CHRISTMAS HOME TOUR | Inside Linda Vater’s Storybook Cottage Filled with Holiday Spirit

Garden designer Linda Vater takes us inside her utterly charming 1930’s cottage in Oklahoma City.

For more extraordinary home tours, visit our website: https://homeworthy.com/

Garden designer, stylist and content creator Linda Vater welcomes us inside her “Cottage on the Hill” in Oklahoma City. For Linda, living in this historic neighborhood is akin to stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting, where every corner exudes a storybook charm.

Step inside, and you’ll discover an elegant and classic interior that beautifully combines Linda’s passion for gardening, her husband’s love for archaeology and anthropology, and the rich tapestry of her family’s travels. Linda’s strong belief in repurposing items imbues character throughout each space, as many of the decor pieces have been cherished for years. As the holiday season approaches, Linda’s cottage transforms into a festive wonderland. With a penchant for creativity, Linda embraces a new theme each year, weaving a magical narrative that transcends from gift wrap to ornaments. The result is a holiday haven where every element is thoughtfully curated to create a cohesive and visually stunning experience. Enjoy!

#hometour #interiordesign #homedecor

LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to Homeworthy’s YouTube channel for more home tours and design content

Be sure to visit https://www.homeworthy.com/shop to discover amazing furniture, art, and accessories handpicked by our editors to help transform your house into a home – all of the items are inspired by the episodes you see here on this channel!

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeworthy
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@homeworthy

Visit Linda Vater’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8cHt-SAeWJ5En1TNnryCVA
Follow Linda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/potagerblog/

Purchase Linda’s book, “The Garden Journal”, here: https://rstyle.me/+YPH0diPxhfa2pIBfR8lpSw

Purchase Linda’s book, “The Elegant and Edible Garden: Design a Dream Kitchen Garden to Fit Your Personality, Desires, and Lifestyle”, here: https://rstyle.me/+pDnfzeNwqksEGMsku1-uuQ

Hello homeworthy I’m Linda welcome to the cottage on the hill come on In you’re watching homeworthy where we believe every home has a story be sure to visit our website homeworthy decom to discover amazing Furniture art accessories and more all handpicked by our editors to help transform your house into a home all of the items are inspired by the episodes you see here on homeworthy

Enjoy my name is Linda V I am here in a historic neighborhood in Oklahoma City it’s where I I write I produce media for YouTube for Instagram for magazines for TV um and it’s just basically a place where I express my passions and experience the people that come in and

Out of my life well this is It’s a 1930s Cottage that was actually built at the request of a wife after she and her husband traveled to Europe and they just fell in love love with this kind of English cottage Motif and it fits perfectly into this historic

Neighborhood that was primarily built in the 20s and 30s it’s got a wonderful it’s it’s like living in a Norman Rockwell painting and the Brilliance of it was that when we moved in it had been completely renovated on the inside but the outside was a blank canvas and that

Was exactly what I was looking for it was so interesting interesting because my former home that I had lived in for 32 years we had always referred to it as the fairy tale house and when I when I walked by this when I saw it immediately

It looked like a storybook Cottage to me and later it was ironic because that was actually in the description in the real estate abstract was that it had storybook Cottage appeal and it very much looks like a story book and even my neighbors and especially the kids in the

Neighborhood refer refer to it in that way and I hope it becomes that much more magical as the gardens mature as things begin to bloom and as we go through all four seasons it it was important to me that I felt like I wasn’t moving away from someplace that I was moving to

Someplace and I loved the dynamism and the vibrancy of this neighborhood it is very young and despite the fact that it’s an old historic neighborhood it’s in an urban really hip environment that has a wonderful a wonderfully provincial feel almost European because in this

Area I can not only walk to All of a lot of my friends homes that live in this neighborhood which was another impetus for me but also I can walk to museums I can walk to my favorite bookstores I can walk downtown I can see downtown from my front

Porch um it has it just has a vibrancy and a and a cultural aspect that I love great restaurants great shopping uh the hardest part of of my walking life is deciding which direction I’m going to go and what surprises await me because even though I’m familiar with this part of

Oklahoma City it nevertheless is a surprise to me every day and so many young people they call me the the young kids call me Miss Linda on the street and so I I don’t have any grandchildren of my own so there’s a constant influx of little people that are that are

Coming in and visiting me and checking out the garden and looking at the butterflies so it’s it’s not just a home this is just is a whole Aura it’s a whole Lifestyle Welcome to The Parlor this is the first room you see upon entering the cottage so it was really important to me that it was welcoming I love the fact that it is completely light infused it is saturated in light which is especially important I think in the

Winter time when it’s cold and you kind of get that that Sensation that you could be sitting in almost any chair like a cat in a in a Sunbeam and I really like that um when we moved here from our former home it was really important an to me for both sentimental

But also for practical reasons that we reuse rethought repurposed the Furnishings that we had in the former home now could we use everything obviously not but we could use a lot of them and it was I think imperative that we thought of things in new ways to apply uh their attributes to

The decor so in this case this is a sideboard that used to be in our dining room and where formally it held things like oh candles and napkins and well server items well now it holds things like hats and gloves and sunglasses so it’s very very I think it makes a

Statement but it’s also very functional and I also like the fact that the tone of it really looks beautiful with the Lightwood floors so to me that creates this kind of continuity and Harmony that’s important to me this painting um my husband and I we bought it together a

Lot of the pieces of Art in the home were paintings that he had prior to our getting married uh but this one we bought together and what I love about it is it’s an oil painting but it very much reminds me of a painting that my oldest

Sister Beth did for us that was that hung above our bed in our girls bedroom growing up so it was it it was reminiscent of that but I also love the colors and I love the fact that it brings out the blue tones the aqua tones but also kind of that Garden inspired

