In the process of redecorating our living room we used our dining room as a storeroom for a couple of weeks and this in turn prompted a total spring clean and change over of curtains before all our furniture could be set back in place. We even went to the trouble of taking down pictures and mirrors and dusting the backs. With these objects removed, especially our mirror that takes pride of place the room looked quite sad. 

It got me thinking, how a good mirror is like adding another window to a room. There are many styles available and here I have listed some that I own and others that I covet or ideas worth adapting.

I saw this convex mirror in a shop in Rome. These mirrors distort the view of the room and a great for reflecting light.

This corner door has mirror to conceal what is behind, a clever device that blurs the edges of the room and increases space.

Lots of mirror framed in an architectural context.

This small gilt framed mirror reminds me of mirrors I have seen in Venice, it reflects the bookcases in our living room.

More mirrors set in an architectural context in the Carvenale museum in Paris. This museum is a wonderful source of inspiration for interior designers with its period room sets.

This little square framed mirror is your humble ikea mirror given a stencil and lacquer treatment. A quick saturday afternoon project for my amusement.

The sunburst mirror hanging above the door in this Parisian design shop has a fifties feel to it. A quirky place to hang it but effective.

The end of year break has given me time to tackle a niggling problem, our living room. While other people were planning what to serve Christmas day or their New Years Eve party, we were selecting colours, ordering paint and preparing surfaces. There is something very satisfying when you can see physical evidence of your work. 
Background
Essentially our living room needed repainting and some new furniture. While the original scheme was quite pleasing, it had not stood the rigours of two cocker spaniels and two spoilt cats. The upholstery had become tired, and the animals just didn't like it. We needed a room that we could all share. This is our room to relax in, watch TV and eat casual meals.



Process
 We did an audit of what worked and what we liked and then developed a new scheme that would be more animal friendly. Twenty or so years ago when we built the extension onto our modest Californian Bungalow, we created a room that gave us garden views that would open onto a kitchen. We used similar elements and scales that were in the original house . We originally painted the new timber floorboards as we had original boards elsewhere and couldn't match the patina. The idea of painting things was that you could easily change your mind about colours.  This room opens directly out onto the garden, and our first cocker spaniel  stayed on the garden paths as he didn't like the great outdoors, these ones know no boundaries and bring the whole garden in on their paws. We decided that some sisal rugs that could be hosed down if they became soiled and they would limit the amount of floating dirt, and cut the grit from scratching the floors too much. A leather sofa  that you could sponge  down and repair the scratches with black shoe polish, was a  practical choice.  A classic styled two seater would work along with two ottomans which the cats like to sit on, or provide extra guest seating. 

Inspiration
Inspired by our European travels we have refurbished the room to reflect our  adventures. Starting with the chequerboard floor reminicent of Italian Palazzos and Renaissance paintings, we selected Porters Paints, flooring paint in Chai, Cardamon and Peat to create a grid. This exagerated the perspective of the room and makes a great base to pull together our eclectic furnishings.
We then selected colours reminding us of Venice, our favourite city. Taking an old reproduction of a Canaletto painting,(tacky but sentimental) we chose a dark murky green for the walls and ceiling.This makes a great background colour for the assorted items on the walls and contrasts with the gilded frames.
Porter Paints mixed the colour especially for us and called it "Boyd's hemlock". We used "Chai" a deep taupe to paint all the joinery including windows, skirting boards and case pieces of furniture, as well as the background border on the floor.
An antique Japanese screen is the focal point behind the sofa. It reinforces the garden concept and adds to the exotic furnishings of the room. Sentimental items from our travels, including Florentine marble paper pieces, top horizontal surfaces and our favourite books fill the shelves. An old counter chair from the department store Georges inspired the use of metallics.

Furnishings and additional details
Fabrics featuring gold stencilling inspired by Fortuny textiles are used for blinds. Cushions soften the practical leather sofa. The glint of gold reflects into the room, particularily at night when this room now gets most of its use. A row of bronze hedgehogs inspired by William Burgess sit just inder the ceiling line in leiu of a cornice. The lamps are styled after Fortuny lamps from the early 20th century, he is one of my design heros and fits with the arts and crafts theme of a Californian Bungalow.
We spent two weeks painting the floor, walls, woodwork and furniture.  I had lots of fun selecting fabrics to make new cushions and spent a day sewing. We then rearranged many of our treasures so we can get  pleasure looking at them through new eyes and remembering our enjoyable travels. This room now fulfils our design requirements:  It is practical for our fury family and we get pleasure from just being in the room!

Where do great designer's get their ideas from?

In the spirit of Kevin McCloud and many more before him I want to take you on a Grand Tour of Design and Architecture. From the Ancient Egyptians to the early 21st Century I want us to look at the ideas and personalities that influence design. 
Each generation interprets the history of design through new eyes and gleans lessons that can inform their own approach and view on the world.

While Art, Sculpture and even Architecture can seem remote to the modern interior design student, never the less, there are concepts that the Masters before us have developed that may be useful.
For example:  The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra,  by Richard Johnson and Graeme Dix of JPW makes subtle reference to the Renaissance concept of “appropriate scale", inspired by the proportion of  the human body, as suitable for a gallery of portraits. The external corners in this building have a chamfered detail to human height, an understated reference, in this modern building. Indeed the proportions of the spaces have a harmony that reflects the knowledge of classical architectural principles while still being a 21st Century building.


To add meaning to our interiors is to create rooms that resonate and reference the past while acknowledging the current. Taking our  own grand tour in design history allows us to add this layer of meaning to our work.  We can reference our client's interests and aspirations as well as own.
There are themes or general concepts that run through the story of Architecture. There is much cross over between cultures. When you see the same idea independently developed in different civilisations you realise that the human condition is the same the world over.  It is useful to compare and contrast the way concepts have been applied,  looking at purpose,  how people engage,  how a space is planned  and its structure, these may inspire us to create something less ordinary.


It should also be said that the great masters of Modernism, notably Walter Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe and the whole school of Modernism in general were anti design history. A whole generation of designers grew up deprived of studying history. They rebelled, flocking to post war Europe in the 1950s and 1960s and took a modern grand tour. These architects include Richard Meier, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves , Philip Johnson and Charles Jenks. They used their new found knowledge to question their teachers and create a new architecture, Post Modernism. At first often quite clumsy it has evolved into our current architecture and acknowledges our past without making slavish copies of ancient ideas. At the beginning of the 21st century there is a new mature elegance in architecture. We are learning the lessons of the past while addressing the challenges  of new technologies and environmentalism and the moral responsibility of truth to our time.


Start your own Grand Tour by sourcing images of historical references and investigating their origins and ideas. These are some image from my own Grand Tour.