Light Play

One of the many things I like about this house is the natural light.  Every room has a large window, and most have 2.  I began to notice the interesting silhouettes on the walls.  On the east side of the house is the thick stand of trees.  The rising sun shines through them and casts animated shadows on the floor or wall.  The setting sun also gets through the trees on that side enough to add living art.

I've always loved suncatchers, and in my old house, I had several windows on the south side.  I took advantage with crystal rainbow makers in those windows.  One of my crafts is beadery of a sort.  I refurbish windchimes and suncatchers with glass beads and crystals.  I had quite a collection.  Alas, I don't have a good south window in this house.  The only one in the main areas is the living room, but it's under the porch roof and doesn't catch any light that way.  So I have to accept that my suncatchers will only be effective in a limited way.  I'll probably refurbish my rainbow makers again to get more crystals in one piece for the few windows that can do them justice.

This is the nook off the kitchen.  I thought for a long time about what to do with it.  It's not very big...about 9' x 6'.  I tried the table in here, but it took up more room than I wanted to give up, and I hardly ever use the table anyways.  I finally decided that this would be my crafting corner.  Then I realized I spent a lot of time looking at it.  My "throne" is at the end of the island where I drink coffee or wine depending on time of day, and just gaze out the doors at the trees where I'll see wildlife, and the deck garden.  I decided to make the room part of the view.

As you can see, there's a lot of light play here.  The doors face east and the window is north, so the light isn't intense or all day, but it's bright enough for most houseplants.  To maximize the light, I installed the mirror tile "window" on the right behind the plant rack.  Not only does it gather more light for the room, it reflects the view outside the door.  The houseplants turn the room into an extension of the outside.  So now I'm calling this "The Garden Room".  Next project will be to paint it.  It's going to be blue as will the kitchen.

One thing that became a special sight was the gazing balls.  I have 2 glass mosaic balls that I found at the discount store (Big Lots).  They were originally intended for the garden, but then I discovered the glass mosaic pattern reflects the sun when it's in just the right position, and shoots sparkles all over the room.  You can see a hint of that in the photo.  So those balls are permanent fixtures in front of windows.

If you have windows that give you interesting light, consider using that light in a creative way.

tnt
Natureschild

Spring 2013

Wow, it has REALLY been a long time (3 years!?!) since I touched this blog.  This post is just a quicky to update.

Out of sheer laziness, I began to do all the garden/nature blogging at the other blog, Spring Creek Gems.  It was laziness because there's 2 different logins.  I was usually logged in (or half logged in) at the other so I just stayed there.  I decided today that I should use this one for garden and nature stuff again.  So that's what will be happening here from now on.  In the meantime, you can read past posts about all that at the other one.  I'll probably begin transferring some of it from there to here as time permits.  I might create some pages as well.

tnt