When I looked at staircases a couple of weeks ago, I started wondering whether some of those hallways were truly welcoming or simply statement pieces. In this week’s batch of inspiration, it’s not the staircase that is the star, but the way you feel as you walk in through the door.
I’ve been neglecting the first and abiding love of my life: pictures of home libraries. It has been quite a while since I featured any, mostly because most of the interesting pictures on the internet have already been used up on this blog. So hurry up, folks, furnish some more gorgeous libraries in your houses!
I’ve always loved the combination of blue and white in interior design, flowers, clothes. even flags. That might explain why I married a Greek (and why I like the Finns). While appearances are often misleading (marriage case in point), it is a sure-fire classic combination for decorating your house and I have done so many times in the past. Although perhaps not as extravagantly as in the following pictures. It is so clean, fresh, simple and reminds me of travelling to faraway places by ship.
You can’t get enough daylight in winter, especially if you are stuck in a basement office, so here are some houses that use windows in a creative way, to give you the illusion of more space.
I prefer the lived-in look in a library, with a few higgledy-piggledy piles of books which give me an insight into the owner’s current preoccupations. But of course there are people who get interior designers to create libraries for them. Some of them do look quite tempting, but I doubt any designer would put up with my excessive expectations of indulging the books.
I’ve always believed in keeping windows curtainless (so you can admire the view) and doors open (so that friends can come in at any time). Some of the incarnations of doors and windows below take this to a whole new level, but I have to admit I dream about owning something like this…
She lived in the city of Mozart, so rococo was second nature. She chose a sofa so redolent of Baroque features, it rolled out of the warehouse on its many curves and swirls. It came to rest in our living room, all carved curlecues, easy to bang the back of head against when your laughter pealed out. Not that there was much laughter in that house.
Within days the burnt ochre leather caused heartache and questioning. Too bright? What would the neighbours say about the ripeness of that shade? Would they sit and tug and scratch it whenever they came to visit? But very few people ever entered our house.
Better safe than sorry, though. So she covered it in green velvet, tailor-made cover with frills so rich, it could stand up by itself when you took it off for washing. Those frills swept all the way down to the arched wooden legs, even as they yearned away from under the stifle, all tip-toe. So hard to vacuum underneath.
A few months later she realised the velvet might get worn too quickly, that she might require a new cover …oooh, say every ten years or so. In came the casual throw, loosely draped over the pool-table green. Cheap polyester cream with tassles and shiny stripes, too thin to keep its distance when backsides sunk into it. My mother was fanatic about cotton, but hated ironing, so polyester made do. It clung to clothes, turned static, and we spent most conversations not actually seated on the sofa, but straightening out its multiple covers.
But I digress. After decades of discomfort, my father’s weary bones can no longer keep that horror in our house. But it’s an expensive horror and we want to ensure that we get the best possible price for it. For Sale: Baroque Sofa, Nearly New.
