July 2 2023 - Living Your Dream Home

 

The house we live in reveals much about us and is is our biggest expenditure.  No wonder there have been so many television shows along the way about our houses.  Are we happier because we own a home?  An Atlantic article says "Yes." "Many studies over the years have shown that homeowners are, on average, happier than non-homeowners. In my own calculations, using the General Social Survey, 21 percent of people who own their home are “very happy,” compared with 16 percent of those who pay rent." That quote comes from the Atlantic, Mar 30 2023. And this Houzz article goes even further:  "Feeling a bit down? Maybe it’s time you redecorated your living room or finally tackled that remodeling project. No, seriously. In a recent Houzz survey, 87 percent of the more than 6,000 respondents said that their home design impacts their overall happiness. So if you’ve remodeled or redecorated your home in the past two years, you might be among the 74 percent who say they are now happier at home as a result. Of those who describe their home as being “in need of work,” only 51 percent reported feeling happy at home." What caught my eye was a CBC article.   In contrast to these American sources, the CBC has a different story headline:  Housing price, size don't have much influence on happiness:  UBC professor And what does make Canadians happy?  "It turns out that what really matters is the extent to which our houses facilitate positive social connections," says Elizabeth Dunn, director the Happy Lab at the University of British Columbia. That from the CBC article HERE. This article from Ramboll in Denmark says this about happiness and our homes:  "We are eager to find how a home – understood as the private sphere as well as the connection between the private and the community - supports well-being for families and individuals. What are the constituents of happiness in this context? What does the architectural design mean for a home and for the community at large?"   This research is still underway, so we will await their findings.  This Ramboll study follows from the Danish Happiness Research Institute research results about people's happiness with their homes.  The results are HERE.  Those results concluded that 73% of people who are happy with their home are also happy in life. And that your home is as impactful as general health and fitness and more impactful than earnings on happiness. Here's quite the view from a home's window - the Ringling Museum Mansion - overlooking the water through stained glass windows. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 3 2022 - World Architecture Day

 

This is world architecture day and Bing's front page has Antwerp's Port Authority Building as the example of preserving historic buildings by combining them with modern structures.  World Architecture Day coincides with World Habitat Day.   That connection seems a bit ironic to me. The  architecture who designed the Antwerp building is Zaha Hadid who is known for never designing a building containing a right angle.  That is "she was the inventor of 89 degrees, nothing was done in 90 degrees."  It is wonderful to look through her designs - so many beautiful curving shapes.  But back to us in the small world of individual/family residential living. The average house size varies from 484 square feet in Hong Kong to 2300 sq ft in Australia.  In the U.S. the average is similar to Australia.  It is around 1,500 sq ft in Canada, but growing quickly.   We in the first world countries live in big internal spaces.   The houses emerging on Ontario's landscapes are on narrow lots.  The houses are very tall, in order to accommodate the sparsity of land, but also the desire for big square feet and royal dimensions.   They have 2 garages and a double height entrance. All the rooms have extra-tall ceilings.  I think of this as "everyman castle syndrome. " The second trend in these homes is everything black - the brick, the windows. This I consider to be the same as black cars with black windows - keeping everyone from looking in.   So here we are on World Architecture Day, celebrating beautiful architectural accomplishments, side by side with bad residential architecture.

This is the Losani development in Beamsville.  I can see Benchscape, the property where I tended the raised herb and edible flower garden.  The paths to the end of the garden are clearly shown.  It is on the first west-side street on the upper left side just past all the "promises." Continue along Mountain Street going south up the escarpment, and just above the brow of the escarpment is Floyd Elzinga's studio.   Here are two Grimsby versions - these are older houses so spread across a property.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 30 2020 - Garden Stories of the Year

 

There are lots of 'best of' lists in newspapers this time of year.  It's the end of the year, so looking back, summarizing, choosing the best are the standard activities.   Britain's best garden was declared for 2020 and it is Marie and Tony Newton's garden in Walsall, England.  The story and pictures are HERE.   Retired medical doctor Tony Newton and his wife Marie have nestled 3,000 plants and flowers, including 450 azaleas, 120 Japanese maples and 15 blue star junipers into a one-quarter-acre plot of land.   This aerial view demonstrates the sheer volume of plants in their plot compared to their neighbours.  That's a lot of Japanese Maples that I see.     While this story is excellent, it really can't compete with the next one:  photographer builds adorable tiny log cabins for his backyard to keep mouse families safe from cats.  The story and pictures are HERE.     A meditative moment of koi fish is our image today.   They seem to be floating somewhere - like our hope that 2020 floats away ... far away.  Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 7 2020 - Princess cruising

