Color my world

Paint chips litter my kitchen table, my mind, even my dreams. I'm trying to figure out the wall colors for the Guesthouse and I'm ready to, uh ... climb the walls.

There is a tiny bit of urgency to make these decisions, since the painters are coming next week (or sooner, if they finish up their current job early). I know that the woodwork and kitchen cabinets will be painted white. But I'm not a painter - do you paint woodwork or walls first?

That's crucial information, since the walls are the bugaboo. It's a backwards domino effect: in order to choose the wall colors, I need to know how the room is decorated. In order to know the decorating, I need the furniture (which is in place at last). But almost all the furniture is being upholstered, so I need to make decisions about fabric. Which brings me back to color.

Let me tell you, trying to envision colors for an entire house without any real sense of what things will look like, is a challenge.

I did it once, when we built our home. Everything in a new house is a blank slate. But in those days, I had control over the fireplace color, the rugs, the ceilings. And I bought new furniture. Over the course of several MONTHS, not days.

This is different. The fireplace is the fireplace. I don't love the color, but I'm stuck with it. The big massive stones are a bit incongruous with my light, airy garden theme. But hey, I'm plunging ahead.

I do have some help. A wonderful and extremely patient decorator named Amy Mannila is traveling with me to furniture and fabric stores. Yesterday, we spent an entire day at Mill Outlet in Raleigh, with a side trip to Discount Fabric Warehouse.

I bought 49 yards of fabric for the loveseat and sofa that will grace the sunroom - the main meeting space for Gardenspirit. It's wonderful -- white background with my favorite flower of all time: lilacs. Lucky for me, there was enough on the roll of fabric. I bought the entire stock!

But the polka dot fabric we found for the fireplace room. Oops. I think it's a mistake. I bought 18 yards to cover the two ottomans. At $14 a yard. Ouch. Fortunately, I didn't buy 40 more yards for the sofa and loveseat. So it's back to the drawing board. Or to the Mill Outlet store. Or Not Just Linens.

Funny thing is that I love shopping for fabric and decorating stuff. But I feel pushed. Which is why I made a hasty decision yesterday. Oh well. Maybe I'll like polka dots better in the morning light. Now where are those paint chips??

Birth announcement - GardenSpirit Guesthouse

Well, I did it.

I made my dream come true.

I just kept walking towards it and I'll be darned if it didn't just open up like a little flower and invite me to take a whiff.

OK, I will stop being oblique and get to it:

I bought retreat property! Ta-da!

My five-year dream has been to open a women's garden retreat center. The vision was really clear: Frank Lloyd Wright kind of simplicity, heart of pine paneling, secret gardens, hot tubs to soak in, a self-sustaining veggie garden, a communal room for workshops and yoga and gatherings, vining roses that drooped over the entrance to a charming little cottage.

That's the thing about dreams. They don't always show up in the package you envision.

My retreat house looks like an ordinary four-bedroom home (because that's what it is). It has no heart pine paneling (it has 1980s paneling that was painted white sometime). It has no roses, no hot tub and no secret garden. But it's a-gonna have all that and MORE.

It does have an incredible sunroom with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the deep and private forest in the back yard (that's it in the picture). It has a dining room that I am transforming into a cafe for afternoon tea and cozy breakfasts. It has a tree house that is big enough (and strong enough) for adults. And it has a path that leads directly to the brand new labyrinth, my (now overgrown) organic vegetable garden and the fish pond, black-eyed-Susans and wild ginger.

It WILL have a hot tub -- I am already negotiating for one that will hold as many as 10 people at a time. And I have already talked to a designer who has great ideas to convert this ordinary house into an extraordinary guesthouse (I have to call it that for zoning reasons).

As I make this transformation, I'll keep you posted on the progress. It's happening pretty fast since I have committed to a weekend workshop with an author/friend of mine called "ADHD and the Writing Mind - for Women." In case you're interested, it will be held the weekend of October 13-15....at GardenSpirit Guesthouse. Wow, it feels good to say that ...

Reshaping GardenSpirit

It took only one, frustrating experience of mowing the steep slopes at GardenSpirit for me to call Keith Anderson, landscaper and Bobcat Operator Extraordinaire, and beg for help.

We walked the grounds, talked about options. Then I disappeared for a week at my beach retreat at Emerald Isle. When I returned,the landscape had been altered dramatically.

The hilly back yard with its two towering trees is now a ledge of dirt, waiting for a new deck. The front yard is shorn of its two cedars (I really don't like cedars, regardless of how hard everyone tries to convince me otherwise). The circular gravel driveway is on the cusp of being reworked. And the Round-up I'd sprayed on the horrible grass near the house had done its work -- brown grass that would never need mowing again!

It was breathtaking. And a little scary. I'd worked with an architect/designer who had told me NOT to terrace the back yard. And here was a terrace to beat all terraces. "Not to worry," Keith told me, "we'll just backfill this after the deck is in."

I hope he's right. The ledge is pretty terrifying. But at least there's no grass to mow. That makes it all worthwhile!