Decorating with Antiques in a Bedroom

This bedroom is in a little guest house at my daughter's house.   I just left this morning and thought I would share all the antique touches in the room.

The photo below was taken from the doorway into the room.  It is very welcoming.  I love the dramatic impact of the monster flower painting and the beautiful toile drapes.  The toile fabric is a vintage print, I know I've seen it in the Colefax & Fowler book.

The bed is covered in a white metalasse spread, great in the hot summer.  There is a really cute quilt done in tiny postage stamp size pieces that is nice if it gets too cold.  The giant snake pillow is a wonderful peice of french tapestry, the background of the tapestry is a gray blue.

The lamps on the nightstands are new, they look like trees with birds on them.  The house is in the country and this is something whimsical that works on this country guest house.

To the right of the nightstand is a wonderful little Georgian fire screen, and a needlepoint bench for your clothes or robe.  There are two wonderful blue and white German plaques that echo the cartouches in the toile drapes.   I remember my antique dealer friend telling me the story of how she dragged these back in a carry-on after purchasing them on Portobello Road in London.  Room was made for it on the plane, lucky for me they didn't get kicked to pieces underneath a seat.

 I can't get enough of that fabric. Isn't it a wonderful shade of blue!   I love having so many things to look at.  Some people call it cluttered, but I think it is fun.  There is a wonderful Berlinwork needlepoint with a girl and her parrot.  The glass on the front makes it hard to photograph.  There is a little writing desk in the corner to the right of the door.  It is stocked with note cards and note pads in case you need to make a note of where you are going the next day.  (remember this is a guest house).

Above the needlepoint is a lovely carved shelf, with what else but a cute piece of Staffordshire. Staffordshire is also sitting on the right nightstand.

 To the right of the desk are a couple of oil paintings, transferware plates, and an old piece of French gilt tin roses.

 I know, it's not minimalist, but my decorating with antiques has never been minimalist.  My daughter left this more English & German than the French that she usually does because she knows how much I love all this stuff!

Below is more of the German stuff in the room.  On the wall are Berlinwork needlepoint slipper pockets.  There is a dog, horse and monograms.  There are lots of other needlepoint pieces on the wall.

Above the nightstand, (an English chest of drawers), is a rack with a display of Austrian handmade antique petit point bags.  I sometimes use them when I dress up for special events.  It also follows one of my principles of collecting.  Mass similar items together for a more effective display.

To the left of the bed is this lovely turtle chair with dutch marquetry.  It is covered in Fortuny fabric, (when it is not covered with my bath robe!)

My nightstand has a couple of German hats on it.  There is a black one, very old.  The grey one my dad wore.  (See my German coming through, the verb at the end of the sentence?  I was an ESL kid here in the U.S.)    I didn't do anything to stage the room, so WYSIWYG.  

Ok, so here's my quick go to items on the nightstand.  I have  a silverplate tray to hold Jo Malone perfume, Secret, L'Occitane lotion (great stuff), Chapstick, L'Occitane lip balm.  That teacup is a fabulous handpainted teacup that I like to use for necklaces and rings.  I have a photo of my awesome daugher at work, framed in a black forest frame.  I use the little shaving mirror to put on makeup. The crystal Gallia picture frame of me with 4 of my sisters.  I was the bald baby on the end.  Mom made all the matching red and white dresses (yes it is a B&W print.  I just happen to recall wearing each and every one of those matching dresses.  I grew out of one, and into the other, wore that dress for 6 years..!!)

Below is a photo of my dad wearing the little grey hat.   Last spring when we were in Germany we saw a farmer all dressed up, or so we think, wearing said hat, riding on a tractor.

At the foot of the bed is a lovely antique French bench with stretchers.  Notice the carving on the front edge of the bench, beautiful!  It is covered in grey linen. 

There is carpet on the bedroom floor.  It is soft and wonderful to get out of bed and step onto carpet.  I know everyone loves wood and tile floors, but I am partial to comfort when it comes to getting out of bed and stepping onto something comfy.

Below is the bedroom set in a room before I moved.  We downsized so I had to figure out what to do with the set.  Storing it in the guest house is a great idea!  I get to visit it once in a while.

