A Fave: Vermont Farm Table

Why oh why can't I have ten dining tables in my house?

There is something irresistible about a table made of reclaimed wood. Nothing marries the new with old better than a well-designed modern wooden piece, and the Vermont Farm Table Company is on top of their game when it comes to well-designed. As they put it so well:

"We are a small and dedicated team. We live and breathe Vermont, embodying what we believe makes this little corner of the country so wonderful. A dedication to the good life, through celebrating the simple things. When we aren’t in the shop building tables, we are out hiking, skiing, or discovering a new swimming hole. And we are most definitely always thinking about the next meal. We take pride in what we do, sourcing our materials responsibly, and then turning them into something that will last for generations."

When it comes to custom touches and quality products, this small Burlington, Vermont, business is truly the epitome of success. If you have a vision for what you need, it's the small local business like this that will bend over backwards to make those ideas a reality better than any particle board box store can. Check out their website for more gorgeous products ... or ideas for my next Christmas present (because who can't use another dining table?!) : www.vermontfarmtable.com 

  

 

  

  

Ash Fusion Pioneer Chairs

A fusion of Forest Stewardship Council certified African mahogany with New England ash? Handcrafted wood and rope chairs made in a local post and beam workshop? Someone is speaking this girl's language!

These neat little jewels are sustainable little treasures I recently found in the teeny tiny town of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. Just over the border from Massachusetts near Keene in one of my favorite parts of New Hampshire, Pioneer Chairs is the family business that produces these mobile masterpieces for indoor and outdoor use. The chairs are advertised as "therapeutic, sustainable, & fold for easy transport and storage." I'd call them "gorgeous, creative, quality, local pieces of art."

  

      

'Tis the Season... to Shop Local Online!

Lean in closely while I tell you one of my all-time favorite, secret tips for buying local gifts...

1. Go to Etsy.com

2. Type in what you'd like to search for in the search bar.

3. When the page changes, look in the left-hand margin, where you will see a section called "Refine your search."

4. Choose a custom location by typing in your state, or a nearby state.

Voila!  Easy peasy, you have just found hundreds of people creating goods right next door to you, often offering custom orders and colors in the exact way you want!  Don't like the etsy price? Message the maker and see if you can visit them locally, avoid shipping charges by picking up, etc!

Today I am looking up locally-made pillows for a sea-obsessed, nautical friend in Maine, and there are almost too many great options, just from that one state alone. How perfect will these pillows from Cobalt Sky Studio be?! I may just have to order one for every local human I know...

Give it a whirl- you, too, will be addicted to easy local shopping from the comfort of your couch in no time!

 

  

Harvesting in the Name of Carrot Caking

Our garden looks insane. I'll admit it.

This is thanks in part to the strange little habits my husband and I have picked up from living in Spain, Iowa, and Zimababwe. You might just say our local backyard garden is a mix of the best of three continents. But thanks to a crazy little gardening method we have adopted called "hugelkultur," we have had the most giant green mess of unwatered growth -despite being in a drought!- that any gardener could hope for.  We have pulled an insane amount of produce out of our 20 x 20 space, and fed a few good bees in the process, thanks to my science-teacher husband, some elbow grease, and the constant supervision of our six year old. This month I thought I'd share a few of my favorite recipes that highlight some of these locally grown treasures, starting with -what else?- dessert.

Because, hey, why not?

I always judge a dish by how many guests have asked for the recipe. This one takes the cake. Literally.Though I can assure you it is the best cake I have ever eaten, it will not look so pretty in my pictures. This is because this time around, I made this a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free cake (substitutions galore!) that challenged the frosting-aesthetics. Add in my child's blueberry decorations, and well, you get the picture. Literally.

Yup. No lies here. It can feel time intensive if you only have one cake pan instead of two or three (translation: the woman who moved her whole household back to the US with six suitcases may have "more cake pans" written on her Christmas list this year) but it is well worth it, I assure you. Plus, you're eating your vegetables. Literally.

    

Most Delicious Carrot Cake Ever

(Even when you use a lot of substitutions!)

Ingredients

2 cups flour (gluten free 1-1 works quite well, too!)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

My Secret Desire to Eat Soap...

 

Ah, I love small businesses.

Custom-order-custom-made-obsessed interior designer aside, a number of times in my life I have been able to tackle a personal-challenge with the help of a small business willing to learn just what I am looking for and tweak things to my needs. When I called Sparrow Soaps recently, it was entirely with one of these personal problems in mind. 

