She sheds seashells by the she shore.

Well, it's been a hot minute since I've been here but Springtime is Busytime at the Ranch.  I went on some work trips, had a quick trip to Nashville, went to Miami for a design show and didn't get sunburned - SUCCESS.  I did sweat through my first outfit of the year and it's only May... thanks, Florida.  But I got so many damn shells from the beach Florida should start paying me to haul away their junk.  

You should follow me on Instagram - I 'gram way more than I blog!

Wait, you can take shells from the beach, right?!  It's not illegal like taking plants from a national park, right? 

*mails shells back to Florida*

And after years of traveling I've FINALLY made a permanent toiletry bag so I can grab and go - SUCCESS.  All hail the tiniest of eye cream containers!  I'm adulting all over the damn place.  It's like a bukkake of responsible decisions around here.

When I wasn't jetsetting all over the Southeast region I've been doing never-ending amounts of yardwork.  This month is just so damn sweaty!  I'm reaching the end of my giant bush removal project (for this season) so I'll post some updates on that soon.  It looks... unimpressive for the amount of bitching I've been doing.

So what happened during all this tiny shampoo organizing and endless hole digging?  The Mad Men finale which I'm a season behind on so no spoilers, Janet Jackson announced a new album and tour (!), blackhead-removing videos are my new obsession and favorite lullaby and SHE SHEDS.  

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She sheds are the hot new alliteration all over the websites your mom reads.  It's the lady version of man caves... in case women were feeling left out of the home decor world?  I read some hot take about "gendered spaces" but I could only get three sentences in before I lost all interest in living life.

She sheds seem like nothing other than a catchy blog post name for the cute spaces in a lot of Pinterest folders.  I think we can attribute all of it to that NYT cottage way back when - remember this shabby chic Victorian cottage that induced much eye-rolling (probably from this blogger too?).

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I don't really care anything about the concept of 'she sheds' and somehow just having a discussion about it feels like a women's studies class led by Mike Huckabee so let's just agree to let people of all genders drink wine while knitting dreamcatchers or brewing craft root beer in whatever small outdoorsy space they need.  End of discussion.

Of course, I like my own personal space so much I live alone in my own house.  IT'S THE ULTIMATE SHE SHED!

As a general rule, I'm very pro-shed.  Where I come from, 'behind the shed' is where you smoke for the first time, get fingerbanged or bury a body.  All are glorious rites of passage no matter which one you choose.  As an adult (thanks to my tween rite of passage, you guess which one), I find sheds very useful for all my dirty, dirty tools. Except for the gross barn I had removed last year...

And that's kinda the problem... sheds are gross (see above about numerous amounts of vaginal fluids and corpses) and are like poisonous hotboxes filled with all manner of critters.  I know what lives in a shed outside and it ain't ruffles.  It's spiders.  

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Just some giant open walls for maximum spider passage directly into your BED.  

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And if you want to have a potting shed and paint it pastel well then I hope the Lordt blesses you with a maid and a clue because obviously you've never potted a thing in your life.  My potting shed - because yeah I want one - would be made entirely of black rubber and metal so I can hose it down.  And it has air conditioning.  And a sink... ok it's just a small house filled with piles of dirt that I don't have to clean up.

Seems the UK has a huge shed movement but they are taking it to a whole other level: pub sheds!  Those squirrelly Brits also have a contest for the best sheds and they do not disappoint:

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This urban bike shed is the winner of the best eco shed and it looks delightful.  Bet the British sheds are actual places to sit and have tea and probably not the prisoner of war shed like mine was...

I can definitely get behind this modern shed more than I can that lace and chicken fuckery above.  To each his own I guess.  I mean, she own...

But since this is my blog I get to feature the sheds/greenhouse/unattainable cottages I like.  .

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So let's shed this bitch

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Shed to the max.

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 Shed is bae.

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This glass shed of silence is adorable and I would like it very much.

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I could practically live in this one...