I think I like the fresh look of the new room, brighter colors.

The other room was quite large and the look more monochromatic.  This room has a cozy (ok small) feel to it, and is fun with all the stuff in it.  I think it would be boring edited down.  If other company stays in here they must know it was done for me!!

Don't be afraid to use antique items for accessories.  I get really tired of all the pieces of coral and shells that I see in all the stores and decorating magazines.  So have fun antiquing and replace something new with something vintage or antique!

Breakfast Room Toile Makeover

A couple of weeks ago I decided that it was time for the paper shades in my breakfast room to go.   It's been 4 years since we moved in, and Thanksgiving is at our house this year.  Below is the "before" shot.

These windows are only 16" wide.  I have a curved wall to deal with,, so it seems tough.  I went to houzz.com and looked for window treatment ideas.   

The most common choice was no treatment at all.  I would go for that, except the sun is so hot there are times when you need light control.

 The treatment below of a valance was another choice.

 The shades below gives you some light control, but I'm not sure I like the windows above not covered.

The treatment below is way too formal for me.

 I do like the woven blinds, but I don't have enough time to order anything before thanksgiving.

I love the curved rod below, but I don't have enough clearance behind my table or a place to stack the drapes on the wall.

I did notice that alot of the rooms that are curved -- are like mine, a table in them.

I have some drapes here that match the family room nearby, but I don't really like them with my painting.

You can see my solution laying on the dining room table in the next room.

I went for some toile fabric, a yellow, green, and tan.  The chicken theme may be overdone to some, but I'm sorry, I still love it!  After all, we're out in the country and much of the house is formal, so this makes the room more cozy.

The colors go so well with my painting.  The frame gold is really picked up with the colors in the drapes, and my little girl with the broken arm from 100 years ago is wearing a green dress.  It's picked up in the fabric and looks wonderful!  

Yes, that is a topiary rooster in the right window.  

I made the drapes and the shades.  I made the drapes first, and then managed to line up the design in the shades.

The shades and drapes are both interlined with flannel and blackout lining.  I normally use the cheap blackout lining, but it is so stiff I used a more expensive lining that isn't as stiff.  I am happy that the folds worked out beautifully.  

I love the shade hardware that I got at Fabric Depot in Portland, Oregon.  I can stop the shades at the exact same level on each window.  I thought about making balloon shades, but decided a simple roman shade would be less fussy-- there is so much fabric in this house, less is better here.

I finished just in time.  31 people are coming to dinner.  I am gathering chairs from all over.    I will share a photo later of the table.

ok, I am off to cleaning.   Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Hanging Drapery...And An 18th Century German Clock!

I've been away from the computer, enjoying sun in Hawaii....so getting back into action has been tough.  

In previous blogs, I've talked about the casita we built for my 84-year-old parents.   The project is almost done.   We don't get down to California too often to work on it, so the project has taken over a year.   I am at the window-covering stage.  In fact, last week I worked to make the drapes.   I am a drapery-making fool according to my family.   I use interlining, blackout lining, and assemble them by hand.

This project was a dream to work on.  What's not to love about limestone floors, lots of windows, and beams making up the bones of the room.

The empty room.  

  I thought about several fabric options.


Some of my thoughts were - a check with woven shades underneath. (thank you photoshop!)

However, the family thought that was too strong.  The check fabric will be used on the kitchen chairs instead.     There was one fabric that looked really nice, and I actually ordered 60 yards of it.

Drapes tried out for color.  Defective fabric was returned.

Unfortunately, this fabric had serious flaws.  The design didn't line up across the fabric.  It was actually 2" difference between the left and right.  The flaw was obvious and had to be ditched.   Unfortunately I was 2 panels into it before I realized the problem.

Note the dark color on the edge.  That's the printed fabric running off the edge--no selvage, major matching problem!

I am including the above photo as a lesson.   I have sewn literally thousands of yards of drapery fabric and have RARELY had a defect problem.  This time I was in a hurry and didn't unroll it first.   Note the brown on the edge.  Then it goes back to white.    That should have been my first clue that I had a problem.

