13 May 2009
may newsletter
Dear friends:
Things have been happening in the world of FURBISH! Here I am earlier this spring at The List party with other women in the field of design in North Jersey. And many of you saw us featured in Millburn Short Hills Magazine and New Jersey Life last month too!
I hope you all had a very special Mother's Day! Moms always have an impact on how we grow up decorating -- one way or another! This month's article elaborates on a comment I made about how we are meant to live in beautiful spaces. This has been a theme in my newsletters, and in my personal thinking, and I track the thread down right into my personal journal. The article is also an ode to my mother, so it seemed very appropriate.
Plus find tips on giving imagination a bigger place in your home, and a favorite french toast recipe of Michael's and mine. Little Aadi eats the strawberries, but leaves the french toast! Either way, enjoy! And don't miss our first ever BACKROOM SALE. Read on to learn more.
Be well,
Uma
in this issue
quick links
THE BACKROOM SALE! MAY 14-19.
We are having our first BIG sale at the new location of FURBISH. Select items on the floor will be marked down PLUS I will be pulling items out of my infamous backroom and offering them for sale at pretty serious discounts. These are items we are no longer carrying that were never even taken out of storage after our move! This sale is an insiders event. You'll want to come in early for the best selection.
Unique stuff. Unusually great prices!
Here is some more of what you will find:
- select KOBO candle scents
- table linens
- coasters
- bowls, plates, cups
- glassware
- great vases
- artwork
- every pillow in store!
- decor books
- and much more!
Don't miss this opportunity to stock up on spring and summer hostess gifts and beautiful treats for you as well.
AND we are putting the final touches on our next in-store tasting! We will announce the bite of the month soon and you will be able to taste during our sale event.
PLUS if you missed seeing the botanicals a small selection of pieces will still be on view through to the end of the sale.
We look forward to seeing you!
feature: "people are just meant to live in beautiful spaces"
Many visitors to the store have been mentioning something I said that was recently published in the local media: "People are just meant to live in beautiful spaces." I'm excited that they find this compelling. It seems so simple, right? But why has this made such an impact? Why do we need to hear it?
I was rummaging through old journal entries and came across the moment when I first articulated this thought. It was just in October. Furbish was temporarily closed as I was beginning renovations for the Millburn location. And I was struggling with the big "purpose of my life" questions, and why I was set on expanding this business.
I am going to share this entry. It is disjointed and wanders through my personal history (eeks!), but I think it tells you just where I am coming from. Here is what I wrote:
October 13, 2008, 10:24 am
My career has taken umpteen incarnations: publishing, non-profit work, academia, labor organizing. I felt all of those jobs were very important, yet I was miserable while doing them. They were not my calling. Now I have work and a business that I love, but on the other hand a corner of my brain struggles with the significance of what I do. Is this AS important as all those other jobs were? I can't seem to answer this question. It feels like the wrong question.
When I look to the natural world, I see nothing but beauty and attention to aesthetic and functional detail. The earth is very well designed! Are we not meant to live in beautiful spaces? Do not all people wherever they live, surround themselves with objects they find beautiful and valuable?
Will any of us ever forget the home we grew up in? I will not. I remember when we moved into our Medford house -- the place I will always think of as home. It was a great big house, but it had pea green carpeting and was mostly empty since we were moving from a much smaller place. Mom and dad did not have the resources to do much with it at first. But slowly Mom transformed it. It became a place with color and light in every last corner, filled with details that she loved, and she conveyed her admiration for all these little details to me piece by piece. Two young children did not stop her from buying a beautifully elegant off-white sofa with slim lines and tailored skirting, in a fabric with the texture of raw silk. She let us sit and play on it but she taught us to respect it. She always wanted us to feel like the house belonged to us, and we did. She taught me to love and appreciate
a sun-filled space. She let me trade my traditional floral-papered bedroom for the very sophisticated gray and mauve guest room she had done with striped wallpaper, contemporary art, and custom built-ins. The change of rooms felt like a change of lives. When I think of growing up in this lovely house I don't usually think of the décor, but it is always there in the backdrop. It was a stage worthy of my parent's life and worthy of my childhood, and I am sure that this backdrop contributed to our feeling that we were living a charmed life. And because we felt like we were living a charmed life, I think we did.
The décor did not take away shyness in grade school, awkwardness in middle school, or the rebellious angst of high school. But I was surrounded by evidence that life was to be celebrated, and that joy does not depend on how others see us. It only depends on the world we choose to create around ourselves.
