Christmas from NY to Savannah

I love seeing how other people celebrate Christmas. Many years ago I lived in Denmark in Scandinavia, where Christmas is cherished as an annual event. Imagine real trees, cut down from yours or a neighbour's forest and then dragged home through the snow; endless feasts of fabulous Scandinavian food; gallons of home-made schnapps (some of them with names that reflect their high-alcohol potency, such as "Grandpa's Underpants"), and a lot of dancing around trees, singing, laughing, and toasting each other with the word "Skål" – many, many times. Nothing has ever compared to those extravagant Christmases experienced in Denmark, but it's still lovely seeing how others accessorise their trees, decorate their homes, dress their pressies and generally gear up for this wild, cypress-lined end-of-year celebration. {Top image via Tricia Foley's book White Christmas}

Christmas in Savannah, Georgia, USA

Well, it's actually Christmas on a tiny island off the coast of Savannah, called Tybee Island, which has to be one of the prettiest islands in America. These Christmas images (below) come from my friend Jane Coslick, who is not only one of the country's most creative designers (her work is on the front cover of Coastal Living this month) but one of the funniest and loveliest. Her decorations are always bright, colourful and a little whimsical, which is just what you want in a beach house! {Via janecoslick.blogspot.com}

Christmas on Long Island, New York, USA

Christmas at the home of another friend, interior designer, stylist and bestselling author Tricia Foley. Nobody does Christmas like Tricia (below). Her decorations are simple, natural and beautiful. As she says, she simply buys green wreaths and roping at the local farmstand and then adds lots of berries and branches to add texture. She'll also harvest privet berries from the hedges, plus snips of cypress, and tuck them into the wreaths or baskets for the doors. The scent, she says, is as much a part of Christmas as the sight. And she should know – she's published a book on Christmas style! {Via www.triciafoleyinthecountry.blogspot.com}

Christmas in Washington D.C., USA

Christmas decorations in the countryside are always special, but these are particularly lovely (below). They're from one of the most charming homes in America's Pacific Northwest; the gorgeous country farmhouse featured on the equally gorgeous blog acountryfarmhouse.blogspot.com. Take a look at Trine's blog for some of the most beautiful images of rural life (and Christmas) you're likely to see.

Christmas on Harbour Island, Bahamas

The Landing hotel and restaurant on Harbour Island is one of the most atmospheric little boutique hotels I've ever stayed in. Owned by a lovely Australian and a Bahamian I know and decorated by India Hicks, it's a sublime slice of tropical delight that's equal parts chic and casual. I haven't spent a Christmas or even a New Year on Harbour Island (when the Junkanoo parade brings the streets to life), but I'd love to one day.  It would be the perfect place to put your feet up, drink some of the hotel's Afro Head rum, read a good book and go for long swims in that stunning blue sea. {Via www.harbourislandlanding.com}

Decorating With Books

On my most recent trip to New York I popped into Rizzoli bookstore to see what was new in architecture and design books (and to thank them for stocking my books, which they always do). I thought I'd quietly ask them which titles were selling well that month and their answer was astounding. The most popular books at Rizzoli were not interior design books or books by celebrity authors but books about books. Book lovers, it seems, want to buy books that show them how to display books, how to decorate with books, how to design rooms with libraries in them, even how to take books and carve them into other artistic and literary-inspired things.

Books are a big design trend at the moment. Even hoteliers such as Ian Schrager are now creating hotels with "libraries" in them, so that guests can entertain themselves with books rather than, er, whatever else they used to entertain themselves in their suites with. As The New York Times put it recently "hotels around the world are betting that books are the social lubricant of the future..." (NB I'm not quite sure what the NYT meant by this odd statement, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the idea hoteliers have that books will bring people together. As in, when you're in a hotel library and you see another guest reading The History of Sex, you can probably assume they'd be up for a night of swapping Cliff Notes. So to speak.)

