Grand picture walls offer maximum impact and color in any space from a hallway to a gabled room. Grand picture walls present themselves in a variety of ways. A wall can be considered grand due to the size of the pictures. The amount of wall space covered by pictures — or the sheer number of pictures — can create a grand scale, even in a small room. How pictures are arranged on … [Read more...]
Dovecote Shed Style
Crazy old-fashioned, this architectural dovecote is an outbuilding with unique style and purpose. Incredibly charming and beautifully constructed by hand, this dovecote was built in Somerset England by Gerry Peachey, a craftsman who used traditional hand-made methods for its construction. Not just a decorative shed, the dovecote has a specific (if arcane) function — similar to … [Read more...]
Hanging Fireplace Screen
A simple, country style fireplace screen offers a unique solution for many a problem hearth. The guest bedroom in an Argentine country home contains a type of fireplace screen I've never seen before. To safely cover a shallow old fireplace hearth, the flat wrought iron screen hangs from a pair of hooks installed on the underside of the mantel. A pair of rings, attached to the … [Read more...]
Toile Bedrooms
Traditional Toile de jouy prints preserve the French look of 18th century single pattern bedrooms. Firmly traditional in its origin and motif, toile is the first printed cotton manufactured in France. Nearly 250 years ago, in a factory founded by Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf at Jouy-in-Josas ten miles southwest of Paris, copper plates were used to print print elaborately … [Read more...]
Sunflower Yellow Bathroom
Bright sunflower yellow bathroom walls create amazing drama in a small space -- an updated look. A sunflower yellow bathroom, with wall color as strong as this one, isn't for everyone. Big color in the bathroom doesn't usually yield a “spa” effect. That wasn’t the point of this amazing DIY job in a 19th century French country house where graphic patterns and dramatic colors … [Read more...]
Sofa Story
A work of art, this antique needlepoint sofa has stunning details and a fascinating history. During the late 18th century English women were known for certain attributes: the size of their hair and the cut of their dresses. Georgiana Cavendish -- the ill-fated Duchess of Devonshire – also was a famed beauty, disastrous love affairs, and gambling compulsion eventually did her … [Read more...]
Anglo-Indian Country Style
A rustic Anglo-Indian style house features inspiring wall stencils, patterned floors and vivid color. When magazines tried to launch a Honeysuckle pink wall-color trend last year it fell flat. But pink is always around in some form and nowhere does it look more natural than in this time-worn 400-year-old Anglo-Indian style house in Rajasthan. There, British-born designer … [Read more...]
Jasper Conran’s Country Kitchen
In a historic house focused on antiques, Jasper Conran's kitchen island quietly rocks. English merchant and designer Jasper Conran (menswear, women's wear, home goods) wrote a book about country life in 2010. Published pictures of his own historically important (18th century) country house, Ven, followed. The focus was on the glorious yellow living room and amazing antiques. … [Read more...]
Magazine Pages for a Picture Wall
Magazine pages for a picture wall let me pare down bookshelf clutter and dress up bare walls. Shortly after the move from our city apartment to a house in the country, I began to focus on the years of home design magazines laying about on my home office shelves. Those often have wonderful photographs which can be easily framed to create a picture wall for any room. I’m trying … [Read more...]
Mother of All English Kitchens
Back in 1834, a grand picnic for 6000 was prepared in Petworth House's English kitchens. Those tantalizing glimpses of English kitchens we see in the new Upstairs-Downstairs rarely offer time to study the differences between contemporary kitchens and how they different from older examples that lacked all our how our elaborately fitted kitchen cabinets with pull outs and knife … [Read more...]
Color Poem
Hydrangea blue and cabbage green are color inspirations from the garden to use together inside. Last weekend, a neighbor invited me down to see her new apartment which was in the final stages of construction. The color was wonderful! A fair amount of finishing work and some fixes remained, but the rooms were freshly painted, floors were newly finished and the lighting fixtures … [Read more...]
Roman Style Bathtubs
Lovers of Italian art and design choose to live with Roman style freestanding marble bathtubs. Two antique lovers – one in Argentina and another in Nashville – created amazingly elegant bathrooms with freestanding marble bathtubs as the focal point. These are actually copies of ancient metal tubs that included rings for portability. These tubs weight thousands of pounds and … [Read more...]
Dishwall Display Drama
China patterns look great grouped as a dishwall display and massing dishes maximizes the impact. We plan to move sometime during the next year and even though we own a house with plenty of storage space, I’m going to have too many dishes. Way too many. So I’ve been thinking about repurposing my pale green Limoges which I’ve had forever but rarely use by creating a dishwall … [Read more...]
Picture Wall Sets
Picture wall sets make an impact with their multiple rows and same size frames. After a picture wall set of six antique Alexandre Bivort prints in my dining room (I purchased them at auction last January), I began exploring what to do on the adjacent wall. I still haven’t decided but a glimpse of a dining room picture wall in a favorite TV show, The Good Wife, made me think of … [Read more...]