***
What this reverie brings me to is this: if you feel that jump of excitement when you read, "People are just meant to live in beautiful spaces," it is probably because, like me, you need that extra bit of support for acting on your inner wishes and making a beautiful home, or living life by your own lights too. Re-reading this, what I also see is that humans are creatures of imagination, and a beautiful environment feeds that imagination in a very positive way. It allows us to feel deserving of all that joy and celebration ... and we are. Thank you Mom for this gift, in addition to everything else you have done for us.
Environments stimulate our imagination, but it works the other way around too. We need to imagine a beautiful place before we can create it. Read my tips below for letting imagination rule more of the roost in your home.
3 tips for giving space to imagination in your home
Create an inspiration board and a file of images:
If you do not have a file folder of images that inspire you, please start today. Get a stack of magazines. Include some travel and lifestyle glossies in addition to design magazines for best results. You can even go to the library and make color photocopies of pictures in back issues if you like. Stretch yourself and pull non-decor images too. I love tearing out beautiful photos of fruit and flowers to inspire color palette ideas. Paste or tack 10 to 15 favorites on a board that you can look at every day. Keep the rest in a file folder and every month review and update. As you go about your days you will notice patterns in what inspires you. Incorporate into your home at your own pace. Or when you are ready have a designer help sort through the images and make a plan. A good designer will be very skilled at sensing the patterns in your file.
Create displays of beautiful objects at key focal points: Sit in your favorite chair at the dining table, your favorite spot on the couch, or where you sit in bed, and notice where your gaze falls. Find a few key places in your direct line of sight where you can create a grouping of beautiful objects, or objects that resonate with one another in an interesting way. Maybe it is a mirror over a painted chest topped with a footed bowl, or a side table with a great lamp and a fantastic photograph hanging on the wall just behind. A strong grouping will hold your eye’s interest for years and stimulate your imagination about other possibilities, but you can also change it up when you think you need fresh perspective.
Fill your home with art and books: Reading stimulates our thinking in a very direct way, and having books you love where you can see them will serve as a reminder of the ideas, information, or experiences contained in those books. This starts young. If I recite a line from a favorite book to Aadi while getting him dressed in the morning, he will wriggle away from me and point to the shelf where the book is. The books are part of our everyday life and we refer to the stories in them and things in our immediate environment interchangeably. Art on the other hand, often bypasses language and speaks to our subconscious mind directly, which can be a nice change of pace. Find some pieces you love and let them be windows into other worlds as you go about your everyday life.
get the word out!
So many of you have told us how much you enjoy receiving my newsletter each month. Some of you are forwarding the letters to your friends. Thank you! Our audience is growing well beyond our little nook of North Jersey. We are making plans to expand our reach further so stay tuned!
In the meantime, you can ask people to subscribe to our newsletter by sending them to our webpage. Here is the link: http://www.furbishhome.com/news.html. Anyone can view sample newsletters and sign up to get them in their own mailbox. Please continue to spread the word!
dish: real french toast with scented strawberries
Here is a classic in our household. We make it at least once a month with different fruit toppings depending on the season, but the strawberries are always my fave. This makes four pieces of french toast.
- 1 1/2 cups strawberries hulled and sliced
- 3 tbsps rosewater
- 1 tbsp basil sliced into thin strips
- 2 tsps sugar
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and let sit at room temperature while you prepare the french toast.
- 1 baguette (we love the whole foods bakery one)
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup half 'n' half
- 1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- dash salt
- dash cinnamon
Cut the rounded end off of the baguette and then cut off two 6 inch logs. Carefully "skin" the crusts off of the top and bottom of both pieces, then slice them longwise into two flat halves. Set aside. Put all of the remaining ingredients into a bowl and beat together with a whisk or fork until well blended. Pour batter into a flat dish with high sides (like a baking dish). Soak two pieces of the prepared baguette in the batter, about 5 minutes each side since the bread is very dense. In the meantime prepare a skillet by bringing to medium-high heat with a pat of butter and a bit of oil to coat the surface well. Place the soaked bread on the hot skillet and then lower the heat and cook slowly, applying pressure with the back of the spatula and flipping occassionally until both sides are golden brown. Repeat with remaining two slices of bread. Top each piece with the
scented strawberries and enjoy!
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© 2009 uma pimplaskar
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