The countdown to a three day celebration of summer, fun, and freedom 4th of July party ideas is on.
Allow me to take this opportunity to thank the calendar year for gifting us a three-day weekend for holiday fun in the summer sun.
Count that as 4th of July party ideas gold!
Fine and Yankee Doodle Dandy for the 4th, a fresh flower haul from the farmer’s market truck mixed with clippings and cuttings from around the yard pops the colors of the season.
It’s been so flipping hot of late I haven’t been firing up the grill, stove or ovens very much.
Dave the Builder continues to inform me we have central air conditioning, but it does make a difference in the late afternoon when you’re cooking-baking-grilling.
Light fare with an emphasis on easy, fresh, and cool suits the summer in all of us.
Have you noticed how much a jar of Duke’s Mayo is going for these days?
Psst…. the digital coupon gods at Kroger are granting shoppers a coupon for Duke’s mayo this week, so let there be homemade potato salad on the 4th of July dinner table.
Always on board for trying new recipes, I ran across this recipe for No-Mayo Potato Salad with Herbs from FoodieCrush.
Elvis the King’s Jungle Room has been in the spotlight of late vis-à-vis the buzz surrounding the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film, Elvis.
Certain spaces and certain clients call for over the top flamboyant chic when designing and decorating residential and commercial properties, and not all residential and commercial spaces are created equal.
As it appropriately calls for, there’s spaces and places where understated style simply will not do.
Ostentatious interior decorating and design elements has a standing relationship with grand scale museums, historical homes, architectural marvels, Las Vegas and hooray for Hollywood interiors.
Some exquisite.
Some gaudy.
Some remarkable.
Some unsightly.
What is it they say about beauty being in the eye of the beholder?
Celebrities love to dial up extravagance in a manner befitting a true Hollywood story and Elvis the King’s Jungle Room.
You live what you know as some would say, and if flamboyant is just another day at the office it becomes the rule versus the exception.
Liberace
March 29-30, 1977 made hometown history much to the excitement and disbelief of the masses. Elvis Presley scheduled not one but two nights to perform live in concert in Central Louisiana at the Rapides Parish Coliseum.
Papa Places In The Home scooped up tickets for our entire brood (8), and the excitement level was off the charts.
Ours was an Elvis house.
We loved the music, the style, and the voice.
On January 14, 1973 the Curtis Mathes was tuned to Aloha from Hawaii.
For no one in my nuclear family to utter a word for over an hour proved how captivated we were.
Daddy surprised my mother with a trip to Las Vegas complete with her chance to see Elvis live at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Vegas was a different beast in those days, back when $100 bills in the palm of the showroom captain, the original ticket master, got you the best seat in the house.
While waiting to be seated my dad struck up preshow conversation with the couple standing behind them. Two husbands determined to please two wives devised a you put up one hundred and I’ll put up one hundred plan.
Remember it’s 1974.
Two Ben Franklins got them seated “right on the stage” as my dad used to say.
Daddy was more excited for my mother to see Elvis up close and personal than actually seeing Elvis perform.
As the story goes Elvis, with scarf in hand and enough charisma to light up the Vegas Strip, stood in front of mother not once, not twice, but three times for her to respond.
Mesmerized by this larger than life being looking her directly in the eyes, the woman could not move.
Daddy kept nudging her and telling her, “honey, stand up” and although she wanted to she just couldn’t.
Never one to be star-struck before, she insists she wasn’t that night as well.
Over the course of a 30+ year span of trips to Vegas my parents met and mingled with celebrities and cultivated life long friendships with several.
Yes, that’s Dan Tanna himself, the beloved Robert Urich who was one of the aforementioned friends from my parent’s Vegas days.
She really can’t explain it nor does she regret it. It was one of those in the moment moments that came and went with nothing more than a memory for the souvenir books.
Most, if not all, design and décor features at Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, stand in a time capsule- as it should be when you think about it.
From the articles, books and interviews I’ve read referencing the interior spaces of Elvis Presley’s Graceland, his personal design style preferences ranged from his idea of elegance and beauty to flash and kitsch.
Iconic spaces left suspended in a style of the times state challenges the design and decorating side of my brain to a round of how exactly would I redo-remodel-rearrange-reimagine-replace-rethink the design without compromising the original scheme without insulting or diminishing the core concept.