I re-ordered the run, and it was shipped short.   It was still off across the 54".   I really couldn't order any more fabric, it was obvious it was coming from the same machine and would have the same quality problem.  So I wound up going with Richloom "Darcy" in the Birch colorway.   It has a bit of a sage or olive green in it, which really looks good in the bright California sun.  The windows are argon filled, but the room still has alot of solar gain.  It was the most energy efficient that I could order.

The drapes look great with the floor and wood painted trim in the room.  The fireplace doesn't look too exciting in the photo (much better in person), but I think when I get the huge hewn mantle on there, it will look great.   I'd like to order some shades like I have in the sample photo, but haven't found a good cheap source.  The gorgeous Hunter Douglas blinds priced out at $6900, discounted!  (really? $6900 on a room and it's not even an antique?)

I went with some cheap rods from Lowes.  Cheap rods area always a pain because they "telescope" to the correct size.  However I didn't have time for mail-order rods.  If you actually want to open/close the drapes, they get stuck on the telescoping joint.  Wood rods tend to be able to get cut in the correct length which Lowes carries, but I wanted to skinny profile that these had given the beams in the room.  I had to drop the rods down below the beams instead of running it up to the ceiling.   I contemplated making valences but thought that would be too fussy and like the idea of the roman shades.  This of course, is totally stolen from Joni at Cote de Texas.   I had to giggle, I spent the last 2 days hanging these up, and she was writing on the subject of windows  here this week,  trying to keep us all from looking too tacky.   Thanks Joni!

I have a few other things to share.  My dad loves antiques.  I remember our first big antique purchase--see the fan backed chair below?  Well, my dad and I came home with it and my mom had a fit, didn't want that junk in the house.  It was about 1966-1970 and didn't fit her modern decor.   So we squirreled 2 chairs, a writing desk, a game table and a work table into my bedroom.  Wish I had photos of that room!

18th century German  tall case clock

The fan at the top of the chair has some green paint left on it.  Odd, but still charming.  The clock was a great find.  When my favorite french antique dealer said she had a German clock, I said I had to have it.  The face is charming, an old wood painted face with roses on it.

The clock works perfectly.   My dad will love this and my mom will be happy because she's come around to loving all these beautiful antiques.    Be kind about the rest of the room.  I had to put the tv above the fireplace because I didn't make room for it anywhere else.  I didn't do french doors, I was many, many thousands over budget on stuff like getting utilities to the house. Don't make fun of my fan, in 100 degree weather, it's a necessity!  When you're 84, you can request a recliner and your daughter will oblige.  (don't make it a rocking one, that is really bad for elderly who are unsteady on their feet.  It can cause a fall and a trip to the hospital.   I spent a week with mom at the hospital in March, this is important!)

I'm not done making drapes--you can see a panel is missing, but wanted to share what I am up to.   I said think faience would look good in here.  On my last day in Calif.,   I stopped by an antique shop Wednesday and found this 19" Italian platter.

It has as wonderful feel to it.  I love the rustic hand thrown qualities.   I would love to find a wall hanger for it.  It weighs alot, and didn't work with the hangers that I normally use for my papier mache trays.  It was the perfect reward for a busy couple of days making drapes!

Toile Bedroom

I've been busy working out in the garden this summer. We bought a house to retire to in 5 years (oh yea, we're already retired.  I keep forgetting--we seem to work like dogs all the time.) It is near our parents, both who are in their 80's and need some additional help. We plan on building a casita here for my parents, and my husband's parents are 12 miles away.  Having lived in the same house for 25 years, I have to figure out how to make this house feel like "home".

One problem is that there are 46 windows in the house, that's alot of windows! I want window covering for privacy when we are away, because I want to be able to keep the windows open when we are there. The summer sun in really hot, and I need to keep the windows closed from about 11 to 3 during the day when the sun hits these windows. The bedroom has a curved wall, I am looking for suggestions on what to do with this. What you are seeing in the windows are vinyl mini blinds from Lowes that I purchased to get something up quickly. Isn't it amazing that they had the size in stock.

