A Touch of Spring

Springtime is the land awakening.

The March winds are the morning yawn. Lewis Grizzard

Today I am thrilled to join the Spring Tour of Homes! If you’re landing here from the talented Maggie at Maggie Overby Studios, welcome!! I’m so glad you’re here.

In the Northeast you just never know what you’re going to get for weather this time of year. We’ve had a pretty mild winter – last week we even had two beautiful 70 degree February days and it seemed that spring was just within our reach, and the next thing you know the winter storm Riley slammed the whole East Coast. We lost power and a few trees but were lucky compared to others. Mark spent the whole weekend with a chain saw in his hands, cutting down branches and half fallen trees, and removing one of our favorite evergreens that fell right over out of the earth onto our neighbor’s driveway.

Yesterday, with snow flurries starting to fall around us, I noticed these sweet flowers popping up at the edge of our yard.

Galanthus, commonly referred to as snowdrops, typically flower in the winter.

With the rest of our plants, shrubs and trees still a good six weeks away from starting to bloom  here in Massachusetts, these sweet flowers are such a welcome harbinger of spring!!

The snow is still falling, but a few little touches inside go such a long way to cheer our house up. My absolute favorite way to bring a little spring to these lingering days of winter are with fresh greens and plants!

Home Depot has orchids on sale for $12.98 at the moment – I was impressed by how healthy and full the plants on the sale rack were. Look how many buds are on this one above!

My chunky blue patterned blanket was a Homegoods find. Check out the coffee table makeover here.

Books are a great way to incorporate a pop of color around the house too! The DIY mirrored tray is great for coralling everything on the coffee table.

Our living room opens up to the dining room where we eat all our meals.

Read about the DIY bookcases here.

The tulips at the grocery store were looking a little forlorn (I like to buy them when the flowers are closed so they last a while), so my overgrown rhododendron in the yard was happy to oblige with a little green for our table.

It’s amazing how just a little bit of bright color can cheer up a space!

Baked potato soup is one of my kids’ favorites and it’s so hearty, sometimes we’ll just have that and a salad for dinner. I’ll share my favorite recipe with you later this week!

For last minute company I’ll often throw down one of my colorful scarves instead of a tablecloth.

Strewn across the table, un-ironed, unfussy, a come-as-you-are vibe and a happy bit of spring color!

When we’re not eating the dining room magically turns into an office for both Mark and I, he on one end with his laptop and me on the other.

I’m so glad I gave this Craigslist table a second makeover! We really love the limed version.

It’s such a nice bright room most of the time with two walls of windows and I actually really enjoy working in here until a) Mark gets on a work call (he’s not what you would call quiet :)) or b) the kids get home from school, and then all bets are off for getting anything productive done in here!

Last year I bought a few potted herbs from Trader Joe’s and used them on our table throughout early spring, it was so cheery and fresh, PLUS when the weather warmed up I was able to transplant them to my deck containers.

You can see more of my herb centerpiece in this post!

If you are eagerly anticipating spring too, you’re going to love the rest of this tour!