Bedroom Decor

We've been considering a Moroccan theme for the bedroom, although I'm finding that widening that to North Africa/Middle East seems to be more productive. This is some of my current thinking.

The room is up under the roof, with a central section of flat roof, which slopes to about five feet on one side (in which there are some fitted wardrobes and access to the attic), and about three on the other, where the bed is, headboard against the wall. Furniture I'd really like to hang onto includes the antique wardrobe and chest of drawers/dressing table we got from freecycle. They're both dark mahogany.

I want colours to be either earth tones or jewel tones. No pastels, no primaries - I found myself looking at this one and going "what about blue and red?", but I reckon that pure blue and red aren't much used in this style.

Most things should have a texture of some kind - either patterning, or an actual physical texture.

Lighting should be from things that cast some of their own shadows - lantern style with patterned cuts, for instance. These Eygptian lanterns are utterly gorgeous, and I want them all. The central pendant light that's there at the moment really has to go.

And I'd like to do something with storage - books and clothes - that echoes the orderly market scenes. I'm not sure how to approach that one, though. I don't want open storage, and obviously, our clothes can't be made to fit the colour schemes. But I'd like it if drawers and wardrobes, when opened, looked like part of the room, and not the backstage area of the set, as it were.

Thinking continues.

Antique & Vintage Furniture

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, antiques are out of style in the US (thanks to Claris of Talk to the Clouds for the tip). This is something I'd be happy with myself, as I like antiques and have no regard for style in furniture beyond my own taste. There's one line that's particularly interesting, though:

"The '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s is the hottest market going right now," said Jerry Goldman, of the monthly Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire. "People are buying their childhood. Designers are snapping up the mid-Modern stuff."

That's very clear from any of the design sites I've been watching - the strange, streamlined shapes of the 60s and 70s are very much in vogue, along with colours that in many cases, I've only seen in photographs.

Yet there's another trend mixed in there that I haven't seen anyone draw attention to - wire. Birdcages, metal framework furniture, spindly lampshades, and so forth. Those, together with light colours, painted wood, and the flash-animation-derived patterning of fabrics, really comprise the look of the current era for me. And yes, it definitely looks 70s:

Kitchens

I've been poking across the web at various aspects of kitchens. There's a kitchen shelves post here by Holly of Haus Maus, which illustrates a concept she's looking at for her new kitchen in Germany.

There's also a set of scans of kitchens from an old issue of Marie Claire Maison from Automatism.

There are a few things in common between these - open storage being a big one. But I don't think it'd work for us; it's very easy for open shelved storage to get messy, and I suspect it means cleaning everything on a regular basis, even if it's just because of dust. I'd rather the dishes not get dusty.

There's also a lot of light in those designs, which is another argument for letting light in from the south side of the house to the kitchen. I expect the computer room door to be open a lot, which will let in some, but I'm going to have to look at the actual light fittings as well. The current ones are a set of three small directed shades, which aren't nearly bright enough as they are. I'm thinking spotlights pointed at the counter-tops and tables would be very useful.

Stairs

The way the front of the house is set up, the first thing you see stepping in the door is the stairs. That's all well and good, but it's rather dull, even with a set of bookshelves at the top.


Those bookshelves are now filled with books, of course - we've been moving books since we got the keys, since they're the largest single category of stuff we own. I've been looking for a few ideas on what we can do with the stairs. The first idea was from my wife, rather than me, and that was to put bookshelves up along the right-hand side. Busyboo has a very good example of staircase-with-bookshelves, (with a great idea about drawers in steps, too) but that's not going to work for us, at least not on both sides. And the staircase is already narrow, so shelves might reduce it too much. On the other hand, it'd look great, and it's not really a public-use staircase, being as the only room up there is the master bedroom. So as long as they were only one paperback deep, we might be ok.

There's plenty of advice out there as to what to do with the space under the stairs, but very little on what you can do with the stairs themselves. One of the long-term proposals is to put a porch on the front of the house, and remove the wall between the hall and sitting-room, and that would allow us to do a bit more with the steps themselves.

The stairs are carpetted at the minute. Ordinarily, I'm much more in favour of wooden steps, but in this case, they're quite steep, so the carpet allows a bit more grip for the feet. Finally, the dark wooden bannisters may need replacing with something a bit lighter in colour, or possibly even painting. I'm starting to be greatly in favour of painted wood; it reminds me of a lot of old country houses I saw as a kid.

Gervais Apartment

This practice of looking at design sites and magazines is actually changing the things I like. I've always gone, before, for darker colours, and Victorian/Edwardian looks. Now I find myself drifting toward lighter colours, Scandinavian lines, and an emphasis on natural light. This French apartment, for instance, looks fantastic, and I've spent some time trying to figure out what it is about it that appeals. The first three pictures on that article are the main attraction; the fourth less so. So it's definitely something to do with the light colours.

Second is the fact that none of it looks actually white. That seems to make a difference. There's a definite eclecticism about the furniture and wall items, which also appeals to me. And finally, you can see under a lot of the furniture, and while I wouldn't in a million years have thought of that as being an important aspect of room design, it definitely seems to be a common theme in these; it makes the rooms look a lot more open. Stuff to consider...