Books are even being seen as a quirky decorating item. There are books that are being used as 'Welcome' signs (although choose your title carefully: you don't want a book that says the wrong thing), books that are being framed as art, paintings that look like bookshelves, or Penguin book covers (as in Courtney Cox's Malibu house), and – perhaps the loveliest idea of all – book-themed parties.

Here are some of my favourite bookish images, and some of our own decorating-with-books attempts:

The beautiful paintings of Queensland-based artist Victoria Reichelt, which have been getting a lot of media. These were from her 2009 portfolio. They're enormous canvases so the books almost look real. {Via www.victoriareichelt.com/category/portfolio/2009}

Literary-inspired art work in Courtney Cox' new bachelorette pad in Malibu. {Painting by Harland Miller. Photo by Simon Upton Via Elle Decor.}

Hand-made decorations created from book pages for a book-themed party to celebrate the launch of – what else? – a book! Created by the extraordinary blogger behind www.thenester.com. {Via thenester.com}

And here's one more (above). (NB There are lots more images on The Nester's website)

Olafur Eliasson's stunningly original hand-bound 'Dream House' book created with 454 laser cut leaves. Read the book and imagine your dream house. I love this. {Via www.funforever.net/archives/dont-try-this-at-home}

Pure fantasy. A book that comes alive. I adore this too. I don't think it's a 'real' book but imagine if it were? 

{Via www.funforever.net}

The studio of the famous Australian book artist Nicholas Jones. This inspiring space is available for public viewing by appointment. See www.bibliopath.org for more details. {Via

www.bibliopath.org}

And our attempts at decorating with books in our house... 

We even have book ends that say 'BOOK' – a thoughtful gift from my sister-in-law.

The 'Coats Here' sign was made from an old Phaidon book I found in a secondhand store. It tickled me to do this because Phaidon was our competitor when I was an editor at Images Publishing.

This year I've used postcards of book covers as gift tags for our Christmas presents. (As in the image at top left.) They're particularly fitting for people who love books, such as my sister-in-law and her husband. 

The books wrapped in the chocolate Hermés ribbon were old books that I was going to throw out. I know some purists hate this look and I'm not a fab of tearing books to bits, but this looked so cute I couldn't resist.

The framed prints hung beside the magaazines are pages from The Great Gatsby, my favourite book, used from a lovely old copy found in a secondhand store. The image of the gift-wrapped present features another postcard of a book cover used being as a gift tag.

In case you're wondering, there is a reason we have so many books in our house. Next year we are hoping to turn this place into a weekender, called The Old Library House, which will be available to rent. It will be tailored towards creatives who want to get away and find some space and inspiration (and yes,  books!) in the calm and beauty of the countryside. More details early next year.

Colour Coordinating Christmas

Every now and then my partner likes to stir things up in our house.  He's wicked like that. For example, whenever I fly out of the country for work, he'll go around all the bedrooms and put mismatching linen on the beds. Orange with purple. Pink with green. That sort of thing.

Then he'll mix the bath towels up. He'll find some old plum number and hang it crookedly next to a navy  blue.

Once he's done that, he'll put two clashing tea towels next to each other. Stripes with bold check. Orange with pale blue. Sometimes I don't even know if they're tea towels or old rags he finds in the back of his four wheel drive.

You can't imagine the angst this causes me.

The other day I did a little Christmas display in the hall. It was beautifully colour coordinated. Beautifully. Five minutes after I took this photo and walked away he slipped into the room and stuck two gifts on the pile that were wrapped in the loudest paper you've ever seen. Truly. They were so loud they burned my retinas.

Men. You can't live with them, and you sure can't make them to adhere to the Decorations Regulations.

Gatsby-Inspired Blue Gardens

There is something magical about a blue garden, especially at dusk. It is then, during the fading light, when the elegant blue flowers and green foliage blend softly together, and the scene becomes a rhapsody in blue.

Sadly, blue gardens haven't been popular in the horticultural world for a while. They had a brief but spectacular moment before the Depression and then faded into (blue) obscurity for decades. That is, until earlier this year, when they made a grand and much-welcomed comeback at the Chelsea Flower Show. There was even a Blue Garden exhibit. Blue gardens suddenly became very hip with horticulture lovers everywhere. Even The Wall Street Journal did a story on them, revealing that "a mystique has evolved around blue flowers over the centuries".