Although my design and decorating services have not been engaged by famous architects, heads of Hollywood studios, hoteliers or the fine folks at Graceland, a decorista can ponder can’t she?
Tiki tacky crosses the mind, but the rule of what speaks to you is what you should surround yourself with, for whatever reason or season, applies here.
Placement adjustments, furnishings tweaks here and there, subtraction of the outdated coupled with the addition of updated décor pieces go a long way in accomplishing a visually pleasing refresh.
Western International Trading Co. (Witco) carved wood décor and home furnishings in tropical and Hawaiian inspired style was super popular from its beginning in the late 1960s though the late 1970s.
Today’s Fetching Friday introduces family to family. After all, followers, friends, and family are one in the same here at Places In The Home.
Late one night this week in a part exhausted-part heat overload-part what in the heck did I just do haze I did something to cause my pictures/download files to jump from recent to long time ago status.
The result is a blast from the past pictorial scroll.
Family means the world to me; the memories perhaps even more.
Scrolling from one founding generation to the latest you will meet the family.
Why is it that in almost every photo of my maternal great grandparents, regardless of how young they actually are in the photo, they look old?
Hard times I suppose physically aged them far too soon, but those hard times is what made these two forever young at heart and the absolute anchors of our family.
Mama and Papa were native Texans with all that that implies. God fearing, hard working folk of life loving character, I was fortunate enough to learn by their extraordinary example and to have them present in my life until my late teens.
He was full of life, innocent mischief, and a walking encyclopedia of facts and anecdotes of old Texas.
Mama Two (what I called her) was a force of calming nature small in stature and large in heart.
Mamaw never met a lake, creek, river, pond or fishin’ hole she didn’t love. Dead of summer in the South and the woman was stylishly decked out in long pants and long sleeves with a color-coordinated umbrella in hand.
Sunshine she loved, but skin cancer rays were persona non grata.
Many a family member, friend, and neighbor reaped the benefits of her late summer afternoon fishing sessions- a delicious treat we could bank on.
Tomboy in a dress- that was the description my mother bestowed upon herself, never shy to climb a tree, barrel race, or fight the good fight when and if her baby brother (the precious and precocious blond boy to her left) needed assistance.
Daddy came from humble beginnings, and remained just that, humble, all of his life.
He moved mountains (or so we thought) for all he knew and loved, never met a stranger, and put his love of family as priority number one.
Parents to two who always knew how fortunate we were and are to call them Mama and Daddy, our house was the one all the friends wanted to be at, holiday central for family and friends who were/are family, and a place proud to call home.
“Everyone needs a house to live in, but a
supportive family is what builds a home.”
—Anthony Liccione
Dave the Builder joined the family in the early 80s and it’s been a party ever since.
Our heart and soul, Jackson is the light of our lives.
Ollie comes in a close second.
Three generations of cousins, three times the love.
“The love in our family flows strong and deep, leaving us memories to treasure and keep.”
Summer reads take the imagine to a funny, thrilling, dramatic, mysterious, and relaxing destination, and that my friends is what the season is all about.
Soak up the fun in the sun summer reads travel well to the beaches, lakes, pools, rest and relaxation escapes tailor-made for a beach bag packed with summer reads.
New job negotiations often comes with perks as newlywed Keith Collins finds out. He and his new bride, Kat, jump at the invite from the general manager of the iconic, opulent Pink Hotel to come for a luxurious stay as a bid to hire Keith. Kit is perfectly content with small-town life, however, Keith’s quest for bright lights, big city life is enhanced by the glamourous lily-scented lobby that makes him feel right at home.
Soon after the Collinses arrival sweeping wildfires, rolling blackouts, and brutal riots break out across the city. The Pink Hotel closes its doors to “outsiders,” confining guests, including Kat and Keith to the property where a disgruntled staff coupled with eccentric, ultra-wealthy, and dangerously idle guests brews many an issue.
The Pink Hotel exposes a tenuous class system, corrosive behaviors, greed, disaster, resentments, provocative attitudes, class jealously all while the city burns and true love is called into question.
Allison Brody is thirty-two year old ready to mix, mingle and make a new home on the East Coast after just managing to flee her movie producer boyfriend.
Money saved up from years of writing and waitressing, Allison buys a small house on the beach. As bad luck would have it, a Category 3 hurricane makes landfall, completely destroying her home and leaving her without digs at the present.
