Snow at the Homestead!

Love how the snow glistens on the architectural details, making then stand out even more!

Here at the Brayton Homestead,  our house particularly shimmers with this lovely white coating in the recent snow storm. Historic houses like ours, built in the Federal period, have architecture that features clean simple lines and are symmetrical in design.

Thanks for visiting the Brayton Homestead...

Skates, my favorite winter door accent

We are anticipating over a foot of snow here in Massachusetts. We expect that at least once a season in New England, but that does not mean we welcome it. It is charming to look out the homestead windows.But someone has to shovel it!  In this post I am sharing some older pics where I decorated the homestead with ice skates. My go- to winter icon in decorating my doors is vintage skates. My front door here boasts black skates with a plaid scarf , silver balls and silver stars. The silver reflects nicely with a spot light directed on it. 

I painted these skates picturing a snowman on a blustery day for my friend for Christmas a few years ago.A bit of fur and glitter sparkle placed in front of the fireplace. 

I am not a gifted skater but plan to try it again this winter. I should probably stick with watching the skating competitions, but am going to try.

Here, I simply added big red pompoms to the white skates. They remind me of  the red fur pompoms I had on my skates as a girl. A little fake snow was attached with a glue gun and accented with red check ribbon bow. A great bonus for decorating with ice skates is that you can keep them up all season long.

Stay warm and

thank you for visiting the homestead.

Karen

Linking with these great blogs:

Savvy Southern Style,

Elizabeth & Co.,

Dwellings the Heart of the Home,

My Uncommon slice of Suberbia, 

Coastal Charm

my Tutorial to make a Patriotic table centerpiece

Happy Fourth of July from all at the Brayton Homestead. 

It is an especially fun holiday to decorate for. This season it started with the bottom half of my dad's

rusted tackle box. If you do not have a tackle box, a wood box, ceramic dish or white

ironstone tureen would be great.

I have held on to that box for decades! A few pots  of pansies right in their plastic containers went in first,  white then red then white, 3 square pots in all.  

Then I added dollar store flags in each pot. Not liking that I could see the plastic of the pots, I cut a strip of read check gingham cotton fabric and places it around all three pots, tucking it in a bit but not enough to get wet when I watered it.

I forgot to mention that I took a few plastic cups of rocks from my stone driveway and placed them in the bottom of the tackle box. I would recommend using clean rocks, white or grey, available by the bag in many craft stores. 

The homestead, circa 1796 begs to be dressed with red white and blue, and is easy to

decorate. A small addition of color as in this tackle box patriotic arrangement could fit in any room in your home.

Hope you enjoyed...

Linking with these great blogs:

Thank you for visiting the Homestead,

Karen

Memorial Day at the homestead

Greetings from my homestead! 

I have been so busy for the last few months. It has been a whirlwind of excitement since my home was featured in the Home Tour edition 

COUNTRY SAMPLER MAGAZINE... 

My Memorial Day weekend was quiet but nice, mostly planting flowers and getting ready for a season of outdoor entertaining and fun! My decorating this year was very simple. My favorite woven planter on the ed 

front door with all white petunia flowers. All in one pot, placed easily in the wicker basket.

My old buggy/ sleigh seat that usually goes out only in the winter months found it's way on the front steps.

My copper trim under the door is aging with a great verdigris patina. Because the

 original base trim is 216 years old and cannot be removed I covered it with copper

to protect it. The trim is partially underneath the original door frame and would be very 

difficult to take out, and of course I would not want to. 

Have a great week!

Thank you for visiting the Homestead,

Karen

Our Homestead Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. I hope yours is to! Turkey was yummy, 
Mom's recipe for Portuguese stuffing was almost reached, gets closer every year. 

I did get a great thumbs up from Mom, now 91! Always so encouraging.

Plaids were the table theme this year and my sister's glitter turkey!

Mom fills the wood nut bowl she gave me every year, a Doyle tradition.

The tablecloth I just bought at Christmas Tree Shop worked out great. 

Feathers and  beaded fruit hang from the light fixture by plaid ribbons, so easy to do for easy ambiance. Every loved it- a new  tradtion!

