Carolyn Westbrook: Life from the Plantation

Even the dogs are decorating. I ran across this photo of my beloved Princess, and wanted to share it. Made me laugh and remember how great she was. I have missed talking to y'all and there has been much going on around here. The past three weeks, we have been going through operation: renovation. We got the news that the big muckety-mucks from one of the biggest retailers had agreed to a meeting/luncheon at the plantation. It started out, that we would showcase two of the collections. Then, my manufacturer thought that we should showcase all four. Plus the photographers were flying in from NYC for the last shoot for the book. I had people come in to gut one of the downstairs rooms, and by gut I mean ripping up carpet and tack strip, and pulling nails from the hardwoods. Floors were refinished, walls were repainted to match the bedding, and it turned out amazing@! Then upstairs, I decided to touch up the trim in the 40 ft. long hallway. When I did that the other trim looked dingy. So, had to paint all the trim and then the walls looked HORRIBLE. Then, had to repaint the entire hallway upstairs, but the problem was there was no break down the stairway, so had to paint ourselves down the stairs and into the downstairs hall. Crazy...right?? Did an entire overhaul on Alex's room. Her room ended up looking like a mid-century NYC apartment. With only 3 days to go, I am off to the lot to find the perfect tree for the downstairs hallway. The ceilings are 14ft. so it had to be tall. It goes in an urn atop a table and thought that I normally do not get them tall enough. Got a tree, got home and as Joe, Nick and I hauled it atop the table and it is touching the ceiling, Alex comes down the stairs laughing, saying "Hey Clark Griswold, is that tree big enough??"

It was down to the wire. The photographers came in Monday and it has not stopped since. The big retail people came out and we served them a real plantation lunch, with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, homeade rolls and peach cobbler. I think that one of the gentlemen could be my brother...he loved all of the things that I do, Paris, New York, toile, ticking and we swapped our stories about being searched when we tried to bring back a chandlier in a duffle bag or was it a bird cage, as we came through customs. I would love the opportunity to work with him, as he has 14 tubs of Christmas decorations for one room in his house. He might have me beat?? So y'all keep your fingers crossed that this works out.

Next, we lost the Colonel and now another of our roosters to an owl. The only one left is Chik-Fil-A. We put him in the pen with the ladies, and he seems to be in heaven. No more late night roaming around...he is the first in the roost for some shut-eye. Think he could be wearing himself out. WE also did a complete renovation of the chicken house that is original and built in the 1800's. We added some shutters, and some FAB urns with topiaries and candlelit lanterns.
The publishers had said that they wanted more shots here at the planatation, so we worked ourselves to death to get the house redecorated, remodeled a few rooms, and had to do Christmas all at the same time. I need a rest!!!

The good news is now I can have a Christmas get-together and it is all done. Woo Hoo!

This morning I woke up with glitter on my face and paint on my fingers...must have been a wild time.
Hope that you are having fun getting ready for the holidays...my favorite time of year!

xoxo Carolyn