Nice to Go Away, But.........

It's nice to come home.  Which might be why I'm posting these pictures now.

Earlier, probably in the summer, Ally at (the witty and stylish) From the Right Bank (here) asked her readers to post a single room that perfectly defined their personalities or decorating styles.  It sounded like a fun challenge to me, but utterly impossible.

WHICH me?   I could never settle for just one style OR just one "me".

But this is certainly a collection of a kind of me, and has come very close for a very long time.  The picture above is all too familiarly me because for nine years in NY, I lived in a house with a living room almost that narrow and a single front window quite that big.  (Ceilings that high -yes!)  And once, little blue armless hmmmm, shall we call them divans? too.  On the other hand, if ONLY! those colors, if only that rug!  Those I did not have.

The picture below is of one of my all-time favorite homes, featured twice already in the World of Interiors, in (only) slightly different incarnations.  I never stop L-O-V-I-N-G it.  

The top pictures are a more summery, somewhat updated version of orientalism in decorating.  They are from the brand new November '10 British Homes and Gardens.  Can I draw your attention in Picture 2 of the log slice coffee table with enameled frog green wrought iron legs?  Oh my!  I'm liking it all lots!  

So you all know that this is generally not a decorating blog.  But sometimes I just can't help myself.

Going away, being in exotic strange places, I'm looking at my home with refreshed eyes, and it is looking really good to me.  If not soooo exotic.  But (don't you think?) if I had a house like these, I'd still have a little of my journeys with me.  And in the fullness of time .........  I perhaps would not have to leave home for the exotic.......At  ALL.

At all.