The top of the world - Haleakala, Maui

Tom took a trip to the ridge of Haleakala, normally a restricted area, with two local friends. When 7,000 feet up, you look down on the clouds.

Variegated Maui

Maui guest apartment

It's been drizzly the last few days, so I haven't had much to post. However, being stuck inside isn't so bad when you are staying in a fabulous guest apartment. It's bigger than our real apartment. We made one of the bedrooms into our "dressing room." I twirl around in there, flinging clothes in all directions.

Our friends built and decorated this apartment themselves. They also happen to be serious thrifters. We've been hanging our laundry out to dry and eating arugula from the backyard garden.

I like their "curtain" closet doors.

Gone. Again.

We're in Maui.

Please don't hate us.

The original Bromeliad

Grandma Bromeliad recently turned 89. (I think I can say this since Grandma is not identified by name anywhere. Otherwise I'd be one dead epiphyte for telling everyone her age.) A while back, we dug through a box of old photographs, and I asked her about this one. I guess I was expecting something about being young and hopeful, or a story about the house she lived in.

"We were so poor then," she said. "Look at my shoes."

End of story. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. That's my Grandma.

The original Bromeliad, she always had class, regardless of income. She turned more than one shabby apartment into a palace of style. I remember her scrubbing the shared stairwell of any rental she lived in and lining the walls with Harrison Fisher prints.

We grandchildren drank milk from depression glass goblets and ate our grapefruit with serrated silver spoons. To this day, I can't bring myself to sit a plastic squeeze bottle on the dining room table.

Image via susiemax.com

Closet Organizing - Be an Artist

Here's the last in a series on organizing your closet.

Previous tips were to buy cheap and to audition your clothes.

My final suggestion is to view your closet as more than just storage. It's another room of your house (albeit tiny). If you're reading a home design blog in the first place, you probably like design. So, design your closet. Being an aesthetic snob about it will motivate you to keep the socks put away.

Personally, my bedroom closet is a palace. My pantry is a swamp. That's because I haven't even tried to make the pantry pretty. If I had cute matching bins or something or shelf backing lined with wallpaper, it might be a different story. Maybe next spring. . .

Images: Creative Closetworks, Tom Andrews for LaList (Barbie's Dream Closet), Making It Lovely

High/Low/Way Low/J. Lo - Branch Tables

Clockwise from top left: Driftwood Art Butler console table, Anthropologie Million Rings side table, Crate and Barrel driftwood end table, Harry Allen branch table, West Elm branch side table and square branch side table, Viva Terra tree slice table, J. Lo with dangly earrings.

Or make your own.