The South Shore Style column began in December 2002 with an exercise on developing “a sense of place” within the home.  Rediscovering the palette of colours and the range of textures in the South Shore’s natural elements will tend to “ground” your decorating scheme.  As I said before, “it’s all about the land; it’s all about the water; it’s all about the view.”  Here’s a further excerpt…

“As an exercise, take a drive along the shoreline and notice the granite boulders, the slate, and the driftwood.  Shades of grey, brown, green and blue surround us in stone, sand, trees, water, and sky.  Notice the smooth textures versus the rough.  Now go inland to the pastureland and farming communities.  These same colours and textures surround us in fieldstone, fences, grasses, trees, and sky.  They uniquely define our country-seaside lifestyle.  Using these colours and textures on the…surfaces in your home frames whatever your decorating style with a South Shore ‘sense of place.’ ”

Our natural environment, that “sense of place”, creates a unique setting for those of us lucky enough to call the South Shore our home.  Recent holiday gatherings with friends and family are usually a positive reminder of our feelings about “home”.  Still, certain houses communicate “home” to us more than others.  The differences are usually subtle…those details, details, details.  You can probably guess at least one—family pictures.  Photos from the past provide a family history.  Photos set on the South Shore provide a sense of place.  And photographs with our friends and family provide a sense of home.  The familiar is home.

The same logic can be applied to art and objects.  In each area of my home, I have included a least one piece of uniquely Canadian pottery, furniture, or art.  The walls of my hallway are filled with artwork collected on my travels over the last twenty years.  While the walls remind me of my life before Nova Scotia, the collection seems grounded in Nova Scotia by the presence of one local antique—a 7½ foot bench with the remnants of its original paint finish still intact.  My office and library are quite colourful with the marbled walls and the brightly coloured artwork, but again, the rooms are grounded, first by the surrounding presence of old pine floors and cabinetry, and second by the framed family photographs and a Ron Redden sculpture of a sperm whale placed on my desk.  The upstairs landing focuses on a wall of old family photographs, but the grounding visual is a large André Haines (Martin’s River) oil set within a garden in Mahone Bay.  The brilliant colours are reminder of spring and the horticultural joy of living on the South Shore.  In our living room, amidst the monochromatic golden tones of the walls, fabrics, and the local maple floors, are the ubiquitous golden-aged family photographs.  Maritime paintings and etchings of the Montreal Cathedral mix with painting and etchings themed by other lands.  The juxtaposition both grounds the collection to the South Shore and elevates the combination as worthy artistic counterpoints.  For the winter, I draped over the sofa the new Hudson’s Bay Company Millennium throw, featuring a stripe range in browns, for a cozy reference to enduring our winters in Canadian style.   And so it goes… the familiar is home.