I have a dear friend who I'll call Sam who is chemical, VOC, and perfume sensitive. Well, that may be putting things lightly. She's so allergenic, she can't go into most public buildings anymore because of carpet, paint, and construction VOCs. She has used the same unscented shampoo for fifteen years because she knows it's the only one that hasn't made her sick. And she can't have people who use scented laundry detergent or fabric softener enter her home.  You can imagine how difficult it was when she suddenly found out that the unscented soap she used in her home for the previous two decades was discontinued.  She tried unscented soap after unscented soap, each time breaking out in a different horrible list of symptoms that immediately told her she needed to keep searching for a new product. Each soap had its own chemical concoction, and with so many ingredients one was liable to not agree with severely sensitive skin.

I recently came across goat's milk soap. Sound gross? Okay, I'll admit, I'm not a goaty person. Some people are; I'm not. So I had no idea what to expect when I was gifted an albeit gorgeous bar of handmade goat's milk soap. But how happily surprised I was! With no goaty smell, I suddenly found myself enjoying washing my hands, feeling fancy with my handmade little treasure next to the sink. It was so smooth, my dairy-free brain had a strange desire to eat the glossy, creamy yellow bar that felt like thick heavenly custard! (Shh, don't tell anyone.) If you're like me and have enjoyed a mouthful of soap or two as a kid, you know how quickly I put that thought out of my mind!

My thoughts began to turn to Sam whenever I washed my hands. Could she use a product like this? Was there any way I could contact this small local business and beg them to make a batch for Sam with no dyes or perfumes?  Maybe if I promised them she'd buy a certain amount... What an awesome thing to be able to call a local small business and ask for their help.

I called Sparrow Soaps, a locally loved goat-soap company snuggled in the Quiet Corner of Connecticut. Though I'm sure the two fantastic ladies that make this soap probably would have bent over backwards to accommodate Sam, in the end they already had without knowing it! Acutely aware of the fact that not everyone could handle their amazing menu of scented varieties, Sparrow Soaps already had a line of unscented soaps in place that was just the answer to all of Sam's problems at the sink and in the tub.  I was directed to Sparrow Soaps' website for not only one unscented product, but six!

Much to the awesome advantage of people like Sam, small businesses often offer products that are more hypo-allergenic and chemical-free. Being closer to the goods that are used to make their products, employees of small businesses are more likely to use less complex-processing in their goods, trading chemical concoctions for simpler materials.  Sparrow Soaps may say they make "Old Fashioned" Goat's Milk Soap but in my book they are really quite ahead of the industry!

Thanks to Sparrow Soaps on behalf of Sam and myself. We have both been converted to the goat's milk soap camp for sure!

Want more info on the incredible benefits of local goat's milk soap? (Who knew there were so many?!) Click here!

Ten New England Design Habits

Though it doesn't have to, Living Local often means embracing the styles you find right in your own backyard.  Frequently inspired by the resources indigenously available to a local region, the lifestyles, trends, and must-haves in a home were long based on geography and economy until the influences of mass media adjusted our eye(s) for fashion. Though trends now differ from home to home and taste to taste more than ever, there are still common home and home-goods designs that remain true to a geographical area, like New England.

Below are ten New England design habits. If you can check some off the list, it may just mean you belong right here in good old New England....

10.  You may or may not have a mudroom full of fancier things, but you love your LL Bean tote and rain boots.

9.  In the summer, you kickback in your boathouse, pull up a chair on a dock, or hop outside for a family canoe race.

8. Firewood is not only a heating must-have, it's also a rustic decoration on your porch.

7. Oars, lighthouses, rope, ships in a bottle, pictures of sailing boats? Yeah, you have 'em.

    
       

6.  Stars and stripes: they come in all shapes and sizes, but no house is complete without them!

5.  Shingles?  For sure.

4. Cottage or colonial, you have wood. Polished or rustic. Rounded or raw.

 

3.  You knew what shiplap was before Joanna and Chip Gaines made it famous.

2.  Without that New-England-history-lesson, it could appear to be simply boring.  But your exterior trim matches your base color, even if it's not fashionable anywhere else.

Until the Industrial Revolution, most paints in New England were mixed in small batches using naturally found earth pigments. Paint colors, therefore, tended to reflect these pigments: red oxide, yellow ocher, lamp black, red and white lead, etc. Common exterior colors were especially reds, yellows, and greens, and most often entire homesteads tended to have one exterior color.

1.  You cannot get enough stone walls!