The purpose of art is not to produce a product. The purpose of art is to produce thinking. The secret is not the mechanics or technical skill that create art – but the process of introspection and different levels of contemplation that generate it. Once you learn to embrace this process, your creative potential is limitless. ~ Erik Wahl
I have lived in places that had dining rooms, and I have lived in places with no dining rooms. Do you remember the old phrase that when you hold a party, everyone always ends up in the kitchen? That's only if you have no dining room!
The Summer Serenity Cottage has a dining room, and the dining room came with an organ.
Side note that is really a center note, as this post is really about art in all forms -- visual, musical, art of entertaining, art of life: An organ always makes me think of Aretha Franklin. Here she is on vocals and piano, with Kenneth Lupper on organ, and the Southern California Community Choir on background vocals (Mick Jagger was reportedly in the front row of this open recording session in Los Angeles, clapping and yelling), in Mary Don't You Weep, recorded live in 1972 for her Grammy-winning Amazing Grace album. (Do you need more proof than this performance that contemporary "singers" like Beyonce are holograms, computer-generated images mouthing computer-written computer-performed sounds?)
The dining room also came with grime and filth on windows, walls, and floor, dilapidation, and dead bugs like the rest of the house. (If you want to see what the house looked like when I walked in on day 1 of my lease, you can see it here. I needed the house, and the house needed me.)
The dining room was a somewhat difficult space to decorate, with the organ, a large and mostly purple Tiffany-lamp-ish overhead lighting fixture which is pretty in its way but has nothing to do with my coastal cottage decorating theme or blue-and-white color scheme, windows that wouldn't open, and flimsy filthy window blinds. At first I wasn't going to decorate or even furnish the dining room. I was going to focus on the living room, guest room, my bedroom, home office, and bathrooms, curating art and decor for these spaces.
Before I moved into the cottage, I purchased some vintage Spode dishes to use here, in line with my color scheme and Great Lakes nautical theme. Where did I think I was going to use them, if not the dining room? : )
The dining room, and other parts of the house, wanted furnishing and decorating; that is, the house and I have seemed engaged in a joint project, working together, to fulfill my contemplation, relaxation, and decoration desires -- and my wish to step away from my regular beloved home due to intolerable roof noise and vibration -- and to fulfill the house's desire to experience life as a Great Lakes cottage, as one world ends and the new Golden Age begins, if that makes sense!
Ultimately, art is what pulled the dining room together from being a space you pass through from the living room to get to the kitchen, guest bath, guest room, cat room, and stairs going upstairs, to being the heart of the house. And the organ has become a book carrel with a rotating selection of cottage- and camping- and art-themed volunes and more!
I selected three pieces of art by local woman artist Adrianne Hawthorne aka Ponno Pozz, added a photograph that I took of Chicago from Lake Michigan and had framed by Keepsake Frames, and hung these on decorative papers, including by Ponno Pozz, to add depth and dimension. I added books and textiles, craft chocolate, flowers, food, and friends, and: the dining room's good energy has sprung to new life and focused purity!
Before
Dead bugs, heavy windows with broken and non-aligned sashes that wouldn't open, lots of cleaning to do....
Sweet Jorji the cat wasn't sure either at the beginning exactly what we were going to do here....
Intermediate
I moved into the cottage on a weekend that was 90 degrees hot and thoroughly humid. The ground floor with its unopenable windows was a suffocating sweat box.
I managed to prop a dining room window open, with a cardboard box -- not classy, I know, but all I had handy until I found upgraded solutions (which you can see here) -- and placed the exhaust hose of my new portable air conditioner there. The living room windows still wouldn't open at this point, so the portable ac pretty much had to go into the dining room, which was another nudge to furnish and decorate it!
I went to the local street sale that took place that weekend, and found a table and chairs that wanted to come back to the cottage with me, so I bought them ($15 for a round solid wooden table, and $25 for 4 graceful wooden chairs) and brought them, and living room furnishing was underway!
I bought this fun little loveseat for the cottage, and have moved it around quite a bit. It started in the living room until I brought in a full-size sofa (another street sale find!), migrated to one wall of the dining room until I placed Jorji's new cat tree there, and then it found its home in the bay window of the dining room as part of the dining room table seating. Jorji the cat loves being on or under it no matter where it is.
Experimenting with art configurations....
The living and dining room window challenges were intense for a while. Happily, I found solutions such as: hire a handyman to open them and to wedge in the buoys I bought from
Nautical Seasons to prop them open! Girlfriends were able to get the living room windows open a little bit, and Johnny the handyman did the rest!
Side note which is also a central note, because noise is the opposite of art: One of the unexpected challenges of the cottage is that the corner where it sits is used as a staging area for landscapers hired by neighbors. This means that directly outside the dining room or living room, a few days a week, there is noise, awful machine noise, and machine noise is what I came here to escape!