Gripping and provocative, Hurricane Girl walks a knife’s edge between comedy and horror, love and sex, violence and freedom all while celebrating the true joy found in a summer swim and a tasty turkey sandwich.
All may not be as stunning on this wellness retreat off the English coast getaway as first thought. Reaper’s Rock has a dark past and a present abounding with rumors of the island being cursed.
After a young woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall, Detective Elin Warner learns the victim wasn’t a guest–she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all.
Time uncovers more secrets, and when someone else drowns in a diving incident, Elin suspects murder. Whodunit and why target guests at this luxury resort is the questions Elin must find the answer to before the island’s history repeats itself.
The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever venture beyond Baltimore, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy Garrett has trouble resisting her aspirations to be a painter. In 1959, less time keeping house for her husband, Robin, and pursuing a talent/career is the exception rather than the rule. This alone has her asking do I dare?
Two teenage daughters, Alice and Lily, could not be more opposite of each other, and their younger brother David is intent on escaping his family’s orbit.
As the lives of each Garrett family member advances across decades, influences cast ripples of heartbreak, warmth, and hilarity through each generation.
With tremendous warmth and humor, French Braid illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from the bond of family love, and how close a family is to itself.
Belly believes everything good and magical happens between the months of June and August. Winter is simply the time where one count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad.
Belly has known Jeremiah and Conrad since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.
Magazine writer Persephone Fraser has to make a choice when she returns to the lake she grew up on, and to the man she thought she’d never have to live without, in this achingly nostalgic debut. Feeling the force of the saying you can never go home again, Persephone suspects it all too true since she made the biggest mistake of her life. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends her summers in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
One day she gets a call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek. Inseparable over five summers, Percy and Sam had been inseparable.
Slowly their friendship turned into something more, before falling spectacularly apart. When Percy returns to the lake to attend Sam’s mother’s funeral, the connection is a strong and undeniable as always.
Percy must confront the decisions she’s made over the years and time spent punishing herself for them, in order to determine, once and for all, whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mother, but her best friend. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. Their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father, is now in question.
Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.
Upon setting foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy immediately feels her mother’s spirit. Stunning scenery, blue waters, breathtaking cliffsides, welcoming locals, and delectable food delight both eye and heart helping to bring Katy out of the depths of loss and back to life.
Much to Katy’s surprise and happiness, Carol appears in the flesh- healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old.
How can this be?
Katy doesn’t understand how or what is happening, all she can focus on is somehow she has gotten her mother back. Over the course of One Italian Summer Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her.
Carol is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be leaving Katy to reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.
Early buzz about these summer reads has me ready to dive into the pages.
Between lawn and garden this and whipping up holiday eats and treats that I found I spent a hunk, a hunk of burning love of the holiday watching movie trailers and sneak peeks from the soon to be released Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.
Note to self: Add Burning Love by Elvis Presley to your Spotify summer grooves and tunes playlist.
Once the candle was lit, it burned at a measured rate. When the flame met the clip and went out, time was up! Candle by the Hour™ brings back this novel concept as a worry-free way to illuminate and decorate your home.
To use, just feed up to 3″ of the pliable eco-friendly beeswax coil through the clip and light the wick. The natural beeswax will melt at approximately 20 minutes per inch, providing up to an hour of light at a time.
Casual defines the theme of the summer entertaining season just as casual means a host of ways to set a casual summer scene to many a host and hostess.
“It’s important how we feel in our homes, because feeling good makes us more gracious.
And that makes it easier to welcome others
not only into our homes but into our lives.”
—Nate Berkus
Where one prefers to zhoosh up the look with the good stuff place settings and serveware, another prefers to lay down newspapers, set out paper goods, and let the good times lobster roll.
Look at it this way; the walls of the space serve as a blank canvas, and your vision in unison with your personal style stamp the design elements that create the palette.
Decorative vision factored in with personal style creates the palette, and when wallpaper makes the design cut the visual impact is magnified through distinct colors, patterns and textures.
I’ll let Martha Stewart and Company explain How to Hang Wallpaper (click on the link for instructions), and I’ll cover the differences between traditional and removable aka peel and stick options.
Application options grant homeowners and renters alike decorating freedom.
Traditional wallpaper wins out in the following categories:
Overall quality of the product.
Staying power.
Ease of positioning on the wall during application.
Most traditional wallpaper comes pre-pasted. To activate the paste, the wallpaper is soaked in water.
