Fire Pit Under an Awning: Heat Goes Straight Up
My sister Marnie walked onto my back porch two winters ago, took one look at the little steel fire bowl I’d hauled up from the yard sale on Wheaton Street,…
Two Chandeliers, One Room: Grand or Gaudy?
Carla stopped dead in my dining room doorway last spring, took one look up, and said, “Isla. Why are there two chandeliers in here. Did one multiply.” She wasn’t wrong…
A Bed Without a Headboard: Bare but Fine?
I own four headboards right now, and not one of them is attached to a bed. There’s an iron one, curled at the top like a fern about to unfurl,…
Coal in a Chiminea: Hotter Than Wood
The reputation coal has around chimineas is that it’s basically wood’s hotter cousin, same fire, just turned up a notch, and you can just swap one for the other without…
Round Rug, Rectangle Table: Odd Couple?
I own seven rugs right now. Seven. Two are rolled up under the porch getting slightly damp because I haven’t dealt with them, one has been in the back of…
Layering a Rug Over Carpet the Designer Way
I own eleven rugs. Eleven. I counted them properly last week while looking for a runner I was sure I still had, laid them all out mentally room by room,…
Concrete Fire Pits: Great Look, Hidden Trap
I think about my fire pit more than is probably normal for a grown woman with a real job. Four nights a week, minimum, March through November, I am out…
Not All Bricks Survive a Fire Pit
Corinne stood in my backyard last Tuesday, hands on hips, looking at the pile of brick I’d hauled home over about six weekends, and said, “Isla. Some of those look…
Fire Pits on Porcelain Tiles: Tough, but Not Invincible
I torched a two hundred dollar paver with a forty dollar fire bowl, and the worst part is I stood there and watched it happen like it was somebody else’s…
Pendant Lights in a Bathroom: Where They Can and Cannot Go
I once dragged a genuinely beautiful milk glass schoolhouse pendant halfway across three counties, got it home, and hung it directly over my clawfoot tub before I’d thought through a…