The entry chest of drawers (circa 19th c.) is topped with 18th c. velum books and antique Chinese blue and white porcelains, vintage brass French Bouillotte-style lamp with a 70's brass and capiz shell lampshade (I'm obsessed with these lately:) and antique oil painting we found in Provence- "Aunt Minerva" -we name everything:) usually resides in the reading room.

The 23-year old ivy topiary shares the brass tray table with a little ceramic brown and off-white garlic-shaped holder that was a love gift (when my family gives gifts for no reason we call them love gifts!) from my sister Patti she found at Red Onion in Baton Rouge.  (If you live in the area it is a wonderful shop!)  I had just filled the room with browns when it arrived in a package a couple of months ago- perfect timing!  I love the color, texture and how it looks next to the leopard pillow.  It's the little details, yes?!   Thank you Patti...

I usually have two soft-blue velvet pillows on each back corner of the sofa, but I changed those out to brown velvet this year for the winter months.  I added another faux fur throw to this sofa, which the girls love :)

 I adore this brown silk lampshade on the antique Chinese green-glazed terracotta baluster made into a lamp.  When the light is off the shade is the color of the dark trim that you see in this photo- a dark chocolate brown.  You can see the brown velvet pillow in this photo. 

Antique:

  demi-john lamp, chinoiserie table, Santos, French gilt finial and Russian brass jardiniere.

 Leopard pillow on the left was made from a vintage muff.  The pillow on the right was originally two individual vintage hand-warmers that I found at an antique shop.  I sewed them back together and added a down-filled insert.

Old silver-plated doves/pigeons...columbidae!

Although "Mavis" is technically in the reading room, I thought she should be included in this post since she is donning the vintage leopard collar/headband (that was purchased with the muff pillow,) wearing it as a winter wrap:)

hope you're having a wonderful weekend!  

basketball-size fishing float in antique urn at front door


(This post could also be entitled "it's a small world," but I'll get to that story later in this post!)

Japanese glass fishing floats were once used by fishermen in many parts of the world to keep their nets afloat. Large groups of fishnets strung together, sometimes 50 miles (80 km) long, were set adrift in the ocean and supported near the surface by hollow glass balls or cylinders containing air to give them buoyancy.  These glass floats are no longer being used by fishermen, but many of them are still afloat in the world's oceans, primarily the Pacific.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process. After being blown, floats were removed from the blowpipe and sealed with a 'button' of melted glass before being placed in a cooling oven. (This sealing button is sometimes mistakenly identified as a pontil mark. However, no pontil (or punty) was used in the process of blowing glass floats.) While floats were still hot and soft, marks were often embossed on or near the sealing button to identify the float for trademark. These marks sometimes included kanji symbols. Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific.   Once a float lands on a beach, it may roll in the surf and become "etched" by sand. Many glass floats show distinctive wear patters from the corrosive forces of sand, sun, and salt water. When old netting breaks off of a float, its pattern often remains on the surface of the glass where the glass was protected under the netting. Other floats have small amounts of water trapped inside of them. This water apparently enters the floats through microscopic imperfections in the glass while the floats are suspended in Arctic ice or held under water by netting.  Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from recycled sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight). However, clear, amber, aquamarine, amethyst, blue and other colors were also produced.

They have become a popular collectors’ item for beachcombers and decorators. Replicas are also being manufactured.

Fishing floats on the dining room table.  I love them all, but my very favorites have the rope etching.

photo for the love of a house






A collection of baseball-size floats still in their nets.
Vintage Biltmore Hotel Silver tray.photo for the love of a house



Close-up of the "marking" on the float.

photo for the love of a house

More of the collection in the basement!  This jardiniere is huge, so the size of the floats is a little misleading..... the largest in this photo are basketball-size and the smallest is grapefruit-size!
photo for the love of a house



My own personal exposure to fishing floats came at a very young age...  as I've mentioned before, my mother grew up in Hawaii (the story of her childhood lamp that now resides in my kitchen is here) and she would find floats on the beach that had washed ashore.   When she married my father and moved to the mainland she brought those floats with her and I grew up in San Antonio with the floats scattered in the yard amidst the flowers and shrubs.  After meeting Dan and moving to the Pacific Northwest we began antiquing to furnish our then apartment.  I started spying the small floats at shops, back then for very little money- usually around $1-$3 each!!  The floats captured my heart for three reasons:  I have a fondness for the orb shape (as can be seen throughout the house); they reminded me of home; and being poor newlyweds,  at $1 it was sometimes the only thing I could afford to buy on a shopping trip!   
Thus, a collection began!!

