Be Greenbrier Ready

When I was a girl, it was a once a year tradition for my mother and her best friend to take their daughters for a day to the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. It was a big moment in my childhood when I was deemed "Greenbrier Ready", as my family always called it. That pretty much meant that I had good enough table manners to be presentable. We would put on our nicest dresses (with big bows in the girls' hair because it was the south after all), and all pile in the car to drive the three hours to the Greenbrier.

We would tour the resort, have lunch, and go to Draper's for the best ice cream.

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Then we would stay for tea time, before heading home.

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This was where I first discovered the interior designer Dorothy Draper. She was one of the first professional decorators and one of the most well know in the 20th century. In 1948, she was hired to renovate the Greenbrier, after it's military use during WWII. That is her picture on the back wall of her namesake restaurant.

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Her style was bold. But it also strikes me as still modern looking today.

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Hello emerald green chairs!

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Love this blue color with the pop of red.

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This is wallpaper she designed for the resort. The flower is a rhododendron, the state flower of West Virginia.

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I liked Dorothy Draper even more when I read that she often stressed that the most important aspect of decorating was having courage...the courage to explore one’s own ideas. Definitely something to keep in mind as I check off the tasks on my own improvement list.