5 Tips to a Room That's You

1. Favourite Outfit to Room

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Summer Sales Equal Fall Wardrobe

My best friend's mom is a shopping guru...she used to be a shopper for a department store... a very savvy woman who knows the $value in planning ahead. I always thought she was addicted to her work--- nice work if you can get it by the way. Yes, well the thing I learnt from her is that if you shop the summer sales you end up having Christmas gifts at the ready and also fall fashion on the cheap. The trick when shopping for summer sale clothes to wear in the fall is to go for classic pieces that can be worn year after year. Avoid summer fashion trends they most likely will not be relevant in the fall. So hit up instyle.com's resource page and start surfing and planning.

It's also a good idea to use up the fall colour palette when pulling an outfi together and don't forget rings and tings...girl can't doll-up without a few trinkets so add a few cocktail rings and blings to your basket.

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A Variation on Jamaican Saturday Soup

Roasted Vegetables and Squash Soup

Dig out your cast iron pot...

And Enjoy.

Friday Night Vegging and Sunday Morning Letters

It's the weekend...

Don't you just think that some Friday nights should be spent vegging-out in front of the TV? Sure a cocktail or two would be nice but some Sex and the City re-runs could be just as nice. I am thinking about hanging out around my couch tonight. What about you?

Friday........Room 227 Re-Runs Anyone?

Saturday...forget dinner and movie...try this instead

Sunday... Send a Letter (Not an Email!) Victorian Style to a Dear Friend

Single Girl Living Room

All the Single Ladies...All the Single Ladies

I really do feel that we shouldn't limit ourselves as women. I have a super smart friend who went out and bought a house last year and one of her greatest torments seemed to be that if she decorated the house to suit her tastes then she would be alienating prospective beaus--she's single. My instinct is--and I told my friend as much--when a woman is single she needs to suit herself in every aspect of life. Man be damned! Seriously, the idea is to make yourself happy and then everything else will fall into place. I never heard a man say that he couldn't buy a ginormous flatscreen TV because it would scare away prospective belles.

So go on, do up your home, your apartments, your little "one-room", like its nobody's business but yours!

Chattel House

Chattel Houses: A Dream Vacation Home…

A vacation home: what should it look like? What should it have? Honestly, anything you want. A bed, no bed, a chair, some bricks topped with some down cushions…I just think the ultimate vacation home should transport you to another frame of mind. It should be your idea of relaxation and leisure.

I think Chattel Houses are a great idea for a beautiful vacation home. Meanwhile, my best friend thinks am crazy... I love these colourful homes and the reason they are so perfect is that they are already built and some nice island villager may just agree to sell it to you at the right price. So then all that’s left to be done is for you to call the moving truck and plop the house down on a ½ acre or so of a picturesque patch of countryside or balmy bluff that overlooks a beach. English Garden in the sun anyone? But as you know in the Caribbean we do get some seriously strong hurricanes and to adopt one of these beauties as a home today would require serious reinforcements. But with a good architect and some creative engineering and design instincts it is feasible.

Here are 10 things about Chattel Houses that will help to convince you that I am not crazy and that this idea is feasible.

 Present in almost all Caribbean Islands: The word “chattel” is used in the common law legal system to refer to private or personal property as opposed to real property (real estate); in the civil law legal tradition it is used to mean movable property which was not sold with the land like two cows, a donkey and a couple roosters and hens, for example.

 Movable Property: So Chattel Houses are movable houses in both civil law and common law legal systems? Yes! So in Barbados (common law) and St. Lucia (mixed civil and common law) you could buy a chattel house as a vacation home? Right!

 Originally Used by Slaves and Plantation Workers: These small brightly-coloured houses were set on blocks or rocks and were used to house slaves and later plantation workers.

 Easily Dismantled: It is also true that these houses were originally built using pegs and not nails so that they could be easily dismantled (now of course they're built with nails). Since the plantation workers couldn’t afford the land or the land tax associated with the property they were keen to be able to have a house that they could easily move from one lease-holding to another. Plus, it did help too that if the plantation owner fired you, you could just pack-up, call a donkey and moving cart and call it a day. Genius! No? So imagine how useful they became to plantation workers who could be fired and ordered off the land where they lived without a word’s notice. Perfect recession houses.

 Somewhat Hurricane Resistant: The roofs on these homes were built quite steeply so that the rain could easily seep off and, if you look closely you’ll see that most of the roofs of most of the chattel houses are built with corrugated metal. In Jamaica we just say “zinc roof”---utility here is (supposedly) that the corrugated roofs withstand not just heavy rains but high winds also. Well it does…to an extent it lessens the impact of hurricanes and the slope must have prevented the roofs from blowing off too quickly in hurricanes. Later more modern roofing systems have been used to replace “zinc” roofs on Chattel Houses. The corrugated metal was also used to make additions to the houses, or even fencing around property (and is still used as such today).

