School of Mom

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd do a few more posts on the subject. My Mom, for example. She was ahead of her time in lots of ways, and much more mellow than I realized when I was young and living in her house.

Mom, thanks for teaching me some valuable lessons that I use today in my house:
Let the kids use the good china, silver and crystal. What's the fun of having that stuff if you don't use it?


Life's too short to use paper napkins


Anything can be a decorative object. I'll never forget the wall of baskets in the kitchen -- and that you actually used them.


If the kids paint the walls in the garage while you're out for the evening, don't freak out. It's only the garage.


Let the kids redecorate their own rooms. I spent many Saturday afternoons moving furniture around in my room, moving things from other rooms in the house into my room, and then evaluating the results. Good practice for my chosen profession.

Casual is cool. While my friends' Moms had very fancy living rooms and dining rooms, we never did. We used every room in our house.

Now that I have a house of my own, I am just like my Mom. Casual, pretty mellow, and willing to bust out the champagne flutes on a Saturday morning if that will make my kids smile.

Love you Mom.

Athens Beach, Where the Water is Cold and the Women are Hot

I just spent ten days with my family at my in-laws' house on the beach. There's nothing like the peaceful sound of waves, and the smell of the salt air to relax a girl. Those of us lucky enough to have a family house on a beach somewhere know that there is a unique decorating challenge that goes along with the sea and salt air: how to make the house comfortable and usable for the whole family along with their sandy feet and wet swimsuits.

My sister-in-law Kristen has a simple, but failproof formula that's worked for years. It's a combination of easy care materials inside the house, and tricks to minimize the traffic in and out of the house.

When the summer starts, and the families start to invade the beach house, Kristen sets up the following:

A big galvanized bucket by the back door that serves as both a place to collect shoes, and a reminder to everyone to remove their shoes before entering the house

A bucket of clean water at the top of the stairs leading from the beach -- from the time they can walk up the stairs by themselves, the kids know to stop and dip their feet to remove the sand before coming up to the house

The outdoor shower is stocked with shampoo, soap and big beach towels

The outdoor refrigerator is stocked with drinks, fruit and popsicles so the three major summer food groups can be accessed without entering the house

A hammock hanging under the deck right on the beach, so afternoon naps can be taken outside instead of inside. My son Jack and I have spent many hours swinging in that hammock and reading. Last summer we both spent a week in that hammock reading Harry Potter 7.

Kristen has made the outside of the house an extension of the inside, with many of the same conveniences. My mother-in-law is happy because the invasion of sand and saltwater in the house is kept to a minimum, the kids are even happier, because they don't have to interrupt their beach time for boring pursuits like food, water, or rest, and Kristen and I are especially happy, because our bikini time far outweighs our housekeeping time.

Life in the White House

My friend Sheryl stopped by the other night to pick up her son after a playdate with Jack and we were discussing the new slipcovers I had just bought for my family room sofas. When I told her they were white, she said "WHAT?! White? Why would you do that?"

I realized then that it's time to share a secret with all my fellow moms: white is the most under-used and under-rated color in the interior palette of a family home. Unlike bright colors, or other non-white neutrals, white can be washed in hot water and bleached. I buy everything that gets tons of use in white: I have white sheets and a white duvet on my bed, white bathtowels in my bathrooms, white floursack towels in my kitchen, white slipcovers on my sofas, white table linens in my linen closet.

I don't worry too much about spilling. If I did, I'd be in a straightjacket -- I've watched my son Jack wipe his face on the sofa. Whenever something gets messy, I just give it a warm, sudsy, bleachy bath and it's good as new. When something needs a little extra brightening, I make like my Mother-in-Law and put it out in the sun for an afternoon.

Because my basics spend lots of time in the pool, I've learned to always have a few extra sets of everything, and to pay a little more for quality base fabrics so the items last longer. Here are some rules I live by:

For sheets and towels, I always buy combed cotton when I can, because carded cotton pills.

For slipcovers, I always buy denim or canvas when I can, because those fabrications have more body, and don't get too wrinkly in the dryer.

For kitchen towels, I always buy the classic floursack towels made by Ritz. They're the best, they don't leave lint on your glasses, and they're cheap -- you can get 4 for about $10 from any restaurant supply or kitchen store.

For table linens, I always buy classic hotel linens. The good ones have a really thick, mitered border all around, so they don't shrivel up in the wash, and whatever that fabrication is, it lasts forever. Best of all, the hotel linens don't really need to be ironed. Which works for me because the last time I had an iron out, my daughter Andie said "what's that?" The time before that, my Mother-in-Law took a picture of me with the iron because she wanted to have it on film.

Waiting until the kids are out of the house to indulge in white is for wusses. I've got a Maytag Neptune and a bottle of Clorox. Bring it on!

