The Snuggery

Emily Mayıs 06, 2022

I get restless when we finally have to close the doors for half a year. With the exception of bathrooms, there are only two rooms of the house that don't have exterior doors. But it's universal to pay more attention to indoor arrangements when there's no where else to go. I'm certainly not taking coffee outside with the birds at six a.m. lately!

I find myself circling around like a dog or a cat to find a suitable spot to coze down in, and lately that place is the snuggery. The British term for what we might call a small living room or den describes my front room perfectly. It's not at all the set-apart little-used room that many modern homes have in their design. Every inch is taken up in fall and winter, and I'm always on the search for more.

That impulse is what drove me to clear off the smaller curiosites taking up visual space on top of cabinets and replace them with something simpler. Mark and Sally Bailey of Simple Home: Calm Spaces for Comfortable Living would call it "curating your home." If a man's home is his castle, is a woman's home her museum?

This arrangement may not seem so simple at first blush, but two hanging pictures were taken down from the wall, and a dozen or more very small collected items were wistfully retired for a time. Until I start plopping things down here again, my visual field seems clearer.

I'm also always fighting the urge to burrow like Toad or Badger in Wind in the Willows. The white covers on some of the furniture get taken off, and there's a lot of earthy color underneath. Dark colors close in further on a small space, but I can't seem to help myself!

Oh well, we're just in transition after all.

I keep an antique folding table nearby that pops up and down easily at two different heights, and stands flush against a wall. Nice for tea, fireside dinners, blogging, parties, etc., without committing to a coffee table (impossible anyway). Here it's covered with one of my favorite tablecoths.