Drivers and crews pull up their trucks labeled Hernandez Landscaping, Diaz Brothers, Arturo Landscaping, and more. They turn on large lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and tree trimmers outside my windows, before riding and carrying these loud machines to points around the area. They come back, machines blaring, and smoke cigarettes. One truck leaves, and another one pulls up, and the horrible noise continues.
Landscaping does not happen on predictable days, but on days it happens, it usually starts at either 7:30 or 8:30 in the morning. Sometimes there is an afternoon shift. I hate it.
I also hate the sound of the large loud garbage trucks and recycling trucks that scream and rumble through the neighborhood, throughout the day, every day except Sunday. I hate the loud searing tearing sound of planes overhead on a flight path to O'Hare Airport, and the clattering rattling sound of neighbors' window air conditioning units next door and across the street.
I hate machine noise. The machine noise that comes in at my regular place since a non-soundproof roof was installed, and the skylight was inexplicably and inexpertly raised and replaced insecurely, is constant and has become unbearable. The machine noise at my regular place since neighbors' air conditioner condenser lines were improperly -- and without notice -- installed inside my roof, transfers so much growling, discordant humming, and -- worst of all -- physical vibration directly into my home, that I left for the summer as air conditioners there started running all day and night. I couldn't sleep, work, or think with the noise. Unbearable.
Humans have managed our environment for millennia without machine noise -- and without unnatural lawns or synthetic roofs that demand or amplify this noise. Let's go back, or forward, to quiet. Let's stop the madness, stop the noise.
This summer rental and I embraced each other because we love and crave quiet. When the house and its environment are quiet, things are very quiet, except for beautiful glorious birdsong or cricket song!
I have been enjoying waking up as if in a treehouse, surrounded by green leaves of the large trees on this land, and listening to the robins, cardinals, finches, chickadees, and owls who live and sing in these trees.
At night, I love listening to cricket song, and to the spaces of silence between each note and each portion of each note.
In the Golden Age, when we help instead of harm people and planet, I would like to see silent machines, or something better than machines. No more noise pollution!
I didn't let a little disarray -- or any noise -- stop me from entertaining! Whether I'm welcoming one friend or a small group for a housewarming or other gathering, the dining room is where the heart is, and often where Jorji is! (And where
Lost Larson pastries are, along with organic fruit and chocolate from my
wholesale distribution catalogue or
online retail boutique!)
After
Open windows propped open with buoys I bought, anti-peeper-creeper curtains I hung because the landlord turned out to be a peeper-creeper and even
came into the house unannounced (stop noise pollution, and stop the entire spectrum of male disrespect of women!), art from a local woman artist, a Chicago / Lake Michigan photo by me (there are several throughout the cottage), a rug, books, and along the way, what makes a dining room a truly beautiful space: guests!
(I welcomed guests during the Before and Intermediate phases too, as mentioned, and repeat guests have seen not only the decor come together and change, but have also seen the house grow cleaner with my repeated scrubbings!)
The dining room wall between the guest room and cat room was the last part of the space to come together. An impactful vibrant print by Ponno Pozz helped, and so did hanging it on a piece of wrapping paper by the same artist! Then, finally I realized that its companion piece should also be unmatted like it is. Boom!
The other cheerful pieces in the dining room are also by Ponno Pozz, and I hung them on some wallpaper I had. I placed the organ bench under this assemblage, added books, and Jorji the cat seems to approve!
The house came with a vintage mirror behind the organ it also came with. The organ makes a wonderful book carrel! The organ nook is now not so random, but is cheery and inviting with books fascinating books, and with bright art that I love.
It's wonderful to have a group of girlfriends over, or a chocolate maker friend like Muffadal Saylawala of
Oro Chocolate, or others with whom I share bonds of affection!
The dining room is also a peaceful place for a cup of rooibos tea with fruit and cacao nibs in the morning (or pastry with
cacao nibs and
chocolate almond spread any time of day), or to do some work (I'm typing this in the dining room right now though it doesn't feel like work; Jorji is resting on the rug beneath my chair, and a cricket is singing outside the buoy-propped window), and it is a favorite place for Jorji to prowl the perimeter.
It's also enjoyable to rotate in new/old items, like this antique compass I picked up at local
Uncharted Books -- along with some
books of course! -- which harmonizes with my blue-and-white color scheme and Great Lakes nautical theme. (It harmonizes with the name Uncharted Books too, doesn't it!)
I'm glad the Summer Serenity Cottage has a dining room, and glad I furnished and decorated it!
Here's to art, and the art of living naturally!
Your friend in decorating,
Valerie
Looking for me at Chocolate Uplift? Here I am on Instagram!
Feel free to say hi via email as well: valerie.beck@post.harvard.edu.
Thank you!
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