INSPIRED HOME was here.

A thrill of a lifetime and dream-come-true experience happened last Wednesday.  INSPIRED HOME magazine came to our home at 315 N. Thomas and spent the day capturing our home in photograph for a feature article.  I am still on a sweet high from the whole experience.

  INSPIRED HOME editor-in-chief Chris Christen is a native of Oakland and was a grade school and high school classmate of mine.  She took over the magazine as editor about a year ago and transformed it into a stunning and tasteful publication.  I saw my first issues right before our photo shoot and my mouth dropped open.  Why hadn't I heard of this beautiful magazine with features centered in our own state?  I would encourage you to look for it and pick it up.   Not only was it a blast to work with Chris, but we got to observe the creative expertise of photographer Jeffrey Bebee.  As someone who loves photography and dabbles at it, it was an absolute thrill to watch this man work.  I have taken thousands of photos of our house project.  You have seen many of them on this blog.  But what this man could do to capture our room spaces was AMAZING.  With his talented eyes, amazing lenses, powerhouse cameras - and his horse sense of years of experience - Jeffrey shot photographs that made me want to tear up.  He was able to capture what it feels like to stand in our living room at dusk with the fireplace glowing... he could place his camera & lens in a way that you can see the whole layout of the master bath... he could capture the light spilling into my office in the morning...  Photography is all about the light.  And Jeffrey Bebee knows about light.

Part of the thrill is that we have been gifted with the chance to restore a very magnificent home, and it feels good to have it captured in a very magnificent way.  The house deserves it.

It added to the fun to sense that editor and photographer had fun during the shoot too.  At one point Mr. Photographer said "This is a nice change from shooting new home construction in West Omaha."

Don't worry, I will be letting you know when the publication is released.

photo shoot touches.

Knowing that the INSPIRED HOME editor and photographer were arriving to shoot the whole house for a feature article, I viewed each room with a new set of eyes in anticipation of the event.   I knew that I had some visual holes in several rooms - so I set out to 'fill the blank spots' with a few additions.  I hung four framed photos in the guest room and added a large pottery vase with greenery to our bedside table.

But I had the most fun in the girls' room.  The white chest of drawers sat with nothing on it... a simple statement, but how could we add some sparkle?  I remembered that one Christmas Emily sent the younger girls a wonderful collection of classic literature - to mature their reading palettes.  The book collection with some Pottery Barn Kids bookends turned out to be a bright touch in the room that the INSPIRED HOME photographer loved.  (He had no idea that the book collection had not been in place even 24 hours - and I did not tell.)

During the photo shoot of this room, the photographer asked for 'something pink'.  I ran to my closet where I had thrown everything that resembled chaos and found the darling art jars that daughter Abby made for Niece Eleanor at Christmas.  Again, a stack of books with the playful jars added a bit of merriment.  Note: Abby glued a plastic farm animal to a jar lid, painted it a bright color, and filled it with crayons & mini pencils. Voila. Darling gift - or decoration!

The girls' room looked a bit brighter and a bit sweeter with some wonderful books and touchs of color.

a favorite christmas gift.

Years ago my daughter Abby gave me a Mothers Day gift that was a collage of photos of all the houses we had lived in.  For Christmas, I got a fabulous hand drawn revised version.  I am sure you can understand why this was one of my favorite gifts this holiday...  Thank you sweet Abby.