While I am on Mid century furniture this is a view of our dining room. The room is set awaiting guests for Sunday lunch, so the table is dressed. The dining table, chairs and sideboard are by Parker. I love the strong horizontal lines of sideboards from this period and I think Parker's version has quite refined proportions. The armchair covered in red striped velvet was a hard rubbish find, and the Fler arm- chair, one of a pair, was purchased at our local waste station for $2.00. All it needed was new upholstery and some TLC. The curtains make reference to the Art Deco period of the house. The fabric is by Warner fabrics and dates from the early 1980s. The wall unit with the metal frame is ' String' a Scandinavian system. I like the timber, and metal combination, very retro. The room is casual and comfortable. It opens directly onto our kitchen and through the original Art Deco doors is the sitting room. The little nest of tables was a present from friends who received this as a wedding present back in the 1960s. We still have a few details to attend to, the fireplace needs to have its paint removed to show the original brickwork and the hearth needs to have the awful tiles replaced with something more appropriate to the house's architecture.
Every home needs a space where you can carry out your hobbies. A room that has lots of natural light, plenty of storage and some stylish furniture and furnishings to create that sense of well being. So we set about creating a room by renovating our garage. I have been writing about traditional interiors and shown you aspects of our house in Melbourne , but I also love mid century modern design as well as eighteenth and early nineteenth century antiques. Our second house in country Victoria another Californian Bungalow is the repository for our other collection of furniture and the new room created over the last twelve months provides a home for a Fler day/night bed settee, a Danish rosewood sewing table, a teak coffee table and Fler arm chairs. This room holds the collection of furnishing fabrics, dress fabrics I have squirrelled away, books on crafts and sewing and many craft implements as well as my toys. I confess I have never really grown out of "Leggo" or "Barbie". The storage pieces are all Ikea. Affordable, flexible and attractive. I love Ikea and have become quite good at assembling their furniture. I have pretty much memorised all the dimensions of my favourite pieces ( tragic ) which I include in many cost effective interiors. I still have some finishing touches to complete, window coverings, cushions, and refinishing the series 7 chairs, for a splash of colour. A glimpse of the large work desk that sits under the south facing window that lets in plenty of light for all those detailed projects. The windows are waiting for their curtain treatments. Next project on the long list of things to do. The pure wool carpet is from Supertuft and is called 'mocha', a warm mid toned grey colour.
The east wall has cupboards to conceal all the ugly bits. The vintage singer sewing machine table was my mothers. The Kartell round storage unit came from a Ballarat 'op shop' for $15.00. The creamy colour was perfect. The Fler swivel base chair was also found at an 'op shop'. It is re-upholstered in 'Woven Image' wool.
The west wall is filled with Ikea 'Billy' shelves and a 'Beno' dvd unit just fills the space to make it wall to wall. This is where the bulk of my furnishing fabric collection lives. 'Liberty of London' fabrics feature quite heavily. The little Danish sewing table hold Ikea 1:6 scale dolls furniture.
