I hear that back home it’s still just as warm as when we left in mid-August. It has me very much inspired to do a Fall refresh of our flat in France — California style.
When you live in a new country every ten months, you quickly realize that money spent on your flat isn’t always the most practical. My husband reminds me of this daily. Sometimes he forgets that just because we aren’t “home”, doesn’t mean that we can’t do small, relatively inexpensive things to make our flat feel like a home — not just temporary living.
I spent my birthday perusing a local flower shop ( he was out of town for work, so it felt a little bit like Christmas going buck-wild in my favorite kind of store ) , and found a few things I knew would brighten our home, and get us ready for a beautiful Fall season in France. — You should know now that my favorite base color for a home is WHITE (love me some pops of purple though). Save your time giving me the “white isn’t a color” yip yap, its a color in my home always. So you won’t find many traditional Fall colors cluttering up my bright space. In small doses these are OK, but good lord I don’t need to be looking at mustard yellow, orange-red, and brown in my flat for the next two months. I prefer those colors outside, in the trees, where they’re bold and beautiful and meant to be.
On that note, let’s keep it white and bright for a few more months. Check out these adorable cacti I found (1 euro a piece!), and the opal vessels. These three cuties are handmade ceramics I found at a consignment-like shop here in France (6 euros each), but shop the link below for similar vessels on Etsy. The cacti are an homage to my husband for two reasons:
- He’s from Arizona, so it’s like having a little piece of home clustered on our dining room table — those little guys are just about all the Arizona I’ve got in me … that kind of heat can’t be good for you.
- If they’re on our dining room table, that leaves one less spot for me to purchase new flowers for each week. No crabbiness coming my way for the “unnecessary roses on the table every week” (his words, not mine, obviously). 3 euros for an entire year of beauty. Ballin’ on a budget, baby.
I chose a white orchid for my medium-sized white planter ($3.99 at ikea — they have varying sizes too), because 1. I like white, duh. 2. I can throw some holiday-inspired candles on the side table with it, and voilà! We’ve got a festive flat.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS, but I just need the tacky holiday decorations to be kept at a minimum.
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