Take Me to the Movies for Design Inspiration!

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I love movies.

If I am having a stressful day, writer's block or decorating block, I sometimes will close up my officePhoto Courtesy of Universal Pictures. (advantage of being your own boss!) pick up my purse and head to a movie.  The total escape always reshapes my attitude.  Even when I worked in the corporate world, I would often give my staff a mental break in the middle of the afternoon and take them all to a movie.  Of course, I was their favorite boss!

A good friend from LA came for a visit a couple of weeks ago.  She was coincidently one of my "staff" who learned early in her career, the benefits of sneaking out to a movie midday.  Now she is all grown up and is a successful NBC Universal vice president and I am very proud of her accomplishments.  One of her responsibilities is dealing with product placement and sponsorship in the theme parks and movies.  It is a great job and being in LA, she is immersed in all things Hollywood.  So, our conversation always turns to movies.

This time to the talented Nancy Meyers, the wonderful writer/director who gave us It's Complicated (see kitchen above), Something's Gotta Give, Father of the Bride and more.  Her movies are an interior decorator's dream.  She creates rooms that we love.  They make us want to walk right in and sit down.  They are as beautiful as a

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Antique Market Find: Discovering a neglected treasure and bringing it back to life

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It was a very sad, shabby cabinet that had been propped up in the dirt.  Almost an afterthought.  Neglected, it looked like it had all but given up being noticed, much less purchased.   No one even stopped to think of the possibilities.  In all fairness, it had lots of competition in the acres of treasures at Renningers Antique Market in Mt. Dora this past weekend.  But this was its lucky day and mine.

The nice vendor said that it was a very old medicine cabinet that he had taken out of a farmhouse in Alabama that was facing demolition.  He was only asking $30.  We did not try to deal.  We knew we had something special.

My husband, a miracle worker at bringing old pieces back to life, could restore this primitive piece back to its earlier days.  Inside there were marks from medicine bottles. Upon cleaning off the layers and layers of dirt and taking it apart, a label on the back of the mirror revealed that it was over 100 years old.  After some minor repairs and cleaning up the original hardware, careful not to remove any of the remaining paint, it almost beamed with thanks for saving it.

It now hangs proudly on the cottage bathroom wall of a collector of all things shabby and primitive (me). Someone who appreciates its peeling paint, distressed wood and deep nooks for treasures.  It is a treasure itself.  Purchased from the nice vendor who did not recognize the gem that he brought from Alabama to Mt. Dora so we could take it home and give it a new life.