The Harpers & Queen Classical garden, featured as part of the Chelsea Flower Show several years ago.  This was a spectacular formal blue garden with a blue planting scheme that included French lavender, Iris sibirica, purple sage, purple aliums and a pale blue arbour dressed in mauve wisteria. {Image via Harpers & Queen/Photograph by Jonathan Pilkington}

Blue is the most elusive, most coveted color in gardening. Many flowers that seem blue, such as lavender, lilac, and larkspur, are actually shades of purple or mauve. Gertrude Jekyll believed that blue gardens do not have to contain only blue flowers. They just have to have a sprinkling of blue to be beautiful. She recommended adding touches of white to the palette, which adds to the crisp elegance of the blues and greens. If you're unsure about introducing blue plants into your garden, consider add blue elements in other ways, such a blue ceramic pots (use oversized ones, as the Mediterraneans do), a blue potting shed, or blue gates, as the French love to do. You could even hang blue cabana-style curtains, as shown in the top image.

The hero of The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, was well aware of the beauty of a blue garden. His lavish Long Island mansion had an extravagant blue garden in which "men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars". Here, in tribute to Baz Luhrmann's production of The Great Gatsby, which is currently being filmed in Australia, is a display of some of my favourite blue gardens.

{Top image and image directly below from Better Homes and Gardens magazine, via brabournefarm blogspot.}

A picture-perfect blue potting shed designed for an alfresco dinner. This delightful space was designed by the leading American interior designer Mary McDonald, who also decorated the surrounding garden in hues of blue. Love those striped drapes with the pink climbing roses. Here are a few more images of this elegant place. {Image via Mary McDonald's website and alkemie.blogspot.com}

And then there is this exquisite blue garden (below), which I'd be very happy to have, rather than our complicated, half-acre property...

Designer Michael Devine's sweeter-than-sweet blue potting shed and kitchen garden (above). This image has received so much media attention I think it's single-handedly leveraged Michael's career to another level! {Image via Country Life.}

The Blue Garden at Beacon Hill, Rhode Island. Photographed in 1930. 

{Image via the July/August issue of Apollo.}

Australian landscape designer Paul Bangay's former garden at St Ambrose Farm in Woodend. Famous for being a fan of all-green gardens, Paul branched out (apologies for the pun) into blue flowers during the last few years he was here.

The Sculpture in the Garden exhibit, shown as part of the Chelsea Flower Show several years ago. {Image via the book Chelsea Gold | Photographed by Jerry Harpur}

Monet's house and garden at Giverny. Perhaps the ultimate blue garden, Monet's planting scheme popularised mass plantings of blue iris, mauve wisteria and of course the Japanese garden with its beautiful blue-hued lily ponds.

Nothing says summer like a blue deckchair in a country garden.{Image via Country Life}

Plumbago auriculata, which made a big blue splash at Chelsea this year. {Image via Alamy} I love the humble plumbago. It has the most exquisite periwinkle blue colour. I once asked Porter's Paints to match this exact blue so I could paint my living room at my former apartment in South Yarra. It was such a lovely shade; not too pale and not too dark. Thanks to the elegance of the colour, the space looked like a French salon.

Our blue picking garden.  I adore blue hydrangeas, so we have a little picking garden that only has blue hydrangeas in it. In the summer, the whole house is full of bouquets of these beautiful blousy flowers. 

The garden outside the kitchen window, which is planted with mauve hydrangeas.

  (These have just been put in so they're very young. Gardening tip: Stake young hydrangeas so they don't droop on their tender stems. It also keeps them from being soaked when the rain gushes down the slopes.)

Even our gardening library is blue! The flowers in the ginger jar came from RR. He bought this sad wilted bunch home from Safeway the other night and said: "I thought you'd like these." So sweet. They actually look really lovely in this room. I painted the Country Life book cover, and the other framed image beside it is a collage of other Penguin book covers. (You can buy these covers as postcards.)