I always like it when I can include a little bit of history into our home. I was browsing through a book on French textile design and I spied the pattern that I have just included in our laundry. It seems that 'La Draperie' was originally copperplate printed on cotton by a firm called Petitpierre and Cie in Nantes between 1786 and 1795. This example printed in pink is from the Warner Fabrics archives and appeared in a book, published in 1991 by Laurence King Ltd, written by Mary Schoeser and Kathleen Dejardin, 'French Textiles 1760 to the present' . I am glad to see that the Warner fabric archive is still going and has a website http://www.warnertextilearchive.co.uk. It just goes to show you have no idea where those historic fabrics will turn up I bet they never thought they would star in a laundry in country Australia, more than two hundred years later. I thought I would do a little post about our laundry in our house in the country. You can see from the before photos it was a pretty grim little room. We gutted it and moved the window to make the space work better. We kitted it out in simple white Ikea cupboards and a 'Lack' shelving unit. The idea was to create a butler's pantry feel, providing additional space for my ever-growing collection of china and glassware. A round sink has been used. This is great for washing jumpers and other items of clothes as well as doing flowers or even washing out paint brushes. The additional shelf we added came from the off cut from the second row of cupboards. Being a very narrow room we used narrow overhead width cupboards top and bottom and cut down the bench top to fit. It seemed there was this piece of laminate going to waste when the idea of adding an extra shelf came to mind. A little extra basin for hands and the loo is also incorporated. But what really makes this room fun is all the blue and white china pieces. Willow pattern saucers were the first thing I bought at an auction when I was about twelve. I can remember spending two dollars on a box of these saucers. Over the years they have been used as dishes for cat food, pot plant saucers and generally just cluttered up the cupboards. Hanging four different types in a line adds a little autobiographical touch. There are plates from my mother's kitchen and my partner's mother's dinner set as well as ones I have picked up at opportunity shops. There is one more details to add, a towel ring, an excuse to show off a collection of hand embroidered hand towels. So watch this space. The Roman blind is the strong graphic element that holds it all together. Found in our stash of fabrics it is called 'Draperie' from Clarence House. The pattern was just wide enough to fit the window. For a little more detail we added a herringbone ribbon braid, this is by Martha Stewart. The pale aqua adds a contrast. The colour appears elsewhere in the house.
David Hicks is one of my favourite British Interior designers. I love his reworking of traditional interiors. He was a master at incorporating antiques into interiors and was known for his crisp colours and the geometric prints he designed. I often pour over my copy of his book David Hicks Living with Design, published in 1979. His son, Ashley, is equally as talented. This is his bathroom in his country house. It features classic David Hicks patterns, and a trick that he often used, braids to create wall panels. I would never thought of putting this geometric onto this style chair but its a great juxtaposition. I like bathrooms that are a little different and allow you to dream while soaking in the tub. At the moment I am gathering inspiration for the reworking of our bathroom in the country and this image has some interesting ideas.
Victorian furniture seems to be out of fashion and therefore goes for bargain prices at antique auctions. I can't resist a bargain or a well made piece of furniture, but it has to be reworked to fit into todays interior. The large check fabric selected to cover these Victorian dining chairs is an unusual choice but really works giving the chairs a graphic look. Finished with close nailing details, they make a handsome addition to this stylish dining room by Roger Banks Pye of Colefax and Fowler.
Buying metres or yards of fabric for the soft furnishings of a room can be expensive, so I love to find examples of rooms where really affordable fabrics have been used. Well made soft furnishings need to be generous in fabric quantities. Full folds in curtains make all the difference and interesting trims can add that special detail. The following images show a wonderful bedroom that has used a plain cream coloured inexpensive linen for the main furnishings. The money has been splurged on the rose coloured bouillon fringing, fan edge braid and red piping detail on the bedspread. The cream colour has been worked into the scheme so it makes a strong contribution rather than just being a safe choice. The main colour is in the the painted walls. Making the trim, dado and cornice, the creamy colour ties it all together. The best thing about paint is it doesn't make much difference to the cost of a project whatever colour you choose, whereas that special shade of fabric can be costly. Notice the framed prints are also monochromatic and even the lampshade is cream. The nice little detail is the striped cotton on the arm chairs. The navy stripe adds one more colour to finish this elegant and classic room. I have been reading a really lovely blog called Aesthetic Oiseau by Daniela M. Shuffler. Daniela lives in Washington and