surface is laden with treasures, natural curiosities mingling with gilded accessories.

Side has the eclectic aesthetic of a flea market- refined, edited, and styled flawlessly. It's a new Bay Area favorite!

Valentine's Day

Exactly one year ago I moved to California, driving over 900 miles to close the distance between Adam and I. Poor Adam endured 15 hours on the road with a carsick cat, then several months with a homesick girl.  It was a grand gesture of love.

We've got nothing planned tonight save a truly romantic date at the laundromat, but I'm grateful for it. Love is so rarely presented in pink and red trappings. Once in a while it appears with a diamond and a question you can answer with exhilarated certainty. Other times it's terrifying, asking more of you than you can imagine giving. Most often though, it shows up in the simple act of pairing someone else's socks.

So for me, this day requires little fuss. I'm reflecting on all of the better and worse we've experienced already, and on how very excited I am to say my vows in October.

Card by Paula Skene Designs

Happy Valentine's Day!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

The February Flea

Antiques, football, and an early crop of freckles- I couldn't have asked for a better weekend! Adam and I  spent our Sunday afternoon soaking up sun and inspiration at the Alameda flea market. We didn't spring for anything, but sometimes a long day of looking is all I need to update my vision for our apartment. 

Though the best deals are often found in piles of rubbish, I can't help but admire the more curated booths. This vendor offers silky tassels and ribbons that glitter with gold thread, and the table itself was elegantly trimmed. I could see this crafty-chic sign working just as well as a bulletin board, or to display table assignments at a wedding.

Sometimes going to the flea market feels like a trip to the pound, with so many sad little things needing new homes. It's hard to say no, especially to furry fellows like these! The green-eyed tiger puppet seemed to be begging for hugs, and the wiry fox terrier with the wonky ear... oh, I almost adopted him.

So, no new things, but a head full of new ideas. I'm feeling quite ambitious this year!

How We Turned Things Around for Halloween

As I pouted on Friday, our Halloween Party got axed when the attendees dwindled. To add insult to injury, my Tildy-Pumpkin's face caved in. The perfect Halloween that I had envisioned was literally crumbling- and so was I!

I'm getting to know myself fairly well. I'm a perfectionist. I like to plan. I'm not always graceful about disappointment. I'm also realizing that "perfect or not at all" isn't the best philosophy for happiness. 

So this is how we turned things around for Halloween.

First, I literally turned our pumpkin around.

Then, Adam coerced/guilted/bribed/bullied a handful of coworkers into coming over for drinks and snacks on Friday after work. In the hour before our guests arrived we whipped up some guacamole, corn salsa, goat cheese bruschetta, a batch of salty-spicy-sweet toasted pumpkin seeds, and a cinnamon apple crumble. We lit some candles, and we had a party. Was it the costume party I'd imagined? No. Did my guests stand around and talk about science, thereby boring me to death? Kinda, yes.

But we had a good time (and my guacamole was really tasty).

For the rest of the weekend we were without any plans, so we donned our costumes, took the Bart to San Francisco, and found ourselves in the midst of a Giants/Halloween celebration. Plenty of orange and black, many beards to fear, blaring horns, dozens of Mario + Luigi pairings, and what we hope was just a pipe bomb. California knows how to party!

Adam's costume was indiscriminately creepy. Vampire? Werewolf? Zombie? Miscellaneous undead creature? It was open for interpretation, and judging by how few people dared to look him in the eye, it was a success.

 I went as a Mad Men-inspired secretarial type.

All in all, a good Halloween! How was yours?

Hot as Hell

I spent the summer whining about how cold I was. Now we've transitioned into fall, and into a new complaint: it's so freaking hot! What is up with the climate in this bass-ackwards state?? We've even had to delay the next installment of Adam's Soup Series because I don't want to eat anything that isn't a popsicle.

Yesterday I made a pitcher of iced tea to combat my afternoon caffeine stupor and the killer heat. I chilled it with skulls and crossbones from my Bone Chillers Ice Cube Tray. 

I clearly don't need chilly weather to get me in a Halloweeny mood. I'm starting to plan for a Halloween cocktail party (would any of you Bay Area bloggers be interested in an invite?), and I'll surely be popping some of these creepy gems into intoxicating concoctions...

Chomp!

Yesterday I visited Chomp, the carnivorous plant exhibit at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. It was fun to tour as an adult, but it made me wish I was still a nanny! The exhibit was definitely geared towards kids with comic book styling, displays outfitted with magnifying glasses, and of course, the "ewww, gross!" factor. I was hoping to capture a venus flytrap in action, but they apparently weren't hungry. I did, however, get beautiful shots of strangely alien pitcher plants.

As cute as the Chomp feature was, I fell in love with the more traditional Victorian aesthetic of the main Conservatory exhibits. I can imagine spending several hours there with a macro lens, and the steamy greenhouse climate would be a welcome vacation from blustery winter weather!

My favorite part was a pond dotted with enormous lily pads, touted as strong enough to hold my weight. I can't tell you how tempted I was to test that claim.

