Spring at The Guesthouse

The light in the shop changed last week. I don’t know if it’s the angle of the sun shifting or just that we finally hit the part of the year where afternoons feel longer, but the whole room looks different. Warmer. Lynn brought in ranunculus and sweet peas and suddenly the back corner smells like someone’s garden.

That’s the thing about sharing a space with a florist. The shop reinvents itself every few days without me doing anything. I’ll place a piece on a console and think it looks good, then Lynn sets a loose arrangement next to it and the whole vignette changes. We don’t plan it. It just happens.

New on the floor: a pair of carved wood side tables I picked up at an estate sale in Pasadena. Probably 1950s, dark walnut, with these scalloped edges that feel almost Moroccan. They’re the right height for next to a bed or at either end of a sofa. I put a stack of old books and one of those brass candlesticks from Round Top on one of them and it immediately looked like it had always been there.

There’s also a linen settee that I’m trying not to get attached to. (I fail at this regularly.) Rolled arms, slightly slouchy, the color of oatmeal. It fits two people if you like each other. I keep moving it around the shop to see where it wants to live. Right now it’s near the front, and people keep sitting down on it, which I think means it’s doing its job.

Smaller things: a set of hand-dipped taper candles in this dusty sage green, a few new ceramic pieces from a maker in Ojai, and a vintage French garden basket that’s probably going home with me if no one buys it by Friday.

Spring is the best time to come in. The light, the flowers, the new pieces. It all feels fresh without trying to be. Saturday mornings are my favorite. Fewer people, good energy, and I’m usually rearranging something so you’ll see the place mid-thought.