Life on the Farm: More from The Selby

You all know I am such a huge fan of Todd Selby, and that he paid us a visit in the summer of 2012 when we first moved to England. Some of his photos ran in The Guardian last year and I posted them here. This week he posted his own edit of the pictures on his website. I loved seeing the additional pictures of our kids living out their farm life dreams, and Christopher was delighted that he included the more real, messier parts of the farm like the abandoned barns, the storage sheds and the compost pile. Enjoy!

The best view of the farmyard is from the treehouse where you can see the side of the cottage, the old grain barn and sheds in the distance. The stables and old piggeries (where Christopher's painting studio is) are across the track on the right side.

Zach headed down the fireman's pole.

Zach drawing in the treehouse. We have since transformed this space into a little art studio for the kids. 

Old Land Rovers are the best family cars for the countryside. We can fit 10 people inside comfortably (with seat belts!) and you can cross even the most muddy, bumpy terrain. We love ours.

Giving Zach a cuddle in the Land Rover.

It's funny to me that I look at home in the garden here because I am so not a gardening person, apart from liking to pick the flowers to make arrangements for the house. Occasionally I do some weeding, but it is really more Christopher's passion.

Poor Clementine. We went out to feed her one morning and she had died. She was only a year old. Life on the farm can be really harsh sometimes. 

Coco feeding her twins - Clemmie and Hamlet. 

Jack Bauer and Inspector Clouseau chowing down on fresh grass.

Coco always says she's going to train the donkeys to be ridden, but it hasn't happened yet. But otherwise, she is a real pro on the farm - helping out with all the animals and not afraid to get her hands very dirty.

I posted most of the interiors of the house in my last Selby post, but there were some nice details he included this time, like the 70's fashion illustrations I bought at a yard sale on Shelter Island.

I don't know what it is about England, but we eat an unfathomable amount of toast here. Therefore, many condiments are required.

Cheese! We eat a lot of cheese here too, as we did when Todd came to visit. My shirt and vest are by Proenza Schouler, by the way.

I love this picture of Christopher. Our house is really his genius. He converted it from a cart shed 25 years ago. 

A silhouette of Christopher by artist Elliott Puckette.

A glimpse of Christopher's motorcycle collection from days past.

The most photogenic part of the farm is definitely the garden shed. People love to fantasize that there is some cute little guest bedroom with a fireplace in there. As much as I would like that to be true, it really is just a garden shed. Christopher feels it's pretentious to convert every old building into something overly cute and decorated, so it just is what it is - a garden shed. 

The inside of the garden shed. Doesn't get more real than that.

Another view of the garden shed. It has since been organised a bit, but nothing dramatic. 

Coco has since moved onto to a bigger horse, but Polo will always be her true love. He has taught her everything she knows about riding and now it's time for her to teach a younger horse how it's done. Polo remains a legend around here though - he has been ridden by my niece and many neighbours over the years so all the local trainers and teachers from pony club know him well and give him lots of shout outs. Recently he also became a top model when he appeared on the cover of JCrew and the back page of Teen Vogue. As you can tell he is very loved.

Some of Coco's rosettes in the tack room. The rest are in her bedroom.

In the summer I get very into arranging flowers for the house. Occasionally I mix, but on the whole I like very simple arrangements with just one variety of flower. 

The barn. Ugh!!!!! What an amazing space, right? But you can see what a money pit and a time suck this would be. Sometimes we get so excited by the idea of doing it up and living on a bigger scale but then we think about how much we love the simplicity of our lives at the moment and realise how grateful we are for what we already have. Maybe some day.....

A window in our "master bathroom" in the barn. 

Even though we have no current plans to start construction, the fantasy lives on in the reclaimed wood, windows, and architectural details Christopher has accumulated to one day use in this project.

Gingy girl, catching her breath on the top of the hill. 

Christopher showing off his perfect soil from the compost pile.

Have you ever seen such a smile?