Thing that’s so important to me so it’s got flowers it’s got fruit in it and I I really just love that um one thing about all of my Christmas decor sometimes people will say well well what was what was the inspiration for that well for me the inspiration typically starts out

With a story so each little vignette is a story that I’m kind of trying to tell and I usually will put kind of a word or a thematic to that Decor so in in this case on this sideboard I love the fact that I’ve got these beautifully carved

Wooden Angels these are pieces that I gifted to uh my mother many many years ago and after she passed I I took them back home and one thing I like about any kind of Decor is that it has a a oh kind of an experiential quality so I want the

Characters in my stories to kind of be doing things and so I will Adorn them with maybe little Halos um in this case she may be feeding the birds this I have to tell you this is a sweet sweet story and it’s so emblematic of what I love

About this neighborhood so this little angel is holding this little evergreen tussy musy or a handheld bouquet and this was made by my 8-year-old friend across the street who put this together and just one day came over and gifted it to me so uh I Charlie is a good friend

Of mine and she comes over often and she sometimes brings me just little gifts so it’s important to me that this is place in an area of prominence so it is in the hand of this sweet little angel and then items that I have out all of the time I

Like the fact that they pick up on the thematic in this case the metallic thematic of what my Decor is and this year it is um it’s very silvery and so the images I’ve got of my family both when they were young and when they were older wedding photos

Those are important to me because and they also happen stance fit into that silver theme along with like the silver garland that I’ve made little Halos out of and so it’s just a fun a fun vignette now something else that’s very important to me is we are huge readers and I love

Pulling out and kind of color toning the books that we have whether they’re contemporary books or their oldw world books like this that we have collected over time and one thing that’s important to me about that is that we actually read these books so I think all

Too often we fall into that trap of having things for Decor without actually using them for their intended purposes so periodically I like to just pick up one of these old old books respect its age and be careful with it but nevertheless read the books we have use

The things we have whether that’s fine China or it’s silver or it’s candles uh that should be burned or just pretty much anything what’s the point of having things no matter how valuable if you don’t use them because they’re in live the stories to the things that you

Possess um again I like things that are both practical and pretty so I have brass hat hangers um and a rot iron coat rack because obviously I want my guests to feel welcome and so as soon as they come in literally it tells them to hang

Your hat in my space and I like the fact that uh I I’m a big hat wearer and so I like the fact that the hats are in areas that are kind of public which speaks to some of my signature style but what I also like about that is that

Particularly members of my team when they come here when my family comes here then they feel compelled to just pick up one of those hats and wear it on a particularly sunny sunny day they can pick up a straw hat and they too uh can

Can put on a Chapo and feel like they’re part of of the of the scene I here’s another example of what I mean about taking little stories or taking things that are fixtures in my home and making a story out of it so I’ve got this

Fedora that belongs to my son but I can imagine walking into the cottage Frank Sinatra walks in he has decked his hat his Fedora with a little bit of Holly that he just snipped from the Nelly Stevens Holly out front and then he hangs his hat as he walks in the door

And he’s singing Me A Christmas Carol so every little thing is a story to me and that’s what makes it meaningful if I could do nothing else if I could decorate in no other way and this is what what I mean about kind of accessible style and design my artwork

My paintings the things that had on I have on my on my wall they would be adorned with fresh Greenery from my garden so these are fresh clippings of aror and more Holly with berries that I can just walk out and I can snip and the

Advantage of that is is if it gets dry I can just replace it and I can put fresh Greenery in place the the other thing I like is that to the extent I can decorate the cottage with things that are natural that are garden inspired I

Don’t have a lot of things that I have to put into storage after the holidays are over I don’t have a lot of things to pack up these things are just literally compostable or they just go outside and I throw them into my flower beds and

They have a second life as mulch so I so I kind of like that but it also speaks to to the garden and how Trad traditionally over time people deck their halls with things from their Garden I also like the fact that they’re fragrant and that also makes the Christmas experience experiential so

They walk in the door and they can they can if I don’t have a live Christmas tree they nevertheless can uh they they can be welcomed by the scent of Evergreen foliage which is just so holidayish I have had several versions of this type of Christmas Tree

On my inspiration board my mood board for I don’t know how long some of them were in different shades of red some of them were in um really traditional Hues but for me I wanted it to be tone onone I want it to be gradations of blue and

Azure and and tones that evoke a concept of winter wonderland so for me this this story depicts a winter wonderland with the hanging icicles the frosted pine cones um the globular forms to me it all it really really speaks to that and the other thing I like about it is the

Airiness of it so this tree um there’s lots of negative space between each of of the segments of branching and what that does is it allows the natural light to filter through it also gives enough space around each Bobble like these clumps of grapes these are mercury glass very very

Old ornaments that I’ve had for a long time I can then appreciate that that ornament in its isolation but then in totality I can appreciate what it contributes to the Wonderland theme and the color palette color palette overall and this color palette is is inspired by

The tones in this room which are largely they’re blue some of them are deep navies some of them are inspired by The Jacobson painting over the mantle and what I love about that is even though the colors may be may vary in intensity nevertheless there is this kind of

Rhythm and repetition of these Hues throughout the space and I really really love that um I think I mentioned earlier that I I like my gift wrap to match whatever the Hue is of my theme and so in this case I have colors that are in

In Dusty snowy blues if you will and the bare branches of a sycamore tree and so they’re in in taupe colors one thing I always like to do it’s a signature Touch of mine and that is let the Christmas ornament be part of the story so this is

A winter Winter Wonderland theme so I have little fuzzy felt um and soft deer ornaments and reindeer ornaments that I have positioned so that it looks it looks as if they are looking up in awe and it does take some dexterity to get them just the way I want them but

