Any over-the-top adjective plus an exclamation mark!

Via here

Miscellany

Via here

Compartment(s)

What I would truly love. One room dedicated to drawer storage...

Via here

Whitewash

Via here

Insta-Gratification

A really enormous thank you to everyone who offered suggestions for the "Exceeded Quota" blog crisis. My dear friend, Mia, who faced the same conundrum with her Number 19, wrote me an e-mail entitled IFIGUREDITOUT. And she sure did... go to Google PLUS and upgrade profile, and then all previous problems simply dissolve. Whew! Here are some Instagram photos taken recently...

Window at Velk, Church Street

Greens in the kitchen

Crackled walls

Detail on an Anatomie Illustration

Bust at Treasury

Vogel, Woodstock

Apothecary, Delos

Delos

Detail, illustration at The Power and the Glory

My desk

Shiny, happy...

Faces

Can you just make out Greta Garbage? Look bottom center...

Display

CU of the Freemasons metal cabinet

Light

 Follow me here

The House that Time Forgot

Built for the Harpur family in 1703, Calke Abbey has remained virtually unaltered since the death of the last baronet, Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe in 1924. The last owner, Charles Harpur-Crewe, died suddenly in 1981, leading to crippling death duties (£8m of an estate worth £14m), and in 1985 the estate was transferred to the National Trust by his younger brother Henry Harpur-Crewe.

The National Trust presents Calke Abbey as an illustration of the English country house in decline. A massive amount of remedial work (but no restoration) has been done, so the decay of the building and its interiors has been halted, but not reversed. Before the National Trust's custody, the interior had basically remained untouched since the 1880's...

Gardener's Bothy

Via Flickr and Wikipedia (read more here)

On Display

Via here

Hidden Archives

Sometimes, one comes across an image or collection that leaves one open-mouthed. This is one of those instances. Joanna Ebenstein (founder of the Morbid Anatomy Blog and Library) has made it her quest to seek out and document...

untouched, hidden, and curious collections, from museum store-rooms to private collections, cabinets of curiosity to dusty natural history museums, obscure medical museums to hidden archives... with an eye towards capturing the poetry, mystery and wonder of these liminal spaces. 

The result? A photographic exhibition called The Secret Museum...

Cabinet of Curiosities of Bonnier de la Mosson, Paris

Teylers Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands, Established 1778

Comparative Telegraph Cables, Teylers Museum

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection, London (private collection)

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection

Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan Collection

More here

Perfection

The marvelous Alex Macarthur strikes again...

Now this is a fabulous cabinet. What every kitchen needs...

Via here

Fantasizing...

Would this not be the ULTIMATE dressing-room? (Actually, it is the steward’s office at Petworth House, West Sussex)...

Our House at the end of our Street (VII)

My poor long-suffering desk literally groans with the weight of knickknacks and baubles. So much for me ever doing any productive work there. Instead, my computer is constantly on my lap contributing to varicose veins and lack of circulation. And don't even mention the dusting...

I must say I am feeling particularly nostalgic and sentimental about the house, as it is on the market. So, snapped these photographs (in a frenzy, lest I forget an inch) over the weekend in varying degrees of light...

Babylonstoren, South Africa

Sigh. This sounds like my kind of holiday. 'Intentionally unscripted' is the mantra for time spent at Babylonstoren in the Cape. One can lounge and truly wind-down on one of the hammocks attached to giant trees, or pick one's own salad on a stroll through the remarkable fruit and vegetable garden, and enjoy it for lunch. Sounds rather blissful, doesn't it? Karen Roos, one of my all-time style icons, is responsible for creating this heavenly 200-hectare farm hotel dating back to 1692. A disused kraal was converted into the restaurant Babel (see below), and renowned South African food fundi, Maranda Engelbrecht describes the fare as "Not looking for different things, but simply looking at things differently". The menu is ever-changing as plat de jour, or rather jardin is the order of the day. Pick-clean-serve is the approach with practically zero carbon footprint. Kind-of reminds me a bit of Villa Augustus in the Netherlands...

The Library is vintage Karen Roos - filled with curiousity cabinets and carefully chosen books, antique botanical prints all bathed in an almost Deyroll-eqsue green.

Images from here and Elle