Fast forward several years and many floats - small baseball-size floats, grapefruit-size and large basketball-size floats have now been added to our collection!  We lived in Dallas at this point, and my much;) older sister, Susan, and beloved brother-in-law, Doug, admired our collection and started collecting floats themselves.
We had many wonderful antiquing sources in the Northwest, so for my antiques business in Dallas Dan and I would fly back regularly to shop.  On one such trip we took Susan and Doug with us, and went to the Tacoma Dome Antiques Show.  At the show, we separated to shop and when we met back up with Susan and Doug they were in a booth that had floats for sale talking to a man who was introduced to us as "Frank Forster."  Frank evidently had a vast collection of floats and the next thing I know we are driving to Frank's house in Tacoma to see his collection!  And vast it was- Frank was a serious collector and a whole room had been dedicated to fishing floats!   We also met his lovely wife Kim.  My sister corresponded with Frank and Kim for several years, until Frank's death.

So..... imagine my surprise when several months ago while blog-hopping I stumble on a blog called

Glass Float Junkie 

and on her site find photos and a mention of Frank and Kim's collection!! 

It is definitely a small world, yes?!

Rich Richardson and Frank Forster

photo Glass Float Junkie

Kamichia used to live in Alaska (she now lives on the Oregon coast) and would take plane trips to remote
beaches and find the likes of this....

photo by Glass Float Junkie



I squealed out loud when I first saw this photo!  The mother load of fishing floats right on the beach!!  Like an Easter egg hunt, only better!!!!  Can you imagine?! 

For a fascinating pictorial be sure to click on all of Kamichia's photo-links on her sidebar here showing her beach combing trips and the individual photos of different types of floats!

Since floats are now considered "collectibles", there are a lot of fakes out there too.  Kamichia talks about how to tell what is real from what is fake here.

Several of you have asked me where you might find fishing floats for sale; Kamichia also sells fishing floats on etsy,  (you can also look on ebay), but-  be forewarned.....
fishing floats can quickly become an obsession!!!:)

Here are a few other photos of how I use the vintage fishing floats around the house...
placed in the center of the iron dining table on the back porch

...in a copper tub filled with fishing floats and copper floats on the back porch

... in an old wire basket on the upstairs master bedroom porch.  I love the pop of color of the one amethyst float!

antique tortoiseshell frames containing old mirrors in the entry

a close-up
(all photos will enlarge when clicked)
this frame, the largest, hangs on the bottom. it was found at an antiques shop in Jackson, Mississippi


this frame, which hangs in the center, was found on our first trip to Paris and our first trip to the Paris Flea Market at Porte de Clignancourt/ Marche aux Puces

I have always loved decorating with nature... from an urn filled with forestwood, to antique herbariums, to driftwood, to animal horns, to shells and rocks picked up on our travels. Since moving to New Hampshire I have become especially enamoured with tree fungi... what is called bracket or shelf fungus! Dan grew up in the Pacific NW, and grew up calling these little lovelies "conks" which is indeed what the bracket-shaped fungus is called, so that is what we call them! They are rock-hard and have no smell.

Before I change out the living room mantle to a more summer-look, I wanted to share the mantle as it looks today. I purchased the large conk at an antique shop, but most of them we have "found"!

The small white conk on the right corner was actually a gift from our nice painter, who found it while hiking and remembered my collection!

I thought you might like to see them as they grow in nature- this is how we generally see them.

Here you can see two conks growing on this one tree. This is in the forest by our house.

(I'm keeping my eye on these two!!)

This is a dead tree with many small conks of the Ganoderma variety.

It's our first Spring in the house! I'm just starting to think about designing beds and landscapes.

Today I went looking for antique and vintage garden objects for the porches, gardens and grounds.
Here is a sampling of what I found....



pair of vintage concrete urns with great patina

old dovecote and an antique iron pediment from a building in Portland, Oregon


pair of large vintage concrete finials with wonderful patina



new, but lovely pair of very large jardinieres


pair of old light fixtures


antique iron birdhouse



misc. iron pieces


old iron baskets



concrete balusters and old birdbath, and glazed terracotta base