They’re looking up in awe at the Winter Wonderland and the ice cream crystals if there was just an ice storm and then I also like to use those ornaments or those bobbles again whether they’re expensive or inexpensive to decorate the packages themselves this year I I kind

Of happened upon what’s a brilliant idea I was looking at things that would match the Thematic of a winter wonderland obviously snowflakes do so I found some snowflake piics that are like long wooden toothpicks that that I can use on the bar I could use on the appetizer

Table but I can also use them on my packages because they can then hold my equally as Wonderland snowflake uh gift tags and things like that so again nothing expensive nothing um nothing too valuable but nevertheless I love the way I just love the way it looks love Glitz

And glitter and and the reflection of that not in a tacky Gody way but in a way that illuminates things um and that’s true I think as a Decor principle whether it’s around the holidays or it’s any time of year that uh uh if something

Looks a little me if you’ve got a still life or a tablescape and it looks like it needs a little something then put some cut glass Crystal or put something metallic something brass something that will capture the light just the way I do out in the garden when I have some

Foliage of a plant that’s matte or some kind of foliage like the holidays right now that have a very glossy reflective quality the Winter Wonderland theme kind of continues on the Lightwood mantle and it’s all inspired Again by the Seascape over the mantle and the colors of this

Room so I just started looking at things that speak to my my kind of signature look one being I I love and I burn lots of taper candles I’m obsessed with taper candles and taper taper uh candlesticks so I’ve got a variation kind of a gradation of the colors in my taper

Candles that exist in the painting and I have also done that with just some little humble humble kind of bottle brush trees that I found I think I got those those at Target and then obviously I also want my stockings to match so this year because I have new members of

My family I have two new daughters-in-law I I needed to kind of flesh out my stocking uh inventory so now I have monogrammed stockings for my new daughter’s in-law and they are filled with things that speak to my Tableau in the colors in the little ornaments and

The characters the wildlife but also in the color palette down to that I have matched my candy canes my candies things like that to to the the my color Muse and it’s it’s I I think it’s appealing but it’s also practical because it’s the stockings are stuffed with things they

Really like like dark chocolate and little goodies like that I like to to wrap tiny little packages that match my other larger ones and just kind of like tuck them into into the stocking so I think that’s fun and then I think lastly we this is an English cottage but on an

Oklahoma Prairie and so I like things that kind of evoke the wind swept PLS and so I just gathered some leaves from my garden I spray painted them in my tonal colors and they’re just kind of scattered around the room as if they just blew in um and then as we as you

Either walk in the door or as you leave The Parlor then why not grab maybe oh a glass of champagne or something that I would have set out to either greet you or to welcome you into the rest of the cottage and so why don’t we then go into

The rest of the cottage starting maybe with the kitchen so one of the reasons that I was so attracted to this home in particular and one of the reasons quite frankly that I wanted to move from my English tutor house it was it almost had

Kind of a hunting lodge feel but it was very dark this is it has the best light so it’s really kind of the decor is to a certain extent dictated by the quality of light and whether it faces south or north um I really like an indoor outdoor

Aesthetic um I am a rabid Gardener after all so so views of the garden very important and as I would decorate I try to kind of um oh I guess compose the seating areas and the indoor vignettes if you will so that it maximized what you could see from inside out um what

Was really fun for me in moving to the cottage was that I was able I I think to really play with a whole different set of colors in the Crayola box so the quality of light here had much more of a gray tone to it so I really wanted to

Pick up on pale Blues turquoise tones and then happily it it was it was just perfect because the Jacobson painting that we have placed over the mantle which in my former home was in in a different place just looked perfect in this environment and it pretty much then

Was the inspiration that dictated the the cooler colors that are in here the icy Blues um it’s fun for me to play in the blue palette because I haven’t really done that before so in both my Christmas decorations and in the color palette the permanent color palette of

The Parlor it’s much more in the blue tonal ranges whereas just like ombre effects in the garden um it’s kind of a Continuum so as you head towards the back of the house the kitchen it’s still very light and bright but as you turn Corners as you go into the primary Suite

Or as you go back into the great room then it becomes much richer and Jewel tone the the quality of light I think calls for things colors that are a little bit richer and that speak to an aesthetic that I really like uh formerly I think we would have called that

British colonial now I would call it kind of Anglo as but it speaks to kind of the global fusion of all of the different things that we have in our house our love for travel uh my husband’s love for anthropology and archaeology and then certainly our love for books so just

Kind of depending on what the room the story that the room tells kind of dictates the Decor well if the kitchen is the heart of the home then you immediately upon entering the cottage into the Parlor then you come into the very heartbeat of the home the kitchen and I think one of the things that really speaks to me and that I was so attracted attracted to

This home originally was that the Parlor is flooded by light and because of its kind of open open Flow um floor plan all of that light by extension then floods into the kitchen and primarily upon this fabulous fabulous Island now kind of counterintuitively um right now I think

The trend in home decor is to have a lot more color in your kitchen and and not so much the white kitchen well I guess I’m usually counter to the trends because I moved from a kitchen that had much more color uh had green cabinets to this beautiful white gorgeous space

Which I love because it enhances the quality of the light and it also the White Walls um it just kind of gives a fabulous canvas I think upon which the art can play which is a big component whether it’s something a painting that’s massive like this painting of Monument

Valley that hangs behind the kitchen table or also just the smaller paintings that kind of that kind of have meaning to me um when you walk in what I kind of like about it is is even though this is an open floor plan nevertheless there’s still a sense of mystery because you

Can’t really see what is on either side of this entry that comes into this space so when you come in first and foremost as a great focal point you obviously see the massive uh Marble Island that has a with a real kind of convivial quality because there’s there’s um some wonderful leather strapped

