Remembrance

On Friday while in Devon we visited RHS Rosemoor.  It was a bit of a grey day, although we avoided the worst of the weather. One of the first things we saw was this commemorative display.

The sculpture of the life sized ‘Unknown Soldier’  is by Devon artist George Hilder, is surrounded by ceramic poppies by South West artist Renée Kilburn. There’s a hundred of these poppies throughput the garden to commemorate all those who fell and to celebrate the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Together, they are poignantly beautiful. 

An art inspired lounge

Pale green and pale pink is a great colour combination and it was great to see this at Grand Designs Live earlier in the year. There they mixed in some art and the whole room set had a feeling of art deco about it. I’m not sure about the vertical battens on the wall though.

I am a fan of the freestanding boxed shelf unit, not only because it matches the room so well, but also because it’s not a uniform shape and because it’s so versatile, it could work in many rooms.

Look at the fringing on those cushions, and the screen. There’s definitely a 1920s feel, isn’t there, which is only accentuated with the geometric patterned rug.

I do like the lamp above the light box, it makes me smile in an unexplainable way. And (with clothes) it’d be a great fancy dress costume, and relatively easy to achieve. I have costumes on the mind at the moment as we’re off to a celebration of the First World War this coming weekend, and the dress code is of the era. After much research and looking at images on Google, I’ve realised it’s an era that isn’t as easy as it sounds, and it’s certainly not as fun (obviously) as the 1920s. For men, most often it was uniform, which is harder for MOH to source than a longish skirt, white blouse and hat that I sourced in the charity shops this weekend.

I’ve some final touches to put to the hat to dress it up a bit - I was thinking fabric flowers, and I’ve a suffragette ‘hunger strike’ medal to finish my outfit, and I’m sure I’ll share more here if I manage to make it work, and if I manage to persuade MOH to buy anything from a charity shop that he’ll actually wear. I got him to buy a flat cap, and it suits him, and I’ve a feeling he quite likes it too, but isn’t letting on too much just yet. Ideally with a brown coloured waistcoat and a neckerchief he could pass as a gardener, or similar, which is a lot easier than anything military. I’m not sure I’ll persuade him to wear wellies out on a Saturday night, but you never know…

But I digress, what do you think of this room?

A dark and citrus living room

Room sets are a great way to get an idea of how colours go together, or how they might work in your own rooms without actually doing the hard work of decorating. And they’re also somewhere where you’ll find me drooling over them at the home shows, such as Grand Designs Live. At the show earlier this year, the room sets were, shall we say, provocative and often a bit marmite. The rich in colour and pattern bedroom, which I shared a while back emphasises that point, I think.

Today’s room set, a living room, is also bit more out there than those at the Ideal Home Show, which are generally (but not always) more traditional. Grand Designs Live has it’s own USP which in some ways is a bit more edgy and encourages bolder decoration, with colour - or dark walls in this case, and soft furnishings that really have some zing.

And when they said citrus, they really meant it.

Yes, orange, yellow and green mixed with the grey - that has citrus covered doesn’t it? Or actually perhaps the colours are tangerine, lemon and lime to be more accurate. It’s the use of those three colours together, that gives it the zing, and makes you grateful for the grey. And it’s the grey that makes it work and pulls all the brighter colours together.

It’s the rug though that my eyes keep coming back to. The orange tub chairs have the zing, but the rug. Its pattern. My eyes are constantly trying to work it out. What is that pattern? What era does it come from? Is it a pattern, or just splodges? Do I like it, or am I just intrigued by it?

… so many questions, and for that last one I’m really not sure if I like it, think I should like it or don’t like it at all.

There is a touch of the seventies about it isn’t there?

And maybe that’s it, maybe it reminds me of something from our first home. I remember that the living room was yellow and orange at one point, and I’m certain we also had a grey and pink carpet much later on when the walls weren’t quite so citrus. Maybe this room has a bit of everything my mind’s eye remembers from my childhood home.

For me, the lights have a touch of murano about them too. And the matching vases.

Again that could just be reminiscing, as our first family holiday abroad was to Italy - how cosmopolitan were we?

The sofa though, now I have grey sofas (many of them) but back in my childhood there was an orange one (yes really) and one finished in brown velour, but I don’t remember anything grey.

What do you think of the room set, and what evokes memories of the decor in your childhood home?