Beer Foam & Tangerine Tango

“So, James, this is what I’m thinking,” begins Jane enthusiastically, “let’s do the foyer in Meadow Mist and then the living and dining areas in the Crème Caramel. The kitchen would look great in Sun Kisses and then we could do our bedroom in Gossamer Wings with a bold feature wall behind the bed in the Purple Princess! What do you think?”

James stares blankly into space like many men do when confronted with a collection of paint chips, fabric swatches and a hyperventilating spouse!

“OK,” says Jane with a begrudging sigh, “let’s try this again ... how about we paint the entrance in pale Pond Scum and do the living and dining rooms in Beer Foam. We could then paint the kitchen Boston Bruin Gold and the bedroom in Dead Wolf with a Road Rash accent wall. How does that sound?”

“Perfect!” exclaims James.

This little story proves, yet again, the importance of a name and while the male of the species will rarely respond to Wistful Willow, you’re sure to get his attention with Combat Olive. Perhaps the solution would be to have ‘bilingual’ paint sample books with her colour names on one side and his on the other!

I have always believed that our response to colours comes from a more primal place but, understanding the marketing machine as I do, I have also come to realize that if you change a label, you change the response. Think of New Zealand’s now famous export, the Kiwi fruit; originally named ‘Chinese Gooseberry’, it didn’t catch on but once it adopted its ‘Kiwi fruit’ moniker, it became exportable and trendy.

As we embark upon another New Year we are all eagerly awaiting Pantone’s announcement re: the

2012 Colour of the Year, right? Well—like it or not—this year’s lucky winner is Tangerine Tango! 2011 was Honeysuckle which wasn’t too far removed from Pepto Bismol, and the year before—my favourite colour year to date—was Turquoise which men could relate to as Tropical Shipwreck.

Any ideas how to translate TangerineTango into male-speak?

Happy colourful New Years, everybody!

Interior Design Is For The Birds!

When I originally chose the name ‘Nest Building’ for my newspaper column and blog it was because the word ‘nest’ has always conjured up an image in my mind of a warm, safe and nurturing place. Later, I reused the name for my book: Nest Building – A Guide To Finding Your Inner Interior Designer.

Illustration by Chris Rohrmoser

The first time I realized that my title might be misconstrued was when I was promoting a Nest Building workshop. The editors of the course catalogue entered the write-up for the workshop in the fibre arts section. Needless so say, interest in the class was not overwhelming. Two people signed up and one of them rang me to ask if willow twigs would be the best kind to use and whether she could bring along some of her homemade felt to use as lining.

More recently, I spent four very long hours sitting in a shopping mall promoting my Nest Building book. It was all rather grim watching expressionless shoppers pushing shopping carts up and down the aisles without purpose. Many went out of their way to avoid eye contact with me, frightened that a mere smile or a nod would commit them to purchasing all my remaining stock.

The last straw (and I mean that almost literally) was when a very nice elderly gentleman approached my table and began flipping through the book. He wasn’t my typical customer but I was encouraged by his apparent interest. After a few moments he launched into a lengthy lecture chronicling his sixty years of bird watching and ended his speech by asking where and how I’d done my ‘nest building’ research!

Despite this, I stand by my title. Nesting is a comforting pursuit and whether it’s feathers, felt, or flooring, I’m happy to curl up in mine.

Of course I’m not the only one who has chosen a potentially confusing business name. A random web search came up with a few:

Effin Computers – actually, there’s not much to be confused about there, is there?

Salt ‘n Battery Fish & Chips – here’s a cause for vegetarians to support.

Dildo Run Provincial Park, Newfoundland – really, I don’t know what to say about this one!

Quality Assured Collision – I suppose if one has to have a collision it should be a good one?

It’s all in a name, they say. Next time I’m going to talk about the names of paint colours. They are remarkable, even poetic at times …

The Bog Blog

Bathrooms are my favourite rooms to decorate. Of course, I’m not talking about opulent spa-like rooms with costly travertine tiles and marble vanities. I’m talking about those funny little bathrooms with functional fixtures, uninspired linoleum and institutional-looking walls that can be given a facelift and a new lease on life in a relatively short period of time and at no great expense. Unpretentious ensuites, basement loos and guest powder rooms don’t necessarily have to conform to the décor and style of the rest of your house. Turn them into little surprises and let your imagination play with colours, textures and accessories.

Here are three such bathrooms:

Served up on a platter, this bathroom developed its palette from the colours in a large, oval serving plate. When clients are uncertain where to begin when choosing colours for a renovation, I often suggest they start with something they love and tuck it under their wing whenever they are out shopping for supplies and accessories. I’ve known clients to carry around pages from calendars, pieces of clothing, photographs from travel brochures, placemats and, in this instance, a hand-painted ceramic plate.

This is a windowless basement bathroom/utility room that needed to be kept as light as possible. However, as someone resistant to plain white walls, this was the creative solution I came up with. It added a little interest and punch to what was otherwise a purely utilitarian space void of personality. All it took was paint and a few miles of masking tape.