Textural uh bar stools that you see when you come in so that’s kind of that’s kind of welcoming and then I have a focal point a seasonal focal point uh no matter what season it is it doesn’t matter as soon as I saw this island I thought Forever After into perpetuity

There will always be a gorgeous arrangement of flowers or something on this corner and interestingly when I thought that I Al also thought from a pragmatic standpoint that I was going to declare this a no dump Zone not only for my family but anybody who comes in so now everybody who enters

My home they know that this big expans which would typically be a magnet for people to just dump their person their keys their books their backpack I I have uh declared it a dumpf free zone so it is always open it’s always beautiful and it’s always here for ready visiting and

And ready dining so on the west side or as I’m standing to the right side when you walk in you wouldn’t really see that the kitchen table over here is actually a banket area and this has served us brilliantly and it’s also kind of one of

Those things that is an expression of I guess just how your tastes can change because here to before I had never really been a banket kind of person but when I saw this and I thought about how it could be styled I immediately was drawn to the coziness of this space and

To the fact that I could start using light tones in the wood in the wood furniture and the wood finishings and I got this table off of litfad not too long ago um about six months ago and then this is just a woven bench that I

Just love and believe it or not I got it off of Amazon so it it looks as if it all matches but it doesn’t look as if it is a dining room set which is an idea that I wanted to stay away from um I also because I like comfort and because

I spend a lot of time here either looking through cookbooks or reading or working or holding meetings I really wanted a chair that would be comfortable whether I was dining or not so this is an upholstered chair that um doesn’t have a whole lot of visual weight because it’s white which and definitely

Has been Scotch guarded but it’s also on rollers so I can turn I can visit with people people here I can visit here and I just like the fact that it’s a little more contemporary a little bit more mobile but imminently imminently comfortable and I like it that all the

Seating doesn’t match but it all is very cozy down to the things like the pillows that are stationed behind the table on the bankit and the colors really match and speak to the the Hues that are in This Magnificent painting and a lot of our artwork speaks

To uh the area from that we love the southwest and and the culture of the Southwest and the colors and the lights of the Southwest an easy easy Decor idea is to just buy fresh waths and if you have any kind of sconces or um let’s say

You like to hang a lot of plate or or something like that around your around your artwork then you just can hang over the existing piece a live wreath that let looks very festive but again it’s easy to discard after you’re finished and then I like the little punch of

Color in the berries that are kind of a a color Hue a color Echo to the colors in the painting and then because to me um Christmas is all about and the holidays are all about goodies and Indulgence and chocolate then why not again make something that you’re going

To have around the holidays and make it part of your holiday Decor so I love to go thrifting and practically all of the glass containers on this table were all thrifted or gifted and they just hold a variety of Confections that anybody who comes comes into my house feel free to

Take advantage of and then something else that’s a wonderful Decor item one of my signature touches is I’m known for topiary and so I love to use this rounded form that’s repeated in the wreaths of an IV topiary that I can have year round I just take off the decor

Elements and I’ve got it year round and then my my table won’t look so Barren after after after the big day and the big season is over and I can kind of have that beautiful sparse fresh after Christmas uncluttered look now on the opposite side of the room this is this

Is really kind of a discreet area because behind this cabinet I think it’s very clever there’s a widescreen TV we don’t lot watch a lot of TV but I do like to watch my cooking shows and stuff when I’m cooking so this is nice it’s very clean it’s very uncluttered it’s

Not in your face so I can kind of keep the TV hidden but it’s also there and then obviously I’ve got my my great cooking Zone here which has all of the things I need without me having to travel across town to get to my stove my refrigerator um my glasswar anything

Like that there are subtle little pieces of furniture that are sideboards that are carts that serve very very functionally and then highlight the workspaces now one of my favorite things that I have done this year in telling a story for the holidays is this wonderful linear shelf that really when you as

Soon as you walk in it draws your eye to the gorgeous gorgeous tile and I wanted to I wanted to honor this space with some Christmas decor so this is like this is a little village that I set up with some of these wooden Scandinavian trees that have been gifted to me or

That I’ve collected over time part of the story might be Santa is bringing me a topiary you can see that he’s holding that over his arm and then this just became a little Alpine Village that uh where the The Cutting Boards kind of replicate the mountains and the trees

Speak to the Flora and Fauna that would be in in the mountains and then it was kind of fun this is a fun very again accessible idea take Corks And then just stick a little bit of greenery in them and you can make little evergreen trees

That then contribute to and kind of fill out the forest you have complete with the little cottage church and the mountain Cottages that are up at higher elevations and then once you experience the kitchen then I would draw you forth into to the other areas of my home I am

Completely selftaught and it’s always important for me to let people know that because I would say my entire I had the word brand but I guess my entire message is that really good style really good personal expression both inside and outside the home not only in your garden

But in how you decorate your home and how you dress and comport yourself is all is is accessible it doesn’t have to be expensive it doesn’t have to be uh High design but it it can be thrifted it can be made uh but it does require a keen a keen degree of

Observation and attention to what a person really likes and doesn’t like and so for me and one of the things I love about homeworthy is that that one of the messages it communicates is that there’s not any one form of beauty there’s not any one form of style there are multiple

Right a right answers but there are certain design principles that help you convey and communicate that beauty that’s very personal which is kind of a long- winded way to say that for me it’s been a journey I actually have an MBA I was in the in the business world for a

Pretty long period of time I was a um an educational marke marketing consultant um I traveled around the country I didn’t get married till I and started a family until I was in my 30s and so um so my my work life had a had rather an

Abrupt transition and so I guess I like to think of myself as kind of a transition nista that tries to as I transition do it with style and grace while making a lot of mistakes along the way so when I when I got off of kind of the the workplace treadmill of the

