Well, it's 1:21 am. I tossed and turned enough! I was horribly uncomfortable, legs out of the covers, legs under the covers, one leg under, one leg out, one pillow, two pillows and then it happened. That little blinking light from the TV Cable box was annoying me to no end. So, a pillow was gently propped up to stop that flickering that was keeping me awake. Ahem...then the telephone light was blinking with messages that I don't check, all telemarketers and so another pillow over that light. By this time I'm checking my Iphone. Do you do that in the middle of the night? Why do I check the news, and FB and my blog and the weather? By this time I decided to count sheep, I started back at one, one to many times!! Okay, I gently roll out of bed, not to wake Mr. Notes and think to myself, a nice warm bath might do the trick. Then I had a better idea, work on a blog post!
A Dark Thirty Post....
Thank goodness I took the photographs yesterday! Of course I'm a history buff, started googling too! I have some interesting history to share too.
So welcome to my 2nd Issue of
Martha Stewart Living
Nancy's Notes Living
Dining Room Issue~
Looking in from the Foyer.
This chandelier will go with us if we ever move, A new purchase soon after we moved in.
Of course, it'll be an heirloom!
This arrangement was my mother's.
Was on her Dining Room Table for quite some time.
I saw that the arrangement was ready to be stored or pitched or given away.
Oh my, I instantly wanted it!
It's Vintage and it was my mother's!
It needs a little more work,
I love it!
The sun was shining bright yesterday morning, truly beautiful sight!
What a glorious day after the huge hail storm night before last.
I love this silver tray.
I bought this at a fabulous Pre-View Party the night before a huge 3 day garage sale!
I ran for it!
I keep in on the dining room table even when not in use, it's too large to store.
I like it here, What do you think?
China Cabinet
This mirror is one of my favorite pieces ever! We bought this large mirror for our foyer for our home in Austin, I was determined it would fit in our new home.
This photograph is looking in from our kitchen.
I usually have candles or some sort of decor on the table around the centerpiece, decided the other day, I like it this way!
Simple.
I felt like a real photographer, was kneeling and then on one knee and had the camera at an angle!
It's easy to become obsessed!!! I know you know.
I'll be joining these great events~
Have a Happy Week!
Okay, here's the treat...read at your leisure!
As
more people found a place at the table, the concern became that of finding a
place for the table
For
the first time in my adult life, I have a something approaching a dining room.
Accustomed to eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a breakfast bar, coffee
table, or some other makeshift means of support, I find myself strangely
delighted by the idea of sitting down each evening at a table that seats four in
a space reserved only for eating. For one, meal time is easier. (There’s no
better way to test your coordination and patience than carving a turkey that’s
perched atop a folding table.) I’d say having a dining room makes me a fully
fledged grown-up, were it not for the fact that I still rent. Precarity is
Neverland.
Yet
even in centuries past dining rooms were something of a novelty. Only the
wealthy had them. The bulk of humanity, meanwhile, spent most of history
wriggling, with varying success, toward the same distinction.
The
Greeks were among the first to recognize that eating in secluded comfort
reinforced status and class cohesion. Elite men of the most powerful poleis gathered on fragrant evenings in rooms
especially designed for feasting. These rooms accommodated no more than eleven
couches of stone or wood, each of which in turn accommodated no more than two
men. Youths sat on the ground. Young and old alike quaffed diluted wine and
munched honey cakes and chestnuts — all fuel for ribald and learned discussions
of matters philosophical and romantic.
Ancient
Romans similarly took their meals in a special room called a triclinium,
whose couches had evolved to accommodate women as well as men. Whim and the
season determined their location. In the stifling Mediterranean summers they
were chosen for their ability to catch breezes; in winter, to block drafts. Some
of them might offer a view of the sea; others, vast plains. The Romans sometimes
even set up their dining rooms outdoors in order to enjoy al fresco their
swallow’s tongues and other delicacies. The most luxurious dining spaces bred
ease and amazement in equal measure.Triclinia in Pompeii featured fountains from which
water splashed and streamed from each table. Guests of one Loreius Tiburtinus
plucked tidbits from large basins in rooms bearing brightly painted images of
mythological figures.
Such
vivid appointments obscured a dark reality. A well-to-do Roman household could
include as many as 400 slaves, who did everything from choosing menus to
arranging and presenting parting gifts to guests. In all activities grace was
the watchword. The slightest faux pas invited brutal punishment.If, writes
historian Roy Strong, “game was underdone or the fish poorly seasoned the cook
(who actually ranked fairly high in the slave hierarchy) would be stripped and
beaten.” Strong relates an instance during a dinner given by a friend of the
Emperor Augustus. A cupbearer broke a crystal goblet. For this offense he had
his hands cut off and hung from his neck. He was then forced to parade among the
diners, and thereafter thrown alive in a fish pond as food for lampreys.
A
bit kinder than their Roman forebears, medieval men and women presided over
meals altogether less violent. Yet what
they gained in civility they lost in comfort. Even the most powerful lords,
though they might surround themselves with lush tapestries and lovingly crafted
pastries packed with everything from magpies to midgets, ate in drafty,
smoke-filled halls. “Magnificence there was, with some rude attempt at taste,”
notes Sir Walter Scott of this era: “but of comfort there was little, and, being
unknown, it was unmissed.”
Comfort
grew with increased trade, and with it changed notions of home and hearth.
Parlors, “dining chambers,” and other spaces amenable to dining began appearing
in architecture plans. Each nation seemed to have its own idea as to what
constituted a proper dining room. The great Renaissance architect Leon Battista
Alberti wrote that it “should be entered off the bosom of the house,” advising
further that, “[a]s use demands, there should be [a dining room] for summer, one
for winter, and one for middling seasons.” Some two centuries later Englishman
William Sanderson would recommend that a “Dyning-Roome” be hung with pictures of
kings and queens.
For
all the talk of appointments fit for royalty, perfection of the dining room came
only with the rise of a middle class. Between 1350 and 1560 people began to eat
and live better, thanks in part to greater availability of meat and dairy
products in the wake of the Black Death, and to the development of a market
economy. Where meat and milk abounded labor was scarce. Pay went up as a result.
In some parts of England, for example, laborers saw their wages grow four or
fivefold in just a few years. The workers of Cuxham Manor in Oxfordshire went
from earning two shillings a week in 1347 to more than 10 shillings a week three
years later.
With
higher wages came increased consumption of goods, among them furniture and
cooking utensils. In time there developed a culture peculiar to the newly
affluent. One of this culture’s hallmarks, the dining room offered a place where
family members could discretely enjoy each others’ company. As such, it
reflected what Italian theorist Mario Praz callsStimmung,
a German word that denotes the sense of intimacy and personal character evoked
by a room’s arrangement and decor.
Victorians
would take Stimmung to an often unbelievably cluttered extreme.
They spent lavishly on their dining rooms, outfitting them with upholstered
chairs, mahogany sideboards, pewter jugs, bone china, linen napkins and
tablecloths, and silver cutlery. They read architectural guides and kitchen
utensil catalogs as thick as phonebooks. Mealtime for them was an event, and
they staged the satisfaction of their appetites in surroundings as comfortable
as they could afford. Why they did so is the subject of the second part of this
history.
(funny how the photograph above is crooked!)