Life on the Farm: The Selby comes to visit

I am a huge fan of all that Todd Selby does - his photographs, his watercolors, his sense of design, the people and places he is attracted to, and his so-goofy-it's-cool personality. He is creative and talented, and his style - as well as that of the people he photographs - is highly personal. A few years ago, after religiously reading his blog and combing every page of his first book, I found an excuse to cold call Todd. I was speaking to a book agent that had represented him, and I was hoping he would give me advice about the direction I should take in finding a new agent for myself. And he did - his business perspective was surprising, yet spot on. But what I was really hoping when I called him was that we'd chat on the phone and become friends. Which is exactly what has happened. Towards the end of our long phone call, he said. "Hey, what's your house like?" I told him that I was moving to England and that I would send him some photos. Six months later, in July of 2012, a month after we had settled into our cottage, Todd was here on the farm paying us a visit. The Guardian had hired Todd to shoot a dozen houses in England that would run periodically in their Sunday magazine. So here Todd was, running around the farm with a camera taking pictures of the barns, the garden, the treehouse, the cottage, the kids, us and all the animals. I was fascinated to watch him work. As a lover of photography myself I was amazed to see how differently from me he shoots things. He is spontaneous, quick, unselfconscious with his camera whereas I am always looking for the right angle and calculating in my composition. We have since kept in touch, calling each other occasionally for ideas or advice, and I am so glad to have such an inspiring new friend.

Of all the photo shoots I have done in my life, the ones Todd took here feel the most like the real me. There is nothing that makes me happier or more relaxed than being at home, in my own clothes, with no hair and makeup, having fun with my husband and kids. Isn't feeling like yourself what personal style is all about?

The kitchen is where I spend the bulk of my time at home. Even when I am not cooking, I am often on my computer at the kitchen table. What I love most about my kitchen is the view of the garden from those huge arched windows. It makes doing dishes so much easier!

Happy Gingy girl in her favourite chair. 

We are always so grateful to have the chance to eat outside in England. We can go a whole month in the summer without having the chance, but this year we were lucky to have many, many meals in the garden, even a few in October.

Coco has long grown out of Sailor, but he will always be among her favourites. Sailor taught Coco how to jump and twice won "most willing pony" when she took him to Pony Club camp. He's a legend in this part of the countryside.

What I most love about our cottage are the layers of history. Christopher first converted it from a cart shed into a house 25 years ago, but many family members and friends have lived here over the years and each have contributed to it's style. This rug is a good example. I have no idea where it came from, but I found it folded up in a closet and I liked it, so I put it in the guest bathroom where it now resides. 

The pillars represent the old entrance to the farm, just up the hill from our cottage. This is Ginger's favourite place to walk, especially in the evening when the sun is going down. 

Our kooky family portrait. Yes those are Zach's legs sticking up in the air. 

Probably my highlight of Todd's visit was when Zach rode the pig. If you read my blog regularly, you must know by now that pig riding is Zach's party trick. But Todd's reaction was priceless - he roared with laughter. 

In the tack room we hang Coco and Zach's rosettes. But we've also hung Snowflake's. Snowflake was a promising racehorse that my mother-in-law owned, but she got a bad infection and had to be put down much too early. Coco was a baby when Snowflake was around, but she still remembers her so we leave the rosettes there to honour her memory.

Zach heading up to the treehouse.

Todd's portraits of Zach, me and Coco. 

Christopher loves to collect things. Tucked away in long-abandoned barns he's got way too many old motorcycles, reclaimed window frames and vintage radios. They just sit there, but he likes to know they're there.

We have since transformed the treehouse into an art studio, but I suspect Zach misses the days of the vintage Star Wars curtain-turned-tablecloth.

My bedroom. At times I have been tempted to change the 80's Laura Ashley wallpaper, but now I'm so glad I didn't.

We have a giant barn next to the cottage that we have been talking about converting for as long as I have known Christopher. We thought that would be our obvious project while living here. But at the moment, we are both really happy living simply on a smaller scale. Maybe one day we'll get to it.

Since these photos were taken over a year ago, so much has changed. Our sitting room has been completely rearranged and recovered, but the gist of it is here. We built the bookshelves using wood recovered from the Swansea Pier, and the portraits of the kids on the mantel were a wedding present from my close friend Anh Duong.

Seeing this picture of Coco's room makes me so nostalgic. She grew out of these beds a while ago, and now she has just a twin bed that's twice the size. It's still lovely, but those beds were so precious.

Christopher and I drink way too much coffee, so this tin is well loved and worn. And I love using quail's eggs in salads when I can get them.