Removal of traditional wallpaper is not a quick process when compared to the rather easy removal process of peel and stick paper. From personal experience I learned using a wallpaper steamer to remove traditional wallpaper is the way to go.
Removable wallpaper is peel and stick apply today, easy removal tomorrow.
Renters sing the praises of peel and stick. DIY friendly in many cases, it lives up to its peel and stick label with no pasting or soaking required, but application does require patience and precision.
Correcting placement once applied proves a bit of an issue with the need to remove the panel and begin again almost a guarantee.
Mama Places In The Home and I were having a conversation the other evening about first one thing than two when the focus of our chat turned toward why we favor the design styles we do.
Traditional with a fresh perspective pretty much best describes my preferred design style.
Factors to consider when deciding on a pattern, texture, and type basically involves personal style preferences and what space the paper will be used in.
Of course scale, flow, and balance in regards to the neighboring rooms must be taken into consideration when selecting patterns.
Matchy-matchy isn’t necessary, however, pattern power clashing gets awfully busy with the eye, and runs the risk of overpowering the intended design statement.
What a modern adaptation has the ability to do is suit today’s personal decorating preferences while acquainting the eye with a fresh take that immensely enhances the core design style.
“Use wallpaper in unexpected places: on the ceiling in a paneled room,
in closets, hallways, and small foyers.
A great pattern or texture in small spaces
can be a prodigious twist!”
The once a flipper, always a flipper side of my brain together with my decorating eye spies the divine flooring and thinks flip that beauty from floor to ceiling with this choice.
Iconic pairing of color and pattern, the instantly recognizable banana leaf design Martinique wallpaper designs and decorates the equally famous Beverly Hills Hotel.
Rules apply for balance and form, but consider this- the unexpected use of color or well thought out and very intentional placement of a design or décor element in a “I would have never thought of that” place keeps things interesting.
As noted in my Lemon Influenced Home Décor post, nursery through to kids room design and décor has made great strides in the big style for little ones game.
When farmhouse/modern farmhouse design style flooded the screens and scrolls of the design and decorating loyal, textured and the look of textured found a resurgence in popularity.
Many associate textured wallpaper with commercial installs, and though it is true you will find it a decorating darling of commercial spaces for the sake of durability in both style and quality of product, textured wallpaper conforms to residential use in spectacular fashion.
I’ve installed, suggested, and used grasscloth many times over the years in properties we flipped, commercial and residential design jobs, and in our personal homes to rave reviews.
Incorporating the traditional aspects of horse racing into my Kentucky Derby party ideas such as riding boots, horseshoes, and a riding helmet or two is not as difficult as one would think.
Scatter about tabletops, prop and position around serving trays, centerpiece embellishments, cake toppers, monogram with party attendees initials as take home favors- you get the idea.
8 fresh mint sprigs for garnish or more to desired taste
Directions
In a large saucepan, bring, water, sugar, lemon juice and mint leaves to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently until sugar is completely dissolved.
Allow mixture to cool.
Strain cooled simple mint syrup and discard mint leaves.
Fill your mint julep cups with crushed ice, ½ cup Ginger Ale soda, and ½ cup mint syrup. Stir to incorporate flavors.
Adding a dash of Creole seasoning or Louisiana hot sauce along with a handful or two of chopped walnuts to store bought pimento cheese brings the c’est si bon to the party.
Encore presentation worthy for sure, I feel confident in suggesting the use of vintage beauties such as this one for Kentucky Derby party pieces.
The Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich, a Kentucky original recipe created in 1926 at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, is a perfect Derby Day menu choice.
This recipe from SheKnows plates turkey, bacon, Parmesan cheese, tomatoes and a heavy-handed dollop of bechamel sauce together in all its delicious, rich and Kentucky tradition glory.
If baking does not fit into your party schedule or itinerary, consider picking up your favorite cake at a local or grocery store bakery and adding embellishments of choice.
Simple and fragrant, float fresh mint sprigs in clear cut glass bowls slightly filled with warm water.
Dollar store trays with the look of silver.
Tractor Supply meets the Derby need with nickel plated horse bits to use as napkin rings and horseshoes in packs of 4.
Here’s to traditions and celebrating the Run for the Roses with win, place and show-stopping Kentucky Derby party ideas.
Show & Tell
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Original Mason 2 Gallon Triangle Beverage Dispenser
Liberace
