Hello Lovah

Before I get into a full recap of the Tumbleweed workshop, I wanted to post one of my favorite little houses I've seen in the last year or so: a renovated pigeonnier in Louisiana that was posted at Apartment Therapy a couple of years ago. Did you catch that word? Yep, it was originally intended as a house for our favorite dirty birds.

Let's be honest. The downstairs is cool but holymotherofgod, look at that loft. Sleeping in a bed surrounded by books? I can't really imagine anything more magical. In fact, I've recently taken to this website run by other people mad about books: Bookshelf Porn.

When Jay and I were driving around the other day, I confessed that books are my weakness (that and my photo equipment). Then he teasingly chided me about it in the workshop yesterday, but he also remembered seeing this online and was quite taken with it as well. Going back through Texas and being able to get a larger truck to move to Tennessee allowed me to pick up a few boxes that I'd left at my parents' house when I headed for California almost four years ago. Seeing some of those volumes after so long away almost brought tears to my eyes.

There's something about a book--the heft, the ability to put a little tiny penciled star in the margin to note a passage you love, or to find a receipt marking a page to remind you that you bought it in September of 1999 at a little independent bookstore that no longer exists for a class with a teacher who is no longer alive--that I just can't throw away. It's not just the sentimentality, though certainly that's part of it. It's the repeated experience I get from reopening a book, from lending a favorite one to a friend who can have a new experience with it, that just isn't the same for me on screen.

 But anyway, back to this amazing home. Maybe Angele Parlange has a fondness for pink that not everyone would share, but regardless of that, she did an incredible job renovating this space with her brother, and the gorgeous light in it and exposed brick and rafters are so perfect.

I'm tempted to approach her about an interview and photos for my project. Don't you want to see more? Where's the kitchen? What's the bathroom like? How hot and sticky is that loft during a Louisiana summer? The people want to know.