Inviting Romance and Using Lots of French Words

The Painter's Honeymoon
Lord Frederic Leighton - 1864

Romeo and Juliet
Frank Dicksee - 1884

If you've read me or known me for any length of time you know that I am a true romantic. I am passionate about frills, beautiful fabrics, heart palpitations, decadently luxurious scents, strong alpha-males (and equally strong females), and bling. The problem with this is that I live with 4 very male males. (How better to be a renaissance woman than to raise healthy, lusty, active boys?! I promise their wives will one day thank me.)

When Jon and I bought our house 5 years ago I fell in love with the potential it held in its niches/dust collectors. There are 4 of them. One in our entry hall, one in Carson & Evan's bedroom, one in my office, and one in Jon and my bedroom. It took me a while to fill these spaces. They are high enough that it isn't an easy space to access, and I knew that changing vignettes was not going to occur very frequently ever.

la Belle Dame sans Merci
Frank Dicksee - 1893

Il Bacio
Francesco Hayez - 1859






Springtime
 Pierre-Auguste Cot - 1873


I was laying in bed one night and realized that while I'd left the space in our bedroom open so that I could ponder the design components, Jon seized it as storage - for his guns and bow. I cannot even tell you how quickly I jumped out of bed. NO WAY WAS OUR BEDROOM GOING TO BE A DEFENSE ARSENAL. Well, it really was too high for me to do anything about that night, but I was startled into the immediate requirement to fill this space - they way I wanted it filled.

At one time my bedroom was the catch all for household flotsam. Who am I kidding, it still is... I started my search for a private, restorative, romantic space by ridding our room of some of these items. Laundry still manages to find it's way, but there are no nerf guns, StarWars guys, or video games in my boudoir.

First of all I found the perfect scent. For me it's Scentsy's Frech Kiss.

Sweet fig tenderly caressed by coconut pulp, exotic cedar, and caramel.

Um - hello? caress? fig? exotic? caramel?! Be still my heart. I love this stuff.

S H J - vinyl cutouts placed on wallpaper sample

Next I fell in <3 with monograms. I also got very wrapped up in whose name appears on the left side of the last name initial. Which side does a queen sit on? Which is the bride's side of a wedding party? See where I'm going?

This is what I came up with. You have to excuse the dust. Remember when I said it was difficult to get to? Anything toward the back of the vignette is nearly impossible to reach - even with those extendable feather dusters... And if you missed the allusion there, then I just don't know what to tell you...

While I was cutting vinyl I also wanted to cut a saying for the wall beneath the niche. I'd found a round metal thing that worked for me, but I wanted something to push the scene just a bit more. Here were my 2nd and 3rd place choices:

I love you, not only for what you are, But for what I am when I am with you.

If you love me only in my dreams, let me be asleep forever.

But the one that captured the essence of my relationship with Jon was...

Ralph Waldo Emerson - who knew transcendentalism applied to romance?

Finally - there is a  pièce de résistance... I found this gem at a store with one of the worst names I've ever heard: Way Cool Dirt Cheap. (It isn't in SL Valley anymore and I kind of miss it. They had some funky stuff in their showroom that was easy for me to repeatedly visit and imagine it in my home) After purchasing my pièce I found very similar items online titled "The Kiss" - I'm sure that's based on Rodin's captivating work. 




Rodin's The Kiss
from a different angle

  Without further adieu:

There it is. I love the simplicity, the curve, the flow, the hollows and angles, the symbiosis. It sat on my dresser until I had everything ready for the niche. Jon's first response was absolute perfection:

I think that's the most romantic thing I've ever seen.



One more picture - this time of the entire scene:

There are other things I do to inspire romance, but with this awaiting me I'm off to a great start even before I transcend the stairs.

And now I'm off to ponder my love of romanticism and its reaction to the Industrial Revolution... I know - I'm so wierd.