Business world traveling a lot I was able to express the domestic side of me which had always fascinated me I’ve always loved plants I had always loved nesting and beautifying my surroundings and I I think then I had the luxury of time to express that and I

Needed A Creative Energy I needed a creative platform to do that and so I love the word shadin and so I would just I guess pretend like I was the shadin of my own home I was creating beauty and a and a creating a certain kind of

Domicile that appealed to me and that also was good and healthy for my family um and in a way where I could I could still Channel things that are are really important to me education and reading and language and communication and so I just started out by gardening

And the more I gardened the more people asked me to help them so then I started Consulting and the more I consulted the more I was asked to do things like a local TV segment and contribute to neighborhood and city and state events and my talents in that regard um I I had

Always done public speaking in my former career so that was something that I started doing if I could give advice to anyone who might be wanting to do the same thing is just say yes to everything and over time your platforms change when I started doing this it was all about TV

And things and now it’s about it’s about YouTube and streaming and podcasts and as the platform would change I just tried to be brave and um be willing to make mistakes and just transition with the the times and so YouTube became a way for me to develop friendships and relationships with other

People out there who like me may be going through a hard time or like me may be wanting to learn something and or like me who gets lazy and needs to be motivated or inspired and so it just turned out to just be unexpectedly just a wonderful way for me

To connect with people because I really feel very strongly right now that the world needs more community and and more relationship and more understanding and this and this gave me um I sound like an evangelist and I apologize but it it gave me it made me really be able to

Talk about things and and walk the talk about about establishing relationships and things so so it just it it progressed over time every year something new happens I never know what’s going to happen happen next it has helped me learn and try to age gracefully and to accept change with um

With equinity but with also a certain degree of style right off the kitchen we can head through a very very tiny little hallway I love the cottage because there’s really no wasted space here there’s no long unused hallways or or expanses of space and I also like the

Practicality of this because once you get to be a certain age you really like the fact that the kitchen is not at all far from the primary bedroom and bath so just a matter of steps from getting out of bed in the morning to my morning coffee and then I’m in my Bedroom so as I said just a few steps off of the kitchen is the primary bedroom it’s not really large but it definitely suits our needs I love the aesthetic I love love the aesthetic of this room I love the rich colors of the bedding I love the fact that the color

Palette begins to change it becomes a little bit more Rich The High bed definitely speaks to me of that kind of British colonial Colonial Anglo Indian um aesthetic it also speaks to the fact of something that I love and that’s the fact that my you know my son lives in

Singapore right now so it has kind of a Raffles Hotel kind of feel I think I love along with the fact that some of my most prized Furniture whether it’s old or new kind of looks like campaign furniture and campaign Furniture was the kind of very mobile furniture that uh

Military people would take with them so that they could readily set up a military campaign with little desks um surfaces things like that small chests and a lot of the wood then when you come through the room it has that kind of campaign feel in that it’s darker in

Tone it’s richer in tone it really coordinates beautifully I think with the different richer Hues that I’m using in here in terms of brick tones mahogany Cardinals burgundies and I really love that about this space I also here’s here’s kind of a tip something that I

Have learned now that I live in a cottage that is smaller than my previous home and that is to keep things fresh I change things out seasonally so as soon as the weather started getting cold I changed out my lamps before they were light Stone lamps and now they are rich

And brassy and I think they give that kind of warmth and reflective quality that so speaks to me of the colder Seasons um something that in in this room I’ve I’ve really got some things that are meaningful and sentimental to me so the bench that’s here at the foot

Of the bed this was a Mother’s Day gift it used to be an old beaten up rug that had a hole in it but I loved the colors of it and my husband and I for years we strategically placed the Furnishings in our living room around that hole in the

Rug but when we moved and when I wanted to use it in a different area then we just took it and we made a bench out of it and I have brought from the other home the other thing I like about reusing what you have is I’ve got these

Faux cisil rugs in here and in The Parlor and while the dimensions from the other house didn’t match the dimensions here we just had them cut down and rebound on the edge that needed revising and so we were able to use those use those again uh this area is really is

Especially meaningful to me so I’ve often said that the painting of this woman here who by the way was the famous mobile artist Alexander Calder this is a painting of his mistress that was taken many many years ago in the 30s and I love it because my husband got it for me

Again for another Mother’s Day gift because it very much looks like my mom who died at 36 and it’s very meaningful to me and if if something happened to the house and I had to grab three or four things this would definitely be something that I would grab this is a

Picture of Canyon dese or a painting of Kenyon deche one of our PL favorite places to go to to hike around and that speaks to the beauty the kind of rugged Beauty we find in the southwest and then I just you know I have other pieces that

Mean a lot to me Gigi Mills is is a recent uh a recent Obsession of mine I love this painting or this print rather we got it in Santa Fe we get lots of our artwork in Santa Fe so this space is just emblematic of things that make me

Feel warm and loved and cozy in the primary master bedroom and perhaps most most importantly is that I keep a picture of my of my boys by my bedside and then this goes into probably one of the most popular rooms in the house and laughingly we call the public bathroom

So I would say that my home is basically a a setting for my passions and and for my husband’s passions so for me that that would include gardening so there’s always always fresh flowers in my home there are always uh there are always books there are beautiful beautiful pieces of artwork that we’ve

Had for many many years I love the fact that it’s it’s not just an extension of my interest but it’s an extension of of my family’s interests over time so there’s lots of Wicker in my home for example a lot of things were handed down

To me from family members I come from a huge family I’m one of 10 children so there there are lots of things that speak speak to that handmade items things that uh that were gifted to me over time that are memories I like to bring in lots of garden design

