Articles

Who doesn't love a cracklin' wood fire - the smell, the warmth, the ... Wait, a fire is a lot of work. Growing up in Portland, we had a pot belly stove in our living room, a precursor to the small Scandinavian wood stoves available now. Every fall, it was a family event to pile a cord (or more) of wood in preparation for winter fires. The stove was our secondary source of heat as we only had electric baseboards. The first houses Phillip and I bought had wood fireplaces and

Could a 12th century cathedral altar inspire us in the 21st century? John and Jim were in Cefalu, Scilly last week and sent this photo of a Byzantine mosaic altar, all in 24 k gold. Mosaics are almost as old as civilization, dating back to early to middle Bronze Age, roughly 5,000 years ago. This altar got me excited about how mosaics still play a part in our rooms today. Let's do some more traveling before we take a look. john&jim John & Jim : "Yesterday, we drove to Rag