 Two or Three Rooms: A typical chattel house is quite modest in terms of square footage and number of rooms. The houses were usually one or two rooms and sported beautiful ornate fretwork, miniature jalousie windows and front patios with carved wooden banisters. If you buy an old Chattel House it will likely have one main room used as a living room, a small bedroom, a little kitchen and a bathroom. Yes, well hello: what else could you possibly need in a vacation home?

 More Commonly Found in Barbados: Most Chattel Houses will be found in Barbados, St. Kitts and Antigua and a few other Eastern Caribbean Islands. You will find more Chattel Houses in Barbados because Barbados is less prone to hurricanes than the other islands.

 Buy one today for 60,000 USD: Original Chattel Houses that have been passed down from generation to generation can be purchased today and are reasonably priced (anywhere from 5,000 USD to 60,000 USD). Of course the price depends on the integrity of the structure (e.g. the condition of the wood), the square footage of the property and the number of rooms it has.

 Build One From Scratch: You can also build a new Chattel House (buy some beautiful Guyanese purpleheart wood and get a good local architect and contractor to do your bidding). A newly built Chattel House could cost anywhere between 15,000 USD and 40,000 USD.

 Sold in Local Papers: The classified ads in the local newspapers are a great starting point in finding a Chattel House for sale. You can also contact local real estate agents or simply take a mini-break and go driving around a couple local villages and test your luck. You never know: someone may just be willing to sell his birthright. If you are thinking of buying a Chattel House or building one I think the best way to start is to buy/rent the land first. I’d say check the local newspapers to gauge the land prices and start from there.

 

Just Imagine the Possibilities...

Still don’t believe in the dream? Get a hold of Lord Glenconner in front of this cute little gingerbread number that he had moved from a mountain village in St. Lucia. Oh and look at the dapper Lord’s digs on his fabulous Beau Estate in St. Lucia. Read more about Lord Glenconner's home in St.Lucia at Architectural Digest.

Two Cigarette’ and Two Icy Mint’

Two Cigarette’ and Two Icy Mint’

My Uncle Stuby was my favourite uncle when I was a little girl (don’t tell my other uncle that…). I think it’s because he was so expressive in his love for my cousin and I.

He used to pick me up at school on a bicycle that he made from scrap parts. At least two or three different bicycles went into his one unique home-made model.

At fours years old, in infant school, I was the most timid, insipid little thing –a skinny, scrawny little girl with an enormous head of hair that was too heavy for my little neck to carry. After lunch, at school, all of us children would travel single file back to the classroom--with our sticky fingers and bubble-gum lips-- and we were told to take a nap. Like a nice little obedient girl I would put my head on the desk, close my eyes and fall asleep.

Later in the afternoon around 3.00 pm my uncle would come to school to take me home on his scrap bicycle. He would take one look at me and haul me up into his arms and give me one of his big pity kisses: during nap time some of my classmates would have undone my plaits leaving me with my big sticky, bubble-gum hair straining my neck. My uncle would bend down and undo the lace from his beloved Clarks suede shoes, and, with great concentration and effort, bundle up my hair and try to fashion me a ponytail with his shoe lace. He would then climb on to his bicycle and hoist me up to sit on the red bar connecting the patchy leather seat and the yellow handlebar of the bicycle; and home we went with the sun burning our foreheads and my Uncle’s gravelly voice singing Dennis Brown in my ear.

On a Friday evening, after a long week of work at the bottling factory, my Uncle would gear up for a relaxing weekend. He would start out by sending me to buy two cigarettes and two icy mints. Icy mints were mint sweets like breath fresheners – the mint flavor was so strong that it felt like ice on the tongue. After dinner and a shower he would sit in front of the TV and smoke his cigarettes; one icy mint was his, the other mine. This time was luxury for my uncle— a week of hard work, time with family, two cigarettes and two icy mints.

As I grew older I savoured so many different things in life. My “cigarette and two icy mints” have gone through many changes: At 4 years old it was “two cigarette and two icy mint’” with my Uncle Stuby; at 20 years old in Barbados it was a stop at my favourite used book store on a Saturday morning where I would buy a dozen romance novels and go home to bed to read all weekend; at 25 in the Bahamas it was two hours at the gym that overlooked the beach; more recently it’s that 20 minutes before I fall asleep when, to my noisy protests, my unruly dog would hop up on our bed and burrow a space between my husband and I.

What’s your “two cigarette’ and two icy mint’”?