The patio door has a nice Pierre Deux fabric, Quatre Saisons. They had this colorway on sale for $15/yard, regularly $80. I was planning on a traditional blue toile, but decided for budget reasons to go with this color. I have not regretted the decision. Finding the transferware below that looks lovely with the fabric only made me feel better about it! It's an interesting color, in the lighting throughout the day it can look from a plum color to brown.
The photo above shows how the transferware, circa 1835, goes with the toile fabric. I had to collect a whole new color of transferware for this room, it looks great together, and is another reason why I love antiques. Click on the photo to view a large photo--you can really appreciate the wonderful soft color of this "eggplant" fabric with the mulberry transferware.

I can't really put a "wall" of drapes on the 5 windows because I don't have enough space for stackback. I've thought about doing 5 individual balloon or roman shades in the Quatre fabric. I've also thought about venetian blinds. I prefer them over shutters, I can raise them for a nice unobstructed view, where opening shutters isn't the same. Bunny Williams (another designer I admire) always uses traditional blinds for light control, they really work so well.

Here is a photo of the view--you can see why I like keeping the windows open all of the time.
We really love the view, but I don't always love waking up with the sun. Mostly on days when I've been handmaking drapes til 2 AM, and I want to sleep in...

Anyway, here's a few more photo's of the room. I'd like to trade beds with the other house, I have a 4 poster that I can make a matching canopy.

The little hall chair has a squirrel on the back--isn't it cute! I found it at Hillsborough, a day after it opened. I ran the drapes up to the ceiling, because I've read all these blogs that say "make them as tall as you can". One of these days we'll be putting beams in the room, I don't know that I'll do crown moulding with the beams, but it will require lowering the drapes at that time. It sort of feels like we crammed it up at the ceiling, I'm thinking the next room I'll drop it about 4-6" ?  What do you think?

I struggled a bit with the drapery length. I've never "puddled" drapes, and was a bit worried about having a "puddle" in a doorway. My 83 year old dad, unsteady on his feet, would probably trip on puddled drapes. I have an extra 12 inches in the hem, I can change it. What do you think? Also, at times I like to make the drapes "extra wide" on a wall, but in this case, I didn't want to make it so wide, as I only had 6" between the door and the window to the left.

The 3 piece french chaise is really fun. We tend to use it more if it is set up as above. Below looks great, but we tend to sit in it arranged above rather than below.

I plan on recovering it, but will worry about that much later. The carpet in the room is what I would call gross shag. However, this is a new house, and I have no plans to dump money into new flooring until we move here full time. I think it photographs worse than it actually looks....

A room Charlotte Moss did is my inspiration for this room. It will take me a while, but I love this room!

The toile I have is busier than the fabric on the canopy, but evokes the same feeling to me. I would like to use similar colors in the room. I have the french chairs to recover. The pink, grey-plum, and the color of the wallpaper all are things I'd like to incorporate.

I loved the colors in this bold fabric, but the fabric is too bold for me. If it were a tiny flower like the canopy fabric in the inspiration room, I'd use it. It just gave me food for thought about colors. I liked the grey background. I did buy a green and purple plaid, thinking I'd use that inside the canopy, but once I took it to the other house, it looked terrible. The plaid reminded me of the 80's Waverly decorating, and it just didn't look good. A mistake. It's times like these when I realize a decorator (designer) could SAVE you costly mistakes.

 

Here's my question, I need to deal with those 5 windows. What would you do? I'm open to any suggestions!! Do I try to find a wallpaper similar to the inspiration room? I have enough fabric to do a canopy. (Thanks to Nancy at Pierre Deux in Dallas!) Or do I paint?. I've never found a decorator that has my taste, that I can afford. I appreciate comments!!

I am very busy outside gardening, but stay tuned for more updates. I will post as this room evolves.

Coming soon: I make my own drapes ALWAYS! I plan on posting my "how to", it's a great way to save money. After all, wouldn't you rather spend the money on a great antique! I line and interline the drapes, it's not that difficult.

Please leave me a post on your comments for the room!

PS.  I stopped by a furniture store and saw this Hendredon sofa with the softest color that reminded me of the Charlotte Moss room.  It used to be that I purchased Baker & Henredon because it was tough finding 8 way hand tied springs with down cushions.  Now you can get that at Pottery Barn or WS home.  Why do I want to spend $4700 on a Henredon sofa?  I just don't see what you are getting for the premium these days.