I lost the source...??

This one looks like it really came from a Home Depot kit and I approve.  Home Depot hobbit.  Of course, you could grow vines over a laundry crate and I'd try to rent it on Airbnb.

San Francisco's General Store by On A Hazy Morning

A single room is nice.  Small space for potting but you could also just sit alone with a chair and shut the door.  No judgment.

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This counts as a shed. I bet getting fingerbanged behind this turns you into a fairy.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Man

This half-shed, half-greenhouse is my favorite because he gives you the plans!  How super.  It's a great gardening blog too.

But don't forget the most important part of the yard: Charlemagne.

Unknown.  I probably blogged it before anyway...

Cat shed.  

Just kidding I'd make her hang out in the she shed and kill the rodents that are nesting in my daybed.

I'll probably be blogging light this summer (I don't have a blog shed) but I'll try not to let a month go in between.  That's just rude.

Hope your May was delightful!  Hope it was in a shed.

UPDATE: After I published this post about eleventeenfifty shed articles came across my dash/stream/pins within a few hours which lets me know we all got shed brains right now.  But this one was worth adding.  It's technically a playhouse but I'm saying it's a shed... 

See the whole cute place at Rue

WITH A SLIDE.  All other sheds are moot.

I'm just excited I used 'proboscis' in a sentence!

Grab your passports, sauce guzzlers, and let's take an architectural field trip!  It is a long way away.  Bring extra sauce for hydration.

I really have no idea what 'sauce' is in this scenario.

Regardless, welcome to Ethiopia!   Specifically the Southwest corner.  Here's a map cuz if you're like me (a dumb American) you don't know where that is.  But we should because very nice buildings are happening there.

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I am died.  The Dorze people are known for their distinctive dwellings that are completely unique to them and pretty fuckawesome.  That is a technical term I pulled Arch Daily.

More great travel pics at Line Shape Color

They are also known for having the best weaving in Ethiopia so right now the Dorze are batting a thousand for the design team.  I'm not even on the field in regards to such complicated design activities so I'm waving my giant foam finger for them.

The buildings are made of basket-woven shell of bamboo and then finished with 'false banana' leaves.  Fake bananers be good for sumthin.

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Who doesn't love a process shot?!  I'm a little blown away by the amount of leaves that are involved.  Fortunately there aren't any windows to work around.

Here  Separate partitions for the animals, I believe.

The entire structure is surprisingly large measuring about 25-30 feet tall.  Based on my calculations that's about seven square miles of leaves.  The reason they are designed so tall is for more than just a great chandelier.  The walls sit directly on the ground and termites eat the building from the floor up.

You'd think this would create massive structural problems but in fact it just causes the homes to get shorter.  They start out so tall so they can shrink over decades.  That's right, they build in their own aging solution.  The homes get shorter and cuter over time.  It's like they're the Benjamin Buttons of architecture!

And they do last decades - sometimes up to 100 years.  If the termite problem does get overwhelming or they want a new view the entire building can even be moved with the help of some friendly neighbors and lots of rope.

Here I love the landscaping around the perimeter of the homes too. Perfection.

But damn, the termites seem friendlier in Africa, right?  I have to get termite treatments every eight years so my house doesn't cave in on itself and leave me in dust but in Africa you have decades.  DECADES.  Africa might have killer bees but we have asshole termites.

My favorite part about the structures is that they have a very anthropomorphic quality.  Once you see the face you can't UNsee it.

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The "eyes" are the air vents and also release the smoke from the cooking/heating fire.  The "nose" acts as the entrance vestibule and can be very large (like the very first picture) and then as the entire structure shrinks the nose gets smaller and they cut the doorway larger.  

I found out that the "face" does have an explanation that's not just related to function, however.  This region of Ethiopia used to have lots of elephants so the homes pay homage to them with their grey skin and large proboscis.  AND NOW I LOVE THEM EVEN MORE.  

