Daydreaming, Courtesy Of The White Company

Dreaming of this...

Please note that although I was compensated for this post and that writing on this subject was suggested, all opinions are my own. 

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When I was growing up, back in the Dark Ages before the Internet, I lived for catalogs. Whenever the Sears, Lilian Vernon, or Spiegel books came, I'd snatch them up so that I could dream about what my house would look like when I grew up. I'd rip pages out showing items I wanted to buy, without a thought of cost, to fill my “happily ever after” place. I paid attention to things like high thread count in my linens, ways to “dress” up my tables to coincide with the Seasons, and tried to understand why table runners were important (they add color and texture to your decor). Dreaming blocked out the reality of my family's extremely tight budget and my mother's obliviousness to anything but practical matters like food and clothing.

Recently, I was transported back to my childhood as I looked over the website for The White Company. Unlike my life right now which is happily filled with kids who leave fingerprints on ANYTHING white, family members with allergies that render bed skirts a health hazard, and my own laziness about dusting and laundry, The White Company allowed me to dream as I had in the past.

I looked a white linen tablecloths and napkins, breakfast in bed trays, soap trays, and white bedding Savoy collection has a 400 thread count!). I delighted in the beautiful champagne glass buckets. I puzzled over a ceramic bottle arch (for those, like me, who don't know what they are, they hold bottles of body lotion). All the while, I tried to forget that my kids ignore the rule about playing ball in the house, that we never serve breakfast in bed due to crumbs, and don't have lit candles or diffusers around because our cat resembles a mountain goat in her desire to climb on any surface regardless of the height.

Some things are out of my reach right now, just as they were as a child, but for different reasons. One day, the kids will be off on their own, and there will be plenty of time to buy some of the lovely, impractical things I see in catalogs and on The White Company's website (although the site has plenty of useful items at decent prices) to adorn my retirement home. Until then, I can dream.

So that's what a ceramic bottle arch is!