Floor Plan Porn

Forgive me for the slightly saucy post title. I copied it from one of my favourite property sites in the world – Curbed. If you're a property follower, as I am, then you'll love Curbed. It features insider news, insights and sale prices on real estate in New York, the Hamptons, LA and many other US cities, although I wish it would extend to Paris, London and Sydney too. It also has lots of celebrity real estate but one of its best sections is the Floor Plan Porn one. {ny.curbed.com/archives/ categories/floorplan_porn.php?page=2} I don't know what it is about floor plans, but I find them fascinating. As Gerald Makowski, director of marketing at Halstead Property quipped: “When you look at a floor plan, it is the apartment standing there naked.” Curbed features some of the best floor plans in New York, allowing you an up-close-and-personal glimpse into the closets, libraries and rooftop terraces of the rich, famous and cashed-up penthouse class. Such as this one, at 834 Fifth Avenue, New York...

 Just in case you hadn't noticed, this grand, three-bedroom penthouse has extensive staff quarters – seven staff bedrooms, to be exact, plus three staff bathrooms and a sitting room with its own kitchenette.
It also features:
– a 38-foot long panelled living room with wood burning fireplace and views over Central Park.
– a sweeping curved staircase that leads to a ballroom-scaled upper landing, which opens to three grand bedrooms.
– an enormous master suite with fireplace, boudoir, custom-fitted dressing room amd two additional walk-in closets, plus a large bathroom.

– a sizable service wing that contains a large walk-in china storage closet (very important), a fully-equipped kitchen-sized pantry, and separate breakfast room.

It's on the market for a nest $27,500,000. Of course, you may want to bargain the price down so you have some money left for the maids and the butlers you'll want to hire.

Or there's this residence:

A New York triplex penthouse on Park Avenue with an octagonal tower and some pretty impressive terraces on two levels.

And then there is this, a duplex at 123 West 15th Street, New York. This floor plan makes me rather nauseous, though.  It's like being in a submarine.

I also came across this at another site: Rupert Murdoch's Manhattan penthouse at 834 5th Avenue, which he purchased for $44M from the estate of Laurance and Mary Rockefeller. The triplex penthouse extends from the 14th to the 16th floors. This is one of them (above). The proportions of the rooms speak for themselves.

But by far my favourite floor plans are those of the great chateau of Versailles (above), and its smaller, chic little sister, the Petit Trianon. The floor plan of Versailles is available at 720plan.ovh.net/~jardinsd/Chateau/Appt-2/Pages/00-PlanRdC.htm  and it's an interactive one, so you can sit and click and discover all the salons for hours. But it's the one of Petit Trianon (below) that I really love. {via architectdesign.blogspot.com/2008/12/petit-trianon.html}

I love floor plans so much, I even have some of the famous Floor Plan dinnerware from Fishs Eddys in New York. Every time I'm near this fabulous store, which is just down from the Flatiron building, I pop in and buy another platter. (I can't bring an entire set back on the plane, so I have to collect the set, piece by piece. You can't imagine how difficult it is squeezing an enormous platter into your Kate Spade handbag...)

Comment-and-Follow Competition

If you're reading this blog and enjoying it, then I'd love for you to either join as a follower or simply post a little comment. Please don't feel shy: your comment doesn't have to be witty or funny or full of sparkling alliteration. It can be as simple as an idea or a suggestion or even an insight of your own. You can even say: "Janelle, I noticed you had a typo in a post back at the end of November." If you can't think of something to say, that's okay. Just join as a follower so I know you're reading.

Everyone who comments or follows goes into a competition to win a book. A gorgeous book. A book so fabulous you won't believe you've won it. Okay, so it's one of my books, so I can't guarantee it will be THAT fabulous. In fact, you can re-gift it if you like. It's Christmas, after all. You can even choose which book you want. I'll draw the winner late next week. And I'll send the book anywhere in the world.

Go on. Join the Library followers. You know you want to!
(PS Those lovely people who are already followers will also go in the running.)