Karen

Plaids for decorating

Never realized I used so many plaids at Christmas,

especially in my kitchen.

and plaid-like textiles in the mudroom

plaid scarf on men's skates for the outside door... 

checks in the study

thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed and have a  Merry Christmas,

linking with these great blog parties:

  COLORADOLADY 

2805

AT THE PICKET FENCE

COMMON GROUND

FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE

THE CHARM OF HOME

Karen

IMAGES : all Brayton Homestead Interiors

PAINT YOUR OWN SKATES: easy tips to paint YOUR HOME portrait

It is very cold here in Massachusetts! Only had a sprinkling of snow last week, but enough to make me reminisce and want to grab my ice skates and go to the Somerset marsh and skate.

Here are the basic steps I use to create the skate.

These are my handpainted ice skates., painting of the Brayton Homestead, of course.  I painted them in a primitive style- aka- giant snowman the size of a house. 

 First I painted the skates entirely with white paint, including blades and lace openings. I sketched the house on one piece of paper, the snowman on another, cut around the edges of 

each and kept moving the shapes around until I liked it. Then traced the shapes.

I made a straight line with a little curve for the snow, painted a deep blue around the house and snowman, even the lace openings, the painted in details. Remember in this naive primitive style, you are not looking for perfection! I glazed over the snow and the snowman with a thinned out gold paint and completed the skates with a gingham check fabric scrap for laces and a hand painted bells as snowmen.

Try painting your house! 

You can always take a photograph and trace it-

 Let me know if you have any questions.

stay dry and warm and thanks coming by the homestead.

Karen

IMAGES: all Brayton Homestead Interiors

FALL_ AT MY HOMESTEAD

Well, The Frost is certainly on the pumpkin in Massachusetts!

finally posting pics of the homestead dressed for Fall

and it snowed here the other day!...

I just painted my door red, It is less pink in person.

I used the same stain that I covered the fence I had made

last year- see post.

I have also added copper along the bottom of the house. 

The original wood work form 1796 was getting bad and it cannot be replaced as in it part of the base of the house. I love the verdigris patina it is developing. 

Linking with:

IT'S A VERY CHERRY WORLD

  THE HOUSE IN THE ROSES

thank you, 

Karen

IMAGES: Brayton Homestead Interiors

AN APPLE A DAY: MY COUNTRY KITCHEN

Thanks for visiting the Brayton Homestead!

here is my Fall table setting for a family get together... 

an old linen tablecloth. I just started to use my vintage linens.

kept thinking I should save them for another occasion. Now I think that all diners are special

and deserve beautiful linens. 

Somerset, Ma, where I live in the big old homestead,

is known for making pottery. The section in town where the pottery was made is called

"Pottersville" 

I am lucky to own a piece of Somerset pottery, here filled with apples.

It is so easy to put together a simple table. I did not even need to purchase flowers just put the

paper mache apples into the crock

don't they look real?

another view, this time to the kitchen fireplace, with a garland a sugared apples...

Hope you enjoyed , and remember to try to make each meal feel special.

Linking to these fab blogs:

FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE

THE CHARM OF HOME

A HOUSE IN THE ROSES

LAURIE ANNA'S VINTAGE HOME

WHITE WEDNESDAY

IT'S A VERY CHEERY WORLD

 SAVVY SOUTHERN STYLE

THE BRAMBLEBERRY COTTAGE

2805

and

KNICK OF TIME

Images: all Brayton Homestead Interiors

WELCOME: MY INTERIOR DESIGN WEBSITE IS LAUNCHED!

Welcome to

BRAYTON HOMESTEAD INTERIORS

Blog

I am so glad you visited.

Here on my blog I journal about my Interior Design business,

the ongoing restoration of the Brayton Homestead, family, friends and my yorkie Krumpet.

My Interior Decorating website

http://www.braytonhomesteadinteriors.com/

has just been launched!

it is also named

Brayton Homestead Interiors

the website.

the website is just for my decorating business.

Here can see examples of my interior design work.

Hope that you come to visit and would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank You,

Karen

Images: all Brayton Hometead Interiors