I wondered about the status of the cruise ship industry.  We're starting to imagine the post-pandemic society and in my imagination, cruise vacations are equivalent to the black plague.  But that might not be the case for others. The princess.com website says nothing about COVID-19 - it has lots of deals for Mother's Day and recommendations for vacations.  If you click on  the tiny strip at the top that says travel advisories, it said yesterday that it is extending the pause of global ship operations for the remaining 2020 summer season.  What's the status of cruise ships now?  There's a Wikipedia entry for that.  It says as of May 2nd, there were over 40 cruise ships with confirmed positive cases on board. One cruise ship remains at sea - the Artania, with 8 passengers scheduled to disembark at the end of May.  There are 100,000 crew members on ships with many unable to be repatriated because cruise lines refuse to cover the cost. Yesterday the Ruby Princess arrived in Manila Bay to let 5,000 Filipino crew members get tested before disembarking. There are 16 other cruise ships at anchor there.  In all there are more than 17,000 Filippino workers on ships who have returned home - to quarantine. This is the ship that caused Australia's biggest cluster - a quarter of Australia's 97 deaths can be traced back to the Ruby Princess. Cruise ships are still booking travel and people are still booking their vacations for next year. Supposedly that is because of generous cancelation policies.  I haven't heard any CBC interviews on the cruise ship industry post-pandemic.  CBC did look at air travel yesterday.  It interviewed experts on what air travel will look like in the future.  Expect long and complicated procedures in airports. Perhaps the Economist's pessimistic headline says it:  Imagine the post-pandemic misery of business travel.   I was out photographing orchards yesterday and took this picture of this cute house in Grimsby.  It is at the Lake where the Chautauqua community originated.  The little lanes of colourfully painted houses are known as Grimsby Beach.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://www.blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Catch the Gingerbread Man

Do we eat gingerbread cookies all year round?  Not at all.  It is special to Christmas.  The ancient Greeks and Egyptians considered it special too - they used it for ceremonies. Being a tropical plant, it came to Europe in the 11th century with the crusaders.  But it wasn't applied to desserts until the 15th century.  Elizabeth 1 is credited with the idea of decorating cookies - she had them made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court.  They became  the highlight of Gingerbread Fairs.  The role of gingerbread cookies as a love token is shown in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost:  "An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread" Somehow gingerbread men and gingerbread houses became a major tradition of Christmas - the gingerbread house is linked to the Hansel and Gretel story in 1812.  Gingerbread men were made exclusively by gingerbread masters who kept their recipes secret and the cookies eventually became a staple of Christmas fairs. Those times are past, and we happily all can make our own houses and gingerbread cookies.  Get cracking! There are dozens of gingerbread jokes: When should you take a ginger bread cookie to the doctor? When it feels crummy. What does the ginger bread man put on his bed? A cookie sheet. Why do basketball players love gingerbread cookies? Because they can dunk them!  Today's picture is a close-up of a Gerbera flower.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

210 John Street East NOTL

The pictures from last week's Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) garden tour have made it to the computer.  The disk reader had stopped working and now there's a new one that seems like magic it is so small. Last week's highlight was 210 John Street. This was part of the Randwood Estate owned by Trisha Romance. The history of Randwood is HERE.  I don't know the history of severing this house from the Rand property, but it now is separately owned by Barbara McArthur.   She was on hand with information and stories about the house and gardens. This is a large historical property with lots to experience - the house, gardens, even the stables were preserved. There were tree experts who take care of the trees on the property - and they pointed out the interesting native specimens. I found  a large historic account of the Town of Niagara HERE.  It is written by Joseph E. Masters who lived in the late 1800's and died in 1955.  So far, I haven't found an account of this house and its origins.   Here are some highlights of this grand estate.

At the Ringling Museum

Ringling Museum     The historic mansion is a delicate beauty, with complex colours and textures in terra cotta, tile, and marble. Built with a similar intent - to create the most striking of private homes - as Biltmore and Hearst, this mansion is elaborate. The antique roof tiles come from Barcelona where John Ringling salvaged them and sent them home, filling two cargo ships. There were too many for the house, so some were sold to neighbours.  One can still see roofs that match Ca' d'Zan's. The house is Venetian in design. In keeping with the theme, Mable Ringling kept a gondola at the dock. After John Ringling's death, the mansion was neglected for decades.  Its transformation back to its original beauty was completed in 2002, with a six year effort to restore it. There is the Art Museum, Circus Museum, and also an 18th century Italian theatre on the ground.  It sits inside a new structure.  Ringling had it shipped from the Veneto to Florida in 1930.