The French Blue Bedroom found its way back to me

Remember this gorgeous french blue bedroom I posted last week?

As fate would have it, I stumbled upon this room the very next day in a beautiful book given to me by The Suze for Christmas called Stealing Magnolias: Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard.

I will get to the room in a moment, but I must talk about this book first.  It is beautiful. As author Debra Shriver explains, it is a collection of "musings on the spell that New Orleans has cast upon me." It is as she says,"part-love letter and part-scrapbook."  She captures the magic and intrigue of New Orleans through pictures, quotes, history, traditions, recipes as well as her own impressions.  It is really an all-encompassing guide to the The Crescent City through the eyes of someone who not only loves her city but is in awe of its magic.

In Chapter 3 of Stealing Magnolias, titled The House Finds Us, the bedroom that I left to fate in a previous post found me. I should have known my dream bedroom would be in New Orleans. If you hadn't gathered by the monogrammed valances, the bedroom belongs to the book's author.  I will go ahead and commit to this being my dream bedroom. The blue, the silk, the fact that the windows look out to the streets of New Orleans, yes, I could wake up here every day.

From House Beautiful

A close-up of the beautiful silk embroidered silk fabric that inspired much of  interior's color palette

the author's parlor

custom toile dining chairs illustrating scenes from New Orlean's history 

I can't wait until I can actually sit by the fire in a cozy chair with a cafe au lait and read it from cover to cover.  If you don't have any plans this weekend, I suggest you do the same.