We're Going In! The Junior League's Decorators' Show House

The 2025 Decorators' Show House. Photo by the Author.

Yesterday I got to go and see the Junior League Decorators' Show House. I’ve just published a new story over on my Substack newsletter, Artful Living. It’s part of a new series I’ve launched called “We’re Going In,” where I explore Buffalo places, stories, and moments—on and off the beaten track.

This week is the Decorators' Show House. Caution: If you read my account, it is like going through the looking glass. I go into the house and I do not come out!

You can read it here: 

👉 https://marykunzgoldman.substack.com/p/were-going-in-the-decorators-show

If you’d like to get future posts by email (free or paid), you can subscribe here:

👉 https://marykunzgoldman.substack.com

And of course feel free to comment and offer encouragement and news tips to the Author.

Next week it will be some place different. Still fascinating! But different.

Just as a little bonus, here I am lingering in the pool room. This house has this amazing indoor pool. It was added in the 1980s however. Grover Cleveland did not swim here! Cleveland announced his first presidential run from this house, is why I mention it. I do not want to mislead anyone.

Please check out my complete account! I interview a couple of the decorators and it is fun.

The link again: https://marykunzgoldman.substack.com/p/were-going-in-the-decorators-show

 

Brenda's beautiful Christmas tree

Yesterday I wrote about my struggle with my Christmas tree. Just to put things in perspective, here is a look at my friend Brenda and her Christmas tree.

That is Brenda's tree up above!

At first when I saw that picture in my photos from last week, I did not look closely and I thought it was my tree. I thought to myself, I should not be so hard on myself. Look at my tree, it looks good!

Then I realized it was Brenda's tree.

Everyone needs a Brenda in your life to give you something to strive for. Brenda has put in years as an interior designer, working for Ethan Allen and other places. Her house is perfect. Brenda and I met when she was an Etsy customer. She purchased a print to go in an AirBnB her son was running, and then she framed it beautifully and also framed my little signed notes for the picture and put them on a table by the print. I went over to see the setup. I thought I was dreaming! Anyway that was how we met.

Now I just look agog at everything Brenda does. She has beautiful candles that are fake but do not look it. They are on a timer so they go on every day at the same time. Probably the timer makes allowances for sunset and sunrise. I would not be surprised!

Brenda had a few of us over for a tree-trimming party the other day. The ornaments were impeccably laid out. There was a bowl full of hooks -- no scrabbling in the corners of the old cardboard boxes that hold normal people's ornaments. And there was this buffet. 

Here is Brenda putting the star atop the tree as Ryan watches critically to make sure it is not off in any way.

The beautiful people by the buffet. Notice the wreath in the back window.

I give you Brenda, left, and me, right, enjoying the occasion. Did I mention she had the most delicious red wine?

Whenever I see Brenda I get the urge to do what motivation guru Brian Tracy always says to do when you want to reach a goal. You map out piece by piece what it would take for you to reach that goal, which in my case is to live in an environment like Brenda's.

Every journey starts with a single step, however. And I took that step yesterday.

The tree is up. The lights are on! It was a struggle but still.

I am on my way!

The Christmas decorating begins

Today I decorated the mantel for Christmas for what I believe to be the first time in my life.


I mean, I had decorated it before with Candle-Lite candles and whatnot. But it has always been kind of slapdash, as Jeoffry, above, has clearly realized.

Today for the first time, I got some garland and mounded it on the mantel and put lights with it.

Which looks pretty good if I may say so myself.

I am playing host to our Christmas carolers this week so I need the house to be festive. We had great success last year and so this year we are feeling our oats and thinking of adding to our repertoire. We are dreaming of "In Dulci Jubilo" and the Gloucestershire Wassail.

Our surroundings must be right! Next I will go about putting up the tree. I might do it right now. I might wait till tomorrow. For tonight I might just rest on my laurels, you know?

I have a rule I am abiding by and that is to use what is in my house. That explains the colored lights. I know white lights are more tasteful. But colored lights were what I had and you know what? I like them.