documents her design adventures and shows pictures of her pretty little house that she and her husband have been renovating. I love to see how other people tackle renovations. Between projects Daniela post images of fabrics, rooms and accessories that inspire her, and a post about a 'quadrille' fabric caught my eye. I recognised this fabric as I had seen in a book that I own, but it was a stencilled screen. It is a very eye catching pattern. I love the centre motif and the leaf border that curls around a small checkerboard. Then the other night I was sorting my 'World of Interiors' magazines into date order ( yes, sad I know) and I naturally was having a little peek at the articles as I worked and I spied this same pattern used as upholstery fabric on a sofa. It was acknowledged with the name of 'Victor Hugo'. So I did some 'googling' and found that this fabric was produced by Pierre Frey and they have reissued it, under the name 'Le Manach Prints', and this pattern was named after Victor Hugo, famed author for Les Miserable, who is thought to have owned the original document that inspired this fabric. It seems that Victor Hugo too, was keen on interior decoration and design. He designed his own apartment in Paris and at one stage he owned a country house as well.He was very fond of chinoiserie and created very exotic richly coloured interiors. But wait there is more to this story. Years ago when Max and I developed the decorating scheme for our red sitting room I adapted the border I saw on the screen and stencilled it as a border on our pale coloured pine floor. We were minimising the sanding of the black japanned edges and decided a painted and stencilled border would frame the old pine boards well. This screen appeared in the book, The Art of Decorative Stencilling, Adele Bishop and Cile Lord, published by Thames and Hudson, London 1976. This screen is responsible for starting my stencilling career, many years ago as this was the first time I incorporated stencilled pattern as part of a scheme. Somewhere in all the traditional rooms I do you will find a stencilled detail. I just can't resist. Do you keep cuttings or scans from magazines for inspiration? I know I do, I have been doing this since I was quite young. Cleaning out some papers in my studio the other day I came across this image. I cut it from a 1970's magazine, all those years ago, but it still resonates with me. ( Sorry about the glue used to paste it into a book). I like the strong background, that unifies all the objects in the room.The wallpaper is 'Indian' designed by William Morris, around 1870, a subtle tonal pattern that gives depth to the walls. The deep blue/grey colour which is repeated in the cornice and skirting boards is a counterpoint to the orange coloured timber of the antique table, picture frames and mantle piece. It is a warm cosy room, even thought the walls are bluey grey. The other piece that attracts me to this room is the linen covered settee in a chinoiserie floral, probably by GP & G Baker, possibly 'peony garden' or 'magnolia' famous patterns that appeared in many colour ways throughout the years. Linen upholstered sofas are classics that never go out of style and are practical and easy to live with. I also love the layering of the pictures on the walls. There is plenty to look at, but portraits seem to be the main theme. There are some interesting plates and ceramic objects. It looks like a room that has taken many trips to the auction rooms to evolve. As this cutting is so old I cannot reference it in any way so if anybody recognises it please let me know. Also: Morris and Co in the U.K. still have this pattern, but in different colour ways and GP & J Baker fabrics still have similar classic floral linen prints available too.
One of the most exciting ways to shop is visiting the local auction rooms bidding for little treasures. I like to go to Leonard Joel, in Prahran. We make an adventure out of this. Joels publish the catalogue the day before online and I check out possible items and estimates. I make a list. We go and have a look, and usually something else catches my eye. Next day we go to the auction and spend a few hours watching, waiting and bidding. The furniture auction starts at 10am and the decorative items at 12.00 sometimes we go and have lunch or coffee between lots. There are antique dealers and many interesting characters who regularly attend adding great theatrics to the day. This week I came home with some lovely books with leather bindings, an 18th century chinoiserie plate, two Japanese" Imari" patterned plates, a set of fruit knives and forks and a papier mache crumb tray and brush. You can see it is quite a stash, I only went for one plate! Now we get to spend time finding places to put all these bits and we can spend hours pouring over the books.
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AuthorHi I am Elizabeth an interior designer who lives in Melbourne, Australia in a little Californian Bungalow cottage with my partner, Max, who is also an Interior Designer, and our beloved furry children, Doris & Ernest. I believe that design can make our lives more rewarding and productive. I love, architecture and design theory but my everyday passion is fabrics and decoration, as I don't think we should get too serious but have fun with our homes and enjoy the process of creating our own environments. I am interested in classic cars, and collect Georgian and Mid Century furniture. Archives
July 2018
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