Principles into my home and execute them in kind of Novel ways so uh layering is very important uh elevation is very important things at different points um in the verticality and the horizontal nature of my home so I want it to not only be appealing to adults that are my

Height but also to Littles who are smaller so that that kind of U attention to elevation is important to me I like things to be complex but but also Simply Elegant if that makes any sense and I like there to be enough negative space around beautiful things so you can appreciate

It in its beautiful isolation um but also that the totality of everything is very harmonious so that it makes sense and so if my home is a story I want that story to be continuous and not abrupt and so I I love um for example I

I I love a Ralph Lauren Vibe my husband is is very Earnest Heming way esque and so I I love that and I what I love about Ralph Lauren is the many iterations of the different stories he tells so in in one place that story might be Safari

Infused because that’s um because that’s something we love we went to Africa for our honeymoon and spent three weeks there my husband loves Great Plains Indian culture um but then in in the more paired down elegant spaces like in The Parlor I I really like that too so I

I am a person that needs different um I I don’t want everything to be the same but but I want it in some ways to tell a similar story and so that’s that’s what’s important to me I I like I like beautiful things but nothing

In my home is too precious um I maybe it’s because I grew up in a family of 10 and both of my parents were children of the depression there was great scarcity but in my life um if something breaks then to me shattered feelings are much more important than shattered Things well isn’t this fun so these doors are actually Windows to what once led to a massive porch and when they redid this space it it found a new life and it found a new life as an absolutely exceptional dramatic fabulous spa-like bathroom so upon entering the first

Thing you see is this wonderful freestanding tub and these absolutely fabulous Windows one of my favorite things about the house are these windows these wavy glass old old windows these Aras windows that I could open if I wanted to but I don’t now it’s it’s important that I point this out because

So many people I often refer to it as a public bathroom because so so many people come through here to see this bathroom space and because whenever I have guests everybody wants to take a bathroom in here now take a bath in here now maybe it’s because it’s at the foot

Of a Christmas tree because it’s illuminated by all sorts of lights and you can see the Christmas lights at night because it’s just really a magnificent space um and so we laughingly call it the public bathroom but it’s not so public that you can’t take a bath with privacy at night

Because there’s a remote control shade so indeed at night you can light the candles you can take a luxurious luxurious bath and and to make that happen over here underneath this absolutely spectacular Gallery wall of photographs that were taken by a very very dear friend of mine of Botanicals

From around the world again kind of garden inspired living I’ve got a table here and on the table I have decanted things like bath foam bath wash shampoo things of that nature uh bath salts and if they they just really want to indulge themselves then they can get in here and

Then of course there’s a there’s a little um table here teak table here if they have to have a glass of wine while they’re soaking in the tub or hot chocolate as the case may be when we hung the gallery wall every measure was taken uh to protect

Them from you know any Steam from the shower any humidity they are under glass they are of archival quality and they are they are so so meaningful to me again because they relate to the Garden but also to my deep and enduring friendship with my friends I like the

The fact that this has it has almost not only a a a Singapore and quality but kind of a bali Vibe my my uh kids and I after they got married and my husband we all went to Bali and so I took a lot of

Of touches I stole a lot of touches from the places we stayed in Bali down to things like the orchids in all of the rooms um and I I I just love that I love the language that that communicates a fun idea I I wanted to keep a blank

Space here some negative space next to the gallery wall um and I wanted to fill it with something vertical so enter a a clothing rack or a coat rack that I used here that we can use for towels that you can throw your bathrobe over it would be

Great in a closet where you are um you know you’re hanging up your suit or whatever for the day but here not only does it does it uh house or does it hold my monogramed towels and things but I have noticed this year that there’s a

Motif that I’ve been using over and over again maybe because I had to get new stockings for my new daughters-in-law and that’s just stockings in general so while these damask stockings didn’t match the color palette in The Parlor they definitely matched the color palette and kind of the vibe in this

Bathroom so why not hang stockies stockings filled with all sorts of wonderful luxurious toiletries and things in your bathroom and then of course there’s a massive massive shower that is almost like when we first moved in I thought oh it’s almost like we live

In a in a hotel or in a resort and at Christmas time at the holidays no matter the size of the shower or the bath I always like to hang eucalyptus on the shower head because you get a little touch of aroma theapy therapy for the

Holidays well I love this Asian stool I I wish I could give you more information about its provenance but I really can’t all I know is that it was in the showroom of my husband’s office Furnishing business and when when he was cleaning out his office and moving

Locations I said it shall be mine and it fits in I think perfectly with this kind of Balan vibe that we’ve got going in here and I ALS also love I I also love the colors of the rug very very rich and it speaks to both the burgundy tonal

Qualities that I’ve got going in this part of the house but also the lighter blues and things that are in the other parts other parts of the house I I actually got this on eBay so um when we first moved into the cottage it was like

Rug roulette okay what rug do I want to wear and what will most beautifully en and kind of synergize the message of what I’m trying to do so I love it I love this bathroom I Envision maybe having parties in here with some of my girlfriends where we get manicures we

Get a massage um we drink bubbly I just think it would be really really fun and and I guess that’s why we call it the public bathroom but now I think I need to maybe take you to a less intimate space so next why don’t we go into my

Office well I when it comes to Holiday Decor I am I fall in the kind of absolutist camp that there is a very very strong distinct line between Thanksgiving and fall and and Christmas Hanukkah in the holiday season so I really don’t like the overlap of them I

Really like each each I love both of them in such different ways that I each want I want each of those holidays and those Seasons to have their own integrity if you will and so I am someone that does not start my holiday decorating until after Thanksgiving now do I start

My holiday planning in advance oh yes I keep an inspiration board in my office where I have kind of a mood board of how I want to express the holidays in that year um but it differs slightly obviously it differs this year because I’m in a different Loc

