Over the River and Through the Woods | Paris, Idaho

This is the home of my beloved Great Grandmother, Grammy, whose name was lovingly amended to Instagrammy due to my prolific instagramming during our stay!  Although Grammy is long gone her style, panache and great little get-away home remain.

Puppy wanted snow this year for Christmas which didn't happen in Virginia, so after my final December wedding we headed for the hills.  Puppy loved telling people we were spending "Christmas in Paris!"  The town boasts a population of 479 people.  Not once during our three day stay did we see so much as a car or human pass by the home.  We watched Christmas movies on a rounded television, we had our first Golden Apple Archery Contest, and we sled down a hill that my Grandmother probably slid down 80 years ago.              

Grammy was part Danish, part Norwegian.  That is code for she was a Scandinavian beauty!  Her decor choices reflect a very old European penchant for "gilding the lily."      

If this were my home I would often feel stressed out.  Almost every room had patterned wall paper.  Each drawer was filled (and well organized) with stuff.  The kind of stuff that perhaps should have been thrown away fifty years ago.  Or 80 years ago.  I have a modern aesthetic for the great indoors.  What makes a vacation home fun is having a style that is not your own.  That way it actually feels like a vacation from your normal habitat, and you can enjoy a style different from your own knowing that it is temporary - like visiting a museum.

If you want to add a little panache and personality to your walls, prints of these images are available for purchase HERE.    

What ornate lighting!  Only gold for Grammy!

The record collection was perfect for Christmas.  I listened to nothing but the hits!  Julie Andrews, Perry Como, I couldn't be stopped, despite Christopher's subtle pleas.  I loved this particular record.  It reminded me of a DVD cover for a Wes Anderson film.  

My poor Great Grandfather was swindled.  A lousy $27 for 500 cows and 40 horses.  Then again the year was 1917.

I get a little nostalgic when I look at this picture of Sam the donkey.  Sam was a faithful donkey that scared the daylight out of me as child.  He was temperamental and not the most pleasant ride around the fields, but I was so intrigued that there was a donkey in the yard I didn't care.

This powder room was seared into my memory as a child.  Talk about color!  Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!  I think Kate Spade would love this room.  Each towel was unique and boldly patterned.  The hand-painted wall paper was a lovely medley of gold, white, soft pink and Pepto Bismol pink.      

This flower topped jar is filled with solid perfume from the 20's.  It smelled like Chanel No. 5.  The bathroom was a time machine.  I opened the medicine cabinet to reveal an empty glass bottle of glycerin.  Medicine with price stickers around the 35 cent mark.  I was going to take a picture but then had a thought.  I believe I will see Grammy again in the next life.  Her medicine cabinet, bless her heart, would look like a still frame from the show Hoarders.  I really don't want to have a conversation with Grammy about why I showed the Internet some pretty personal, ancient personal effects.  If I died and my posterity showed pictures of my medicine cabinet I would be less than thrilled!  This was also a big wake up call for me to have a major spring cleaning...       

There is so much going on in this kitchen.  The carpet, the chairs, the wallpaper.  It's all too much, and yet just enough.  Then there's the bowl of rubberized fruit...notice the corn?

Remember when postage was 6 cents?  I certainly don't.  

If you were to ask a home buyer what kind of high grade counter top material they would like it probably would not be gold-speckled pink plastic.  At least Grammy's decorating was cohesive!  The lady loved pink!  

There's a story to this closet.  A semi-illegal story.  During the Depression the government called upon households to give up rations of certain food supplies.  One of these items was sugar.  My Grammy was a diligent canner and household manager.  She was also extremely thrifty and not too keen about giving away her hard earned sugar.  So Grammy filled jars with sugar and added water, thus making the sugar into syrup, which was no longer sugar.  

The Paris Tabernacle was erected in 1888, designed by a Danish ship builder.  The inside ceiling of the church actually looks like the bottom of a boat.  The town sits next to Bear Lake which was essential in the construction process.  The stone was slid across the frozen winter lake to access Paris.  The stained glass windows were packed in molasses and slid across the same lake.  Molasses protected the windows from the many bumps along the ride.  An old-fashioned bubble wrap!       

Just as we headed out of town a giant American Bald Eagle swooped above our car and soared for the tree tops.  I couldn't believe it!  I had never seen this bird in my whole life.  It was magical!  What made the incident all the more magical was that the bird had a friend, another American Bald Eagle.  This may become our permanent Christmas vacation spot.