Caribbean Eclectic

The Caribbean Sea and a Banana Tree

I love the Caribbean. And I miss it. All the time now. I try to go home at least once per year. And by home I mean either Barbados or Jamaica. I think Jamaicans and Barbadians alike would wonder how the two places can be home to me. Well, that’s easy. I find all the things I love in both countries: fried fish;warm smiles; lusty,noisy, happy women and their children; charismatic men with the sweetest lyrics, like “baby mi woulda leave my shoes anda yur bed any day”; blue-turquoise, diamond-studded seas; real honest-to-goodness-fresh fruits; and the sweetest little houses I’ve ever seen…

Colonial Architecture, Trinidad

When I decided to move to Brussels it was clear that I had to take pieces of the Caribbean with me. I tried to infuse my home with the colours, textures and the “look and feel” of the Caribbean. I didn’t want to be literal about it: I mean I didn’t want bamboo chairs and colonial design furnishings suffocating my living room. A sprinkling of this and that would do. I am an eclectamaniac and I love clutter and I have to really concentrate not to infuse a big measure of bohemia into every room I design. So, I wanted Caribbean elements, mixes and mismatches, burlap-like textures that remind me of Saturday morning market-shopping with my grandmother and the little burlap sack (aka crocus bag) we used to carry home filled with oranges, mangoes, ripe bananas and star apples.

Tall order for my Brussels home. I love traditional furnishings with a big design twist to help it into the realm of different, unusual, special, me. So I had to really think about how I could get the turquoise of the Caribbean sea and lemony sky and lush banana tree greens into my home.

My friend Eve, a Frenchwoman of effortless elegance and incredible astuteness was the first person to tell me how much the apartment felt like a whole other world to her. The colours made her happy, she said. Well, I felt accomplished. Because to get anyone to step from a dreary Brussels afternoon into a Brussels apartment and to feel transformed to another world seems quite a feat. Of course it may have helped that I was able to add to my kitchen a maturing banana tree.

Fred and the Lime-Green Chair

It Must be Love...

This is my destructive angel: his name is Fred…Freddie…Freddilicious on a day when he’s well-behaved. His hobbies: eating from the garbage can, eating from the laundry basket, eating from the kitchen counter-top, eating from his dinner bowl, our dinner plates or drinking glasses or desktops…eating…eating…eating. Fred’s a gourmand or just plain greedy if I’m honest but my love for the little thing destroys my ability to properly train him.

Anyhoo, this post is not dedicated to Fred…it’s to the chair he’s sitting in…it’s his chair. Or rather, it used to be my chair. It occupies the study in our home. I reincarnated it nearly two years ago when I lived in Washington DC. I was trolling up 14th Street when I noticed this store of really used furniture and decided to enter. Now, my culture, insecurities, superstitiousness and all-round “old bruk” phobia usually prevents me from buying anything used, previously worn and any generally “otherlifely” objects. But this retro/1970s-looking lime-green chair kept calling to me. The man with the Nigerian accent at the door started out at $120--all his 10 thousand pearly whites on display. I soon displayed my twenty thousand red-wine tinted whites and we came to an understanding that the lime-green number should be mine for $80.



A long story short: I went to the DC Design Center to check out fabrics, called an upholsterer who charged way too much (I hadn’t done my homework) and before you know it the lime-green number exceeded all my previously held expectations, superstitions and phobias. Now after my inspired and beautifully designed chair survived a transatlantic trip and two crazy Flemmish delivery men why should I allow Fred to claim the chair as his? Sigh...it must be love.

Recipe for Summer Courage!

Lemonade!

When I went to law school I met the most idealistic, optimistic, angelic girl-woman that ever walked this land! She came from Trinidad. She was fabulous in her own way: you know the kind of woman that had a glorious voice for opera but preferred to sing Celine Dion’s L’Abondon. I had no idea how she ended up in a place like law school. The two didn’t deserve each other. She had fabulous hair that she would allow us to wash once per month and five of “dem Trini girls” had to tie her down (screaming and hollering) by the kitchen sink to do the deed. She could only cook this “God awful” spaghetti bolognese (from a can no less…) which she lovingly offered to everyone including our law lecturers. She wore the same pair of unwashed black jeans all semester long. For her beautiful spirit and more, she was well loved by me, the entire class of 2002 and the security guards at the law library.

She taught me how to make lemonade: she said when life throws you a curve ball, and someone pisses all over your peace and sanity and then another asshole craps all over the love you offered him, and when your money is finished and you’ve run out of options simply take all “dem lemons” and make lemonade!

So here’s my recipe for the coolest taste of summer with a splash of liquid courage and good old fashioned hope and optimism.

Ingredients:
Ice Cubes (As many to allow a cooling of tempers and a simmering of vibes)
The juice of 4 Lemons or 6 Limes
1/2 cup granulated/cane sugar
1.5 litre Sparkling water
½ cup Martini Bianco
Lemon wedges for garnish
A nice cool shade and a reclining chair

Method: Pulse all ingredients in a blender; adjust taste to suit your palette, serve in a highball glass with lemon wedge on rim. If you don’t know what to do with the “cool shade and reclining chair” then perhaps you need a trip to the Caribbean and not a glass of Lemonade!