But it kind of depends on my life informs the decor so if I’m going to be spending it in Colorado with my son it might have a certain flavor um I might go out all out more or less depending on if I’m going to be traveling over the

Holidays um since my son and daughter-in-law live in Singapore now there’s more of of a flavor an Asian flavor to it perhaps than there’s been in the past so my family life dictates certain things just right around the corner from my office if you go through

This kind of it’s more like a vestule than a hallway though I do have it kind of decorated for the holidays um you come past a closet that I use for you know just kind of my China things like that and I’ve got other pieces other works of

Art in the hallway and then you just come into my workspace face and I this is I love about this and I I think that kind of the theme for this is in terms of not only my my work life but but uh also kind of How It’s decorated for

Christmas is that it is childlike because I think creativity is all about channeling your inner child and seeing things in a fresh fresh new way I love this space and I’ll tell you why it’s because I’ve got the these great great Windows it faces East I love the light

Coming through here but mostly I love sitting here in my office and I can hear in the morning and I can see the little kiddos in my neighborhood walking to school and coming home from school with their with their parents or on their bikes it’s so much fun there’s a great

Public school just down the street from me and so it’s very uh it’s it’s like watching a movie again it’s like living in a Norman Rockwell painting so it’s also kind of a multi-generational room because while I am sitting at my desk to look at the kids I am appreciating the

Fact that the desk belonged to my great-grandfather it was when we when we were cleaning out my folks house we saw it down in the basement it was covered with dust and everything it didn’t need refinishing but nevertheless I I once again I thought oh that shall be mine

And fortunately my nine siblings were okay with that so I have had it in various offices over the years and another thing I love about it again is not only the sentimentality of it but the practicality of it because unlike a lot of desks you might purchase right

Now this one is really large and it’s massive so I can spread out all of my stuff and I can really I can really go deep and do deep work on this large desk and then of course I can see uh from my desk while I’m sitting there I can see

Out the window so the again nothing in here is overly valuable other than save the desk these are just Ikea Billy bookcases that we installed and they’ve been brilliant for me because they can house all of my garden books my garden library and other things that are really

Really precious to me I have lots of old Wicker in here and this old wicker well I guess it’s precious it’s very precious to me it belonged to my mom and it consists of pretty much three pieces I’ve got this very very long I guess you

Would call it maybe a sofa table that belonged um it was in the sun room at at my growing up house and I love it because this is where I can put some of my prized topiaries right now I wouldn’t be a gardener if I didn’t have lots of

Amarillis bulbs getting ready to to go into bloom so I can stage my amarillis my topiaries and they get wonderful wonderful light and then because as I said I get lots of visits from Littles who come in here and they um they make me artwork they make me um they they

Make they just little goodies for me so I kind of wanted to to dress it up for them so I’ve got ho ho ho Garland uh Greenery most of the ornaments in here are small wooden toys I also like to use Christmas decorations in not only

Innovative ways in kind of the decor but also in my plantings so why not use some kind of wood Garland as a mulch for your amarillas um and maybe just again make kind of a story out of it so this is kind of like a um um a little wooden

Village for for the kids and I’ve got my token little reindeers again who are who are get hazing up at what’s going on so it’s very efficient um I’ve got a Cedar Chest that’s off of it so I can I can kind of store some of my files and

Things that aren’t quite so appealing to look at um but lastly and perhaps most importantly one of the things that I added when we moved in here were these massive massive corkboards so this is where I come up with my ideas my inspiration um I love the fact that when

We moved into the cottage so many people gifted me with some kind of cottage motifs so a friend of mine in Belgium made this beautiful line drawing of the cottage on the hill a friend of mine needle pointed me a little ornament and so this is where I had all of my

Christmas inspiration and now slowly it’s fading to things that will be planted my color palette for the garden this year but I love it because it it just infuses me with ideas and a place to express them not an expensive idea but definitely something that’s really

Really valuable to me as I work well I guess I should I should maybe explain when I talk about the littles that come into my home or the children that come into my home I am not a grandmother yet but I live on a street that has it’s so

Young there are I mean you could throw a rock and you could you could hit a kid because there’s it’s just such a lively Lively neighborhood so I would say everyone there’s so many baby carriages all the way up to you know Elementary School and and Beyond and these because

It’s such a walking neighborhood there’s a sidewalk that runs in front of my house I have met so many of these kids and they have become a part of my life so because the cottage is kind of a magical place they’re drawn to it and so

They they may come over to show me their the dress that they’re wearing that day or they want to come over because they want to see the butterflies because I I have lots of pollinator attracting plants in front and they come over and they want to see the pollinators um and

And the flowers that are attracting them and so when they come over I try to make that into maybe a little mini lesson okay these are the butterflies this is what they’re attracted to here’s how you collect seeds um here is how you you scatter the seeds do you want to take

Some of them home with you I even have seed packets that I’ve made uh specifically for them so they can collect the seeds and they can color them they’ve got a line drawing on them and they can color the seed packets and so I’m just so fortunate that my

Neighbors have these kids that they are willing to share with me that enrich my life and then my my my dear dear friend who lives in the neighborhood one of the reasons I moved here her grandchildren live on my street so they come by and

They shout at me and they call me Miss Linda and they are um they’re every they’re here as often as any adults and they come over and they just knock on the on the cottage door and so when they when they come to visit the cottage I

Just want to have things that Delight them and and I think about that as I’m decorating my house both for the holidays and Beyond and then in turn they do sweet things for me and they make little watercolors they draw things for me they draw pictures and so I even

Though I don’t have grandchildren or young children anymore I have a constant rotation of their artwork and I a lot of times will trade a hug for a watercolor or a piece of artwork and it just it’s it’s one of the reasons I wanted to move to this