Seafoam fixtures—a curse or an opportunity? Confronted by these original 1960s bathroom fixtures there were two possible options available (other than replacing them). Either I could forget they were there altogether and paint the bathroom any old way, or I could give them the respect they were due and decorate in such a way as to make them the stars. I chose the latter option and splashed seafoam on the floor and parts of the walls and tossed in some other vibrant colours to refresh the countertop and tile backsplash. This ensuite bathroom is like waking up and walking into a painting each morning!

For more about Kate Bridger and Nest Building visit: www.katebridger.ca or www.redfernhouse.ca

NEST BUILDING: The Book

It is so exciting and gratifying to finally have years of work neatly bundled up, packaged and delivered into the hands of actual readers who have paid actual money to own it!

I have spent so much time with this project and am so intimately familiar with its content that I almost can’t remember what it’s about – which sounds contradictory, but isn’t. And so, it is especially pleasing to receive comments from readers identifying particular parts of the book that resonate with them on a personal level.

Many people have mentioned re-visiting some of their childhood memories, or chuckling over their own self-conscious decorating efforts. People have thanked me for reminding them that home is a safe and sacred sense of being to be enjoyed and modified, shared and protected. One reader credits me with giving her the courage to get rid of a painting she had never liked—let’s hope I’m not around when the relative who first gave it to her comes to visit. And here’s a big surprise … men are reading this book too!

I had always wanted to write a book but I didn’t know that this would be the one until a few years ago. Up until then I had been writing regular Nest Building columns for a local newspaper. I received positive responses to them and a certain local notoriety to boot so I began too look at my collection of 300-word columns and wondered if I could fill them out a bit and gather them all together in one volume. With the encouragement of friends and family, I got cracking.

Once I had a crude manuscript together I began developing my vision of how this book should look—not a glossy coffee table object, but an easy-read handbook with cartoon illustrations and short, sharp text grabbers. I wanted it to provoke thoughts and ideas, not provide them. Although the lack of ‘pretty pictures’ is one of the criticisms of the book, the choice to do it this way was entirely conscious and very deliberate. As the writer, designer and publisher, executing this vision was completely up to me and, at times, quite daunting but I’m pleased with the outcome. The book’s not perfect by any means, but it says what I wanted it to say.

Now, as I struggle with marketing and distribution, I can see that writing the book was a fairly minor part of the entire process! Getting it out there is a huge undertaking. I have charts of my charts … lists of my lists … tracking every phone call, every e-mail and every media kit sent, or to be sent. I’m like an angler—casting my line further and further afield and longing for a bite.

Meantime, my house looks like a warehouse and my dining table has become a shipping department. Like my book says, you have to be flexible and allow your home to respond and adapt to changing demands.

Visit www.redfernhouse.ca to learn more about my book!

Cottage Industry

Setting off for the summer cottage on the weekends used to mean packing up the car with a few basic items and leaving behind the stresses, conveniences and technology relied upon during the rest of the week. Evenings at the cottage were spent dodging mosquitoes, reading in the dim light of a hissing propane lamp, burning our tongues on charred marshmallows and, after a quick trip to the outdoor biffy, curling up in a damp, sandy sleeping bag to outdo one another with the telling of scary stories right before bedtime.

Cottages were furnished with flea market treasures and other once-loved items no longer ‘good’ enough to be used at home—chipped cups and plates, threadbare rugs and rickety wooden chairs that gave you splinters in your behind if you didn’t sit still. Art on the wall was anything that could be hung on a nail—stained embroidery samplers, lumps of driftwood, faded old family photographs and paint-by-number copies of works by famous Dutch masters. No one worried about grit on the floors and fishing tackle in the living room until Sunday evening when it was time to give the place a good old sweep, pack up the car and get home in time for another Monday morning.

But ... things have changed. Many cottages how have electricity, indoor plumbing, screened-in porches, hot tubs, Internet and even satellite dishes. No one can survive a whole weekend without Blackberries—and I’m not referring to that juicy little fruit growing along country lanes.

An entire industry has evolved to support and encourage cottage culture and décor. There are numerous glossy cottager magazines available showing readers everything from how to maintain their septic system to stitch the perfect country pillow sham. There are specialized designers eager to help you choose a style—‘French country’, ‘American rustic’, ‘English quaint’—so you can decorate your picture-perfect cottage with just the right furnishings and accessories. Before you know it, you’re headed downtown in search of new dishes, furniture covers and curtains, ‘proper’ art, bedding, towels and floor coverings ... and so on and so forth ... no more trips to the flea market or noble attempts to rescue tired furniture from the dump.

In the designer cottage, sandy feet propped up on the coffee table and wet dogs recumbent on the imported chenille floor rug are not welcome, nor are fishing poles leaning against the sofa, or swimming togs hanging to dry from nails hammered randomly into the wood paneling. You’ll be far too busy to sit and play cards or paddle about in the canoe; there may be a dishwasher to load, a lawn to mow, beds to make and furniture to polish ... just like home.