Just Call Me Charles Darwin

Survival of the fittest is my philosophy when it comes to choosing decorative things for my house. Anything that breaks, chips, hurts when it's dropped on a foot, or doesn't look better when enhanced with crayon or marker is out. Anything that bounces, can be knocked over without breaking or can withstand being stacked as high as it will go just to watch it tip over is in.

In the early years, I wasted a lot of breath on sentences that began with "don't." "Don't throw that in the house," "don't pick that up, it will break," "don't move that, it's fragile." One day my daughter Andie turned to me and said "well, what can I touch?" and I knew it was time for my accessories to evolve and adapt to their environment.

There are certain characteristics that enhance a decorative item's chances of survival in my house. They are:

Items that the kids like and don't want to see harmed. My number coasters fall into that category. I keep a few sets on the coffee table in a big bowl and my little Katie lines them up and counts with them. Even though they're ceramic, they've never broken. She's very careful because she loves them.


Things that you couldn't break if you tried, like the bowl of dried gourds in my family room. They look pretty, and are completely kid proof.


Things that look good when they're messy, like my favorite decorative device, the stack of books. You can't beat a pretty stack of books as a space filler -- they look great on a bench behind a sofa, under a table, stacked on shelves. A nice side benefit to having books everywhere is that it seems to send a subliminal message to my kids and they are big readers.


Things that are too heavy to move, like the vintage steel birdbath that's on my coffee table. When the kids are strong enough to pick that thing up, they'll also be coordinated enough not to drop it on their foot.


Our house has evolved to the point where the San Francisco Giants could play in our family room, and they wouldn't break anything. Now that's progress.

Get the Hose!

My husband and I have always said our ideal flooring would be cement with a drain in the middle.

However, so far that hasn't really fit with the casual, comfy home we're trying to build for our family. Maybe for the grandkids. So for now, we use rugs like everyone else, and they tend to move through stages just like our kids do:
When my children were tiny, I wanted my flooring to be super soft so they could roll around on it.
When they were a little older, I wanted rugs with pretty patterns so the kids could spill on them and the spills were invisible (for the most part.)
Now that they're even older, I like natural flooring because it's very durable, always looks great and is very easy to clean.

Lately, I've had a new selection criteria: I want my flooring to be free of chemicals and any other artificial stuff so the kids can lounge around on the floor and I don't have to worry. There are lots of good natural rugs on the market now, and they're very easy to find:

Starting with the youngest lifestage, babies crawling on the floor, I've always loved Sheepskin rugs. They're super soft, they're organic, they don't shed, you can wash them, and kids love them. When my daughter Andie was a new baby I always had a sheepskin in front of the big mirror in the bathroom so she could look at herself in the mirror while I showered.

I still have them all over my house -- right now my little Katie is asleep on a sheepskin rug on the floor next to me.


Natural flooring is great for families like mine, and can be easily found in all ranges of quality, from a natural resource like Gaiam to a big retailer like Pottery Barn. Look for the softer sustainable materials like jute and seagrass -- they feel better on your feet than sisal. If your natural fiber rug is backed with latex, this is one place where I'd recommend a synthetic material. Natural latex breaks down over time into a fine white powder, whereas synthetic lasts as long as your rug will, which is a long time.


Gaiam also has this super cool shag rug that's made from unused t-shirt remnants, a by-product of the garment industry.


A new option on the scene is Flor tiles. They have some nice natural fiber options, are made up partly of recycled materials, and don't smell like new carpet because they have the lowest VOC in the industry. FLOR tiles are the next best thing to my hoseable cement floor fantasy.


Another option to consider is a Vintage rug. Vintage rugs can be very expensive, but there are many reasons to love them: they're beautiful and can be handed down through your family, they have intricate patterns and deep colors so they hide all your family's sins, and they already show the signs of a lifetime of use. Very wabi-sabi. Another nice benefit to a vintage rug is the environmental protection aspect -- not producing something new is the best way to limit the impact of consumer goods manufacturing on Mother Nature. It's always good to love your Mother.


Until I get my drain, I'll be settling for natural flooring, sheepskins and will be shopping for a vintage kilim for my living room. But I'll be dreaming of that day when someone makes a mess and I can just shout to my husband "get the hose!"

In praise of slipcovers

Slipcovers are the best! Until my kids are grown up and moved out, I will never have a sofa that's not slipcovered or leather. I especially like Pottery Barn's square arm sofa -- even with slipcovers it's got a contemporary edge that I like. If I didn't work for Pottery Barn, I'd still buy it, it's that cool.

Every few weeks I peel the slipcovers off the two square arm sofas in my family room, wash them in my washing machine and return them to the sofas in super condition. I've had linen slips on my sofas for the last five years, and I love them. No wrinkles, machine washable, nice and light so I can bleach them once in a while. As I said, the best.

The kids eat their snacks on the sofas, put their feet up, lounge all they want, and they always look neat and clean (The sofas. The kids, not so much.)