A Glass Half Full Weekend

Monday already? It can't be. Adam and I spent our weekend in the company of amazing people and many glasses of wine, and I can't believe it all went by so quickly (especially the wine).

It's not often that we've got such a full social calendar, with two separate visits from college friends in one weekend! On Sunday we drove up to Sonoma for lunch at the Coppola winery and a taste (or two) of what wine country has to offer.

Naturally I'd like to take an extra day off to recuperate. Today I'm enjoying a quiet house, catching up on the shop, putting the finishing touches on some blog posts for the week... and eyeing the bottle of port that we brought home as a souvenir...

Decorating for Two: Heavy Metal Duet

If I were to say to my boyfriend, "I think we need more metal in our apartment" he'd probably respond by cranking up Tool on the stereo. Not exactly what I have in mind. 

As we've learned in previous experiments, sometimes Adam and I are just singing different tunes when it comes to home furnishings. His version of metal decor is heavy and industrial, like the rusty circular saw blade that he once rescued from the street and hung on our wall. As for me, I'm all about Victorian iron curlicues and delicate wire forms. 

You'd think our styles would clash...

Home of Fred & Wendy Testu in San Francisco Style

Photographed by David Duncan Livingston, Scanned by Shock the Bourgeois

But then again, there's something dull and matchy-matchy about harmony, isn't there? This bedroom is a fugue of masculine and feminine notes, riffs on a theme of patinated metal. It's just discordant enough to keep things lively- and isn't that what every couple wants?

Reversing Our Books (Again?)

This weekend I scored a copy of San Francisco Style for only $5.99 (hurrah!), and amongst its glossy pages I found the home of Oly & Ironies co-mastermind Brad Huntzinger. If I were one notch creepier I'd be combing the Oakland Hills and peering in windows to see the interior of his house for myself- really, it's that good.

I was particularly in awe of this little library bedroom. It's a snug reading nook, but feels calming and airy- thanks in large part to the unorthodox spine-in shelving. Can you imagine how claustrophobic this room would be if the books were right-way-out? Can you imagine trying to enjoy a passage of delicate prose with Tolstoy, Milton and some crime drama breathing down your neck? (Hypothetically, of course...)

Photograph by David Duncan Livingston, Scanned by Shock the Bourgeois

This concept isn't anything new for me. Just last week Sara of The Steampunk Home shared my own spine-in shelving experiment on her blog (thanks to Sara and her readers for such a great discussion!). 

You can see the full original post here.

My original reverse-shelving trial was staged in our old Wallingford apartment, and since then several things have changed. We've moved to a smaller apartment in Berkeley, we now have an entire wall of our living room devoted to our library, and we have more books. If our collection was colorful and distracting before, it's a cacophonous disaster now. I'm thinking that I'm going to take a page out of Mr. Huntzinger's book: round two is in order. 

Thoughts?

Flea Market Finds

If the find is a primal urge, then the monthly Alameda Flea can only be compared to nature's most spectacular feeding frenzies.

Thrifters abandon their favored hunting grounds to converge upon this site of vintage bounty. Each month we take the long walk from some distant corner of the parking lot and pass satisfied hunters clutching their trophies, dragging heavy furnishings off to their cars. I usually spot something rare and delectable on another person's trolley and pick up the pace to join the fray. Once we're inside the gate we're on the prowl. There's enough for each gluttonous shopper with a few bills to fill their rolling cart, but there's still that predatory instinct: don't let that tea set get away, you may never see one like it again!

Adam and I like to work the rows together. He's on the lookout for French kitchen knives and copper pots, I scout for glass cake plates and tole chandeliers. I pounce, he goes in for the deal. We're always in pursuit of the find.

We did so well this Sunday I thought I'd showcase a few of our prizes!

$20 won me a lot of brass flatware. It's actually two different patterns. One I've yet to track down, but the knives, forks, and soup spoons with the tough studded handles are Dirilyte Empress Goldware. Now I've got something new to stalk on eBay!

Adam snapped up this Pyrex thingamajig for $5. We liked the quirky variation on the cloche shape, and it's just right for housing a tiny curiosity (or perhaps an air plant?).

Renegade Weekend

We had quite an artsy-craftsy weekend at...

This was our first trip to Renegade, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd hoped to do a bit of networking, but alas, the classic rock was pumped up so loud I could hardly manage more than "hello" and "love your work!" at each booth. Luckily, I did get to meet the lovely Lisa of Violet Swan and the blog Le Petit Cadeau (remember her?), whose pieces are somehow even more romantic in person.

My favorites included sweet and simple plates by Rae Dunn and a bunny tea towel by Flock Home. Naturally this graphic print by Nora Aoyagi captured my heart (it would be fantastic against the dark walls in my kitchen, fyi).

We had a great time- we even embraced the oh-so prevalent hipster 'stache trend. I sported a "Mr. Gloucester MT" (thanks to Old Tom Foolery), and Adam decided to try out a new look...