Neighborhood because it enriches my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined and a richer life is a better life so now let’s let’s move on to the great room yeah I think what gives a a home a soul is is the the nature of the personalities the people the interests

The lives of the people that go in and out of it and that energize the space and so for me I guess the soul is just basically the nature of the of the people who come and go through it of their interests of their passions of of

The things that make them happy and the things that make them sad and it’s not just family it’s it’s just kind of a a I don’t know a cohesion of of all of the of the energies that come in and out of the house both both good and bad highly

Textured and I guess that’s what it that’s what it is to Me well in my home and in my garden I love to have places that I call gasp worthy so when you walk into a place and you’re kind of uh of amazed and odd either because it’s completely unexpected or because it’s just so beautiful or the light falls a certain

Way and definitely I think the great room falls into that category because it’s at the back of the house where I have the laundry room there’s another guest bedroom back here and it’s definitely the place it’s a Gathering Spot it’s a Gathering Spot not just for our visitors and our guests and our

Extended family when they come but it’s also just kind of the Gathering Spot for my husband and myself because this in the winter time is where we have our cup of coffee now when we when we moved to the cottage I had a number of musthaves

On my list and one of those musthaves was a wood burning fireplace because to me there is it’s some of the best money you can ever spend is to have a wood burning fireplace great secrets are told around a fireplace whether it’s inside or outside and I just think it’s

Imminently romantic and it’s it’s romantic in a way that I think the rest of the room is romantic this is very much a Ralph Lauren um uh Ernest Hemingway kind of vibe my husband is into anthropology and archaeology we travel a lot it speaks to our passions the gallery wall that you

See when you walk in from the back door is largely populated with maps that we have of all of the places that we’ve that we have traveled around the world and I love that idea because it’s a really it’s a really easy thing to bring

Back as a souvenir so we buy the map where we are and then we bring it back and we position it according on the gallery wall so a lot of these things are are images maps of things that are near and dear to us um Colorado where my

Son lives Africa where we honeymoon for an extended period of time um just beautiful photographs of places that we have visited and the room is spacious so you can not only feel cozy but you have a place that you could appreciate all of the the different layered goodies that

We have tried and energy that we’ve tried to infuse in the room um it houses largely if my garden library is in my office this room primarily is um is decorated with things that are the books the toms the maps that are near and dear

To my husband’s heart so on the far wall opposite the fireplace there’s a really magnificent set of bookcases that look very old they’re actually reproductions of some legal office bookcases that would have been in an old timey law office and they have some of our most precious books some of our most

Valued uh photo albums um different little artifacts that my husband and myself have gathered over the years so that belong to family members I we love using things again in practical ways that are inherently beautiful so there are racks and horns that hang on the walls that then also serve as Hat Racks

Or in this case um to hold some holiday Decor one of the few changes we made when we moved to the cottage in terms of of kind of a structural component this had a very large kind of uh 50s vintage plate glass window that to us in no way

Communicated the Vintage of the house nor did it communicate the indoor outdoor life that we that we like to leave to lead so we replaced that door with four casement windows that we can open and shut my husband is a man that loves to have a breeze on his face so we

Can sit in his kind of in his dad chair and he can smell he can smell what’s going on outside he can smell the wood fire whether it’s indoor or out and it also is just provides an excellent Vantage Point into the back Gardens so when we moved here there was nothing

Here we redid the outside we completely redid the gardens in the front but we also created and planted an outdoor living room in the back so in the back we have um a solo fire pit I have raised garden beds where I can grow my Edibles

And there’s a great big Mosaic of a brick patio back there that again it’s just kind of an outdoor living room so this suits all of our needs again I said we’re we’re not B big TV Watchers but for the first time in our lives we have a space that’s large enough to

Accommodate a bunch of people if they want to come over and watch a football game or uh or a Christmas movie and we can be outside and hear that football game because we’ve got the casement windows open and it’s that indoor outdoor that fine line between living in

The outdoors and living in the indoors the the slip covers are white yes but they have um they’ve been treated so that they’re very soil resistant we’ve had them for years and years and then I have just tried to kind of zaz them up with different things that are highly

Textured they may be embroidered they may be applique they may be a piece of a rug and they just add to the feel of this that is uh very Anglo Asian and then lastly I think you know in in addition to the touches of things like leopard prints and animal prints and and

Plaids and things with which by the way are not only repeated in the accessories but also even in my gift wrapping um what what Herman uh Ernest Heming Weis place would it be if I didn’t have a full bar so there’s a full bar here that

We keep and this is I’ve got little battery operated lights scattered throughout the house and then depending on the theme of our entertaining someone can come in they can fix themselves a cocktail they can pour themselves a bourbon and it’s right inside the door coming in from the back entry but it’s

Also right inside the entrance when you’re coming in from another part of the house and you might want to escape with um with a beverage in front of a warm fire to kind of really experience the sentiment and the Huga of of the season so that’s the great room

We love it we love it as a place to gather but we also like it as a place um for solitary reflection mostly just comfort and coziness well in the past I would say that home is where my people are uh my family is but now my family is

Farflung and lives all over the world and so it can’t be just where my family is but it has to be maybe where my by extension my community is and it has to be the the the nucleus of my world and the things that are important to me so

My home is at the very core and it’s the place that people are attracted to it’s the place my family is attracted back to where my neighbors are uh feel welcome where anybody that enters my Orbit feels welcome it’s a place of security it’s a place of beauty it’s a place of respit

And it’s a place of renewal and sustenance so that’s what that’s what a home means to me a place that I can leave but that I can I can come back to to be refreshed and renewed thanks for watching go to homeworthy domcom for exclusive content and shopping guides