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You can't UNsee it now either!  Look at its wittle head!  

I'm not sure if that little anecdote is true or something they just tell the white people taking pictures but I love so it's true.

And you better get in your elephant love now because I heard Tim Burton is going to be directing a new Dumbo so get ready for Johnny Depp to piss all over your childhood.  Childhood memories of hysterical sobbing over that movie but whatever.

After you finish writing an angry letter to Disney, I highly recommend you take a look at this video tour of a Dorze home for a more complete picture.  The guide shows his grandfather's 92-year-old home in case you thought I was lying about their ages.

However, I should admit I have weird feelings about getting a tour of a home currently inhabited by people.  People who are just outside the door...  Is it just me?

Now, I'm guilty of stopping in the road and taking a picture of someone's home and I'm blogging about the Dorze so maybe I shouldn't be the moral compass here.  But are these little tours just catering to rich tourists or maybe it's like some version of colonial Williamsburg except not colonial but CURRENT?  Or are the people that open up their homes to tourists the design bloggers of Ethiopia?  Maybe they WANT to show off their houses.  

I'm not saying I don't want to see them but I am aware that I saw pictures of the same two structures (three pictures up) over and over again.  I'm not sure I know the correct answer to these questions and maybe I should pull out my books on vernacular architecture more than once a decade.  *cough*  I was almost smart in college...

Regardless, I hope tourists are absolutely throwing money at them for every last bit of their beautiful weaving.

Now I feel kinda uncomfortable about the implications of vernacular architectural tourism so let's look at some more baby elephants until we are obliviously comfortable again!

Baby elephants welcome in my home anytime!

Peacock Pavilions: Looking Fine and Doing Good In Marrakesh.

If you're feeling extra sweet this week - gave away the last piece of pizza, made awkward small talk with a nice stranger - it's because of the stars.  Today the moon moves into Aquarius for the next two months and this is supposed to be a time for humanitarian acts, so says New Age people.  The cosmos WANTS you to put a few extra bucks into the Starbucks tip jar.  Even when they aren't looking, George Costanza.

In conjunction (astrology humor!) with this cosmological occurrence, this seems like a good time to introduce you to the story of the most stylish humanitarian on this side of the galaxy: Peacock Pavilions and its owner/designer/mom Maryam Montague. 

You've probably put your eyeballs on said pavilion many a time and didn't even know it.  You've probably pinned it - I did - I didn't even know it.  Well, I'm about to learn you real good.

Maryam, caftan enthusiast/nice person/blog friend, and her architect husband, Chris Redecke, decided to settle their family on an olive grove in Marrakesh and build an eco-conscious boutique hotel and resort.  As you do.  

So together they designed and decorated Peacock Pavilions, a box waiting to be checked on every design blogger's bucket list for obvious reasons.

This is her office where she overlooks the olive grove.

My office has a drawer full of nothing but hand lotion and Claritin...

This place could give us lessons in curtains.

But it ain't all Elle Decor spreads and Lonny covers, Maryam travels Africa and the world fighting for human rights and democracy.  She has a standing date with Amal Clooney to talk about running nations and fashion.  I made up the last sentence but I bet it's true.

I let a jerk merge in front of me in traffic the other day so I GET what it's like to devote your life to helping the less fortunate.  I live my life with compassion.

I think I need to live my life in Morocco too.

And in case you were distracted by all the good deeds, don't forget the staircase:

But since I'm a one trick pony with exceptional taste, I can't help but be drawn to her bedroom which is full of winter whites (do they have winter in Morocco?).  I guess if you aren't feeling the bleak midwintery vibe of the last post here's something in warmer weather for you.

BRASS DOOR FRAME.

It also has some custom wall stencils which might be the only wall stencils I didn't know I even wanted until I saw it.  

I custom made a headboard recently out of a Goodwill reject, scrap fabric and staples so I too like to surround myself with luxury.