What happened to the good old family cottage that was so appealing because of what it didn’t have? Perhaps we didn’t always love the cobwebbed outhouse, the trek to the lake to fetch water and the long empty evenings stretching out before us; on the other hand, however, there were some great stories and family lore born and shared over those weekends when there was no phone to ring, no game to watch and no ‘Facebook’ to keep up with.

Photo credits: Top – Blue moon in her eyes

Gotta Get a Gazebo!

Welcome to the new home of my Nest Building column!

Photo: 'Gazing Out From The Gazebo', Fabric Art by Kate Bridger

With rumours of summer fast approaching, it’s time to make plans for outdoor living—why not build a gazebo!

‘Gazebo’ is not just a great sounding word, it also evokes images of warm, sultry mid-summer days sipping mint juleps, or relaxing with a good Somerset Maugham novel.

By definition, a gazebo is an outdoor structure with a roof and sides located in a park or garden. They have been part of pastoral and contrived landscapes for centuries starting in Egypt around 5,000 years ago. They began as small rooftop towers constructed to provide views of the surrounding area—hence the root of the word: ‘gaze’. Years later, they found their footings on the grounds of estates and gardens and were often referred to as summer houses, kiosks, screened houses, pavilions, or pagodas.

Gazebos were popular in ancient Rome and dotted the Mediterranean coast. They also showed up in the East. Chinese versions were particularly ornate while the Japanese ones, often referred to as teahouses, were much simpler to provide tranquil backdrops for traditional Tea Ceremonies.

Religious sects have also constructed garden houses, often using them as quiet places for meditation, worship and contemplation.

In Europe, gazebos were made popular by the French in the 14^th Century and later showed up in English gardens during the Elizabethan era where they were used primarily for entertaining.

Today elaborate gazebos are no longer the exclusive property of the rich and famous. North Americans, delighted to be free from the grips of winter, are always keen to get out of doors to barbecue, entertain, or relax. A gazebo is a great addition to any garden, providing a sheltered outdoor room to retreat to. A screened-in gazebo will also help keep those pesky mosquitoes out on a northern summer evening.

Gazebo designs range from exotic and whimsical all the way to plain and utilitarian. You can design your own, or purchase prefabricated kits from many home improvement stores. They come in all shapes and sizes—round, square, octagonal, large or small. They are usually built of wood with a few decorative elements added, but can also be made of ornate wrought iron.

Photo: Alans Factory gazebo

If your property is large enough, a gazebo tucked discreetly at the foot of the garden has the potential to become a very alluring, restorative and special place for you and your friends to enjoy.

NEST BUILDING: A Guide to Finding Your Inner Interior Designer, written by Kate Bridger and illustrated by Chris Rohrmoser is now available at: www.redfernhouse.ca

Order your copy now and save with the Early Bird Special

A Virtual Leader

I’ve had a busy week already this year! We launched the marketing campaign for our brand new, energy efficient, super performance grocery cart. My team was all over it!

Janet did a fantastic job on the graphics although I had to bribe her with a larger computer monitor to get her properly motivated.

Ray looked after the ad copy and press releases. He can be a bit wordy sometimes which threatened to spoil Janet’s layouts but I was able to broker a compromise between them and it all went well after that.

Brian, as always, took a little reining in. It’s difficult working with a friend and trying to behave as his supervisor without compromising our relationship. He’s such a party animal, always wanting to quit work early and go for a drink. Because he’s my friend, he seems to think it’s OK to roll into work late some mornings so, as diplomatically as possible, I have had to put a stop to that. I ‘tasked’ (new age verb) him with organizing a celebratory barbecue for the team after the ad campaign hit the media; it was right up his alley and he did a marvelous job!

The truth is … Janet, Ray and Brian aren’t real. They are my new robotic virtual pals featured in an on-line leadership and management course I am currently taking. By the end of this programme, I will receive a certificate indicating that I have completed the requirements of the course and am now a project champion and team manager; all achieved without having spoken or worked with a single real live human. How alarming is that!

I will be qualified to supervise and negotiate with two-dimensional make-believe people who don’t yell and scream, who don’t gossip behind my back, who are consistently well-groomed and presentable, whose barbecued burgers are completely calorie-free and who don’t ever need a day off to look after a sick child with a virtual virus!

The disconcerting part of all of this is that I sometimes get so involved with my virtual office team that I am tempted to chat about Janet, Ray and Brian when I go to work in my real office on Monday mornings. While everyone else is discussing what they did over the weekend, I have to stop myself from telling them about the great barbecue I went to at Brian’s place!

Is this really how we are expected to learn in the 21^st Century? Acquiring leadership skills without the inconvenience of having ‘real’ people to lead is rather like becoming a pilot without ever leaving the ground.

Well, I must get back to work. I’ve scheduled performance reviews with Janet and Ray this morning and I don’t want to be late. Janet’s a bit of a whiner and I’m hoping to inject a bit of positive thinking into her. Ray’s attitude can cause him to trip over his ego once in a while and I’d like to encourage him to be more of a team player. Brian and I will have lunch later … I’ve decided he’s actually quite cute and so perhaps I can combine on-line dating with my on-line training!

Happy New Year, Everyone.