I make no apologies!

Recently watching one of those corny Hallmark Christmas movies, about which more later, I saw a comment from someone in ... Denmark, I think it was. One of those countries.

He wrote: "You Americans, do you all decorate your houses like that? I think it is ugly."

It did not matter that a few minutes before, I might have agreed that the houses were overdone. All of a sudden I grew defensive.

What a rude jerk!

Butt out, plain Dane!

Go back to your hygge!

We will decorate our homes as we see fit. All of a sudden I want to overdecorate my house and I will not stop until it is done.

Wassail, wassail!
 

When flowers find you

Yesterday before Mass I took a peek at The Buffalo News because we were having no coffee hour on this particular day and so I could take a minute to breathe.

There was this story by my friend Susan Martin about what decorators advised for your home. Decorators, I love that idea. People used to have decorators back in the 1960s. Leonard Pennario had a decorator. Everyone did.

But anyway. One decorator said there was nothing like fresh flowers to make your house feel beautiful.

As I may have mentioned I have been cleaning the house and tidying it hoping that it makes my life less chaotic and I can reach all of my goals with no exceptions. I thought hmmm. The roses are blooming outside! And/or maybe I should go out and buy some flowers.

However.

Flowers found me!

After Mass, there being no coffee hour, I asked my friend Meghan who sings with me in the choir if she wanted to go grab coffee. Which she did. We went to the Public at the Hotel Lafayette where we enjoyed coffee and yummy sausage sandwiches.

And as we were dining, this woman came up and offered us flowers!

They were her bridal centerpieces. She had just been married the night before at the Lafayette. Her husband was with her.

I told her best wishes on her wedding being that my mother told me to say best wishes to the bride and congratulations to the groom. And Meghan and I gladly accepted the centerpieces! Here is Meghan with the flowers. The bride is in the background. Her husband is to the left, I do believe. And in the background is a table full of guys who were accompanied by a big white poodle dog. I should have gotten the dog in the picture. The guys also accepted flowers!

Thank you, newly married gal!

I went home and the flowers went well in my dining room. I should post a picture but I would like to do a little more cleaning up first.

For now at the top of the post I put up a sketch I was doing not long ago at the Botanical Gardens. I pompously signed it even though I was not done with it. I was also with Meghan, now that I think of it, on that occasion. She is my sketching buddy. But more importantly...

She is the flower child!

The most beautiful German word ...

... is, admittedly, an honor for which the competition is keen.

There is Busgruss, or "bus greeting," referring to when two buses pass and the drivers wave at each other. I think that one was the result of a contest.

There is "schuft."

There is my dad's favorite German word, "Auspuhfsrohr," which means exhaust pipe. I am not sure I spelled it right but I sure know how to say it -- "Owss - poofs -- roar!"

I love all those words, love them from the bottom of my heart. But now I have a word that eclipses them all, at least for now.

It is Balkongestaltung!

I do not even know exactly what that means but I think it means "balcony porn." There is a Pinterest board with that title that I have fallen in love with.

Having given that link I will poach from that board freely.

Can you stand it?

It is not just the porches themselves. It is the landscapes that surround them. These high rises. The architecture.

There are whole movies you can watch. This is my favorite. It is like "Gone With the Wind." I have already watched it three times.

I mean, 4:59. Where in the world is that?

5:13. Sometimes I just stop the film and stare.

6:11.

7:23 is one of my favorites. I like the evening pictures.



7:39. What a vista!

I am trying to decorate my back porch as I may have mentioned. The month of August is going to be a big one for me. There is much work to be done. I need to get a lot in order before September.

Hence my porch. I want it to be a haven of relaxation for when I need it.

I began researching ideas for low-budget things I could do. Note: I realize that if you have a small porch, as I do, it helps to use the word "balcony." Otherwise you get pictures of huge wraparound porches with tons of furniture and rocking chairs and tables and everything. "Small Balcony" does the trick.

Now I am beginning to wonder: Who needs that haven of relaxation when I can just look at these pictures?

Take me away!