I think this proves the point that if you're gonna go monochromatic you have to have a lot of texture.  Preferably if it's a pillow with a mohawk but you do you.

Sequins are approved, as well.

A window seat also helps.  Pretty sure you can only drink creamy drinks in here: lattes, Frappuccinos, White Russians.  If you drank a red Gatorade (or the Moroccan equivalent) in here it would probably give you heartbearn. [MS sidebar: I misspelled heartburn and couldn't figure out why it was wrong for about three minutes but like it better this way so we all have to switch.]

I'm loving this grouping of lanterns.  I have one "Moroccan" lantern in this delightful egg (?) shape but now it just feels lonely.  I think I need a baker's dozen.  I'll have to get rid of my dining table but I think eating while laying on the floor is very 2015.  

If you want to bring a bit of real Morocco to your house and not have it look like the culturally-appropriated tchotchke hurricane as you might see on tv, check out her shop for all the best in properly-sourced goodies.

If you're going to gift yourself a Moroccan wedding blanket, a handira, this is the place to go.  Pillows and poufs galore too.  

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Love the little bits of pattern with the pillows.  (This is similar to my pillow!).  I think what I like about this whole space so much is the mix of clean neutrals as a backdrop for lots of bright pattern.  You get the best of both worlds.

However, I'm rather obsessed with the BLACK wedding blankets lately:

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I think (?) Maryam is the inventor of the black wedding blanket and if that was the only thing she did in life that would be enough.  But also human rights 'n stuff.

Mr. Beni Ourain is still solid in my book despite the controversy lately over its apparent trendiness.  I don't think you can really call something trendy that has existed centuries before we were even born, can you?

Of course next week I'll be like "Ugh BOOKS. I'm so over this Gutenberg press hipster bullshit."

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I'd never seen one that with this color of gold before - such a nice variation.  Could work in bleak midwinter or if you're feeling more jazzy.

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So much jazz.

The shop also features tons of cute wall hooks designed by Maryam herself.

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It's like a cross between a hamsa and a peacock!  Because PEACOCK!  You're too much, M.  I'm not being an ass, I'm just excited because I didn't see the peacock until about one minute before writing this and I love a secret pun in silver.

Maryam, bored with her life doing nothing, has also founded Project Soar - an organization for underprivileged girls and women near Peacock Pavilions.  A portion of all proceeds from the shop benefit the program so buy as many protective peacock hands as you want (+1 for me).  

Fun fact: if you stay at the pavilion you get to ride on a peacock in a great race throughout the vast olive grove.  Just kidding, if you stay you can volunteer for Project Soar which is pretty cool.  I'm on board for dedicating my 2015 and beyond to women, yes?

My grandmother has a stray peacock that has started coming to her door to visit everyday this winter.  She lives in Texas if that helps explain it...?  Regardless, she named him Fred so if I want to race a peacock I'll try the family bird.

Familial bird-racing aside, I'm writing this overt love letter to the PP and MM because I truly believe we're seeing the real thing.  In the often shady world of internet life it's really refreshing and inspirational to find a person and cause that is not just talking the talk but walking the walk and doing it with boss style.

Make sure to check out Maryam's blog, My Marrakesh, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Or you can do more than read this here blog post and buy her book, Marrakesh by Design, or even donate directly to Project Soar.

If nothing else I recommend you follow her on Instagram for lots of pictures of the party life at Peacock Pavilions but mostly for this:

And this:

And this:

All photos are from Elle Decor, Lonny or Maryam's site/Instagram/book

More like Kitteh Pavilions, amirite?

How do cats meow in Arabic?  Like, they 'meow' in good old American, 'miao' in Italian, 'mrow' in comics...  These are things I think about when I travel.

I have yet to see a picture of a peacock AT Peacock Pavilons but maybe they have to keep them separate from the cats... Probably smart.  I don't think Fred and Charlemagne would be friends.

I received no compensation for this post but I'd take a Moroccan cat if they were handing them out...