I was dusting the frames in the long gallery when I stopped at this one empty spot on the wall. Just blank space where a painting should be. Made the whole wall look...wrong somehow.

Without thinking, I said, "Could use some white roses here. Something soft to break up all this dark wood."

White roses. Don't know why I thought that. They just seemed right for the space—clean, bright. Maybe because everything else in this place feels so heavy and closed off. Or maybe because white roses ...