When we first moved into this house two years ago (already!!) we gave one swatch to the decorators – one – Dulux Chiffon White no 4 and told them to paint everything. Walls, ceilings, woodwork, windows… everything. We wanted a plain canvas on which to hang our pictures and set our furniture against and more than anything we wanted to get to know the house: the way the light changes through the seasons, how we’d live it… Chiffon white is warm and bright and doesn’t take over.
…BUT inevitably… after a while… the itch to decorate takes over and whilst I still haven’t been able to convince Mr M that our bedroom needs to go darker… the spare room is getting a make over…
Time to play with wallpaper.
I love wallpaper let me tell you. I could have looked through sample books for hours – I kind of did – and online too although it’s not the same… you need to touch it to really feel if it works or not.
The room we’re using for our guests is tiny. There’s room for a double bed but only one bedside table… so the dilemma was… do we wallpaper the wall behind the bed only? (I hate the expression ‘feature wall’… but that’s what we were thinking) or do we do the whole shebang?
Decision… decision…
Anyway, these are the samples that I collected together:
Sandberg Wallpaper, – Gild, in black – gorgeous Swedish company… could have chosen all of them out of their books. Calming and natural.
Farrow & Ball – Blostma – reminds me a little of the 20s and my grandmother’s bedroom furniture. So delicate and restful.
The one of the left is from the latest Jane Churchill range which she says it’s inspired by Matisse’s work… and I’m saying it’s suspiciously similar to this one.
The one of the right it’s another one from Farrow & Ball – Aranami – which totally reminds me of the Bloomsbury set.
Then I explored ‘blue’.. but the room is too small and not right… but aren’t they wonderful? sigh… Farrow & Ball – Yokutori – on the left, Graham and Brown – Indigo blue – on the right.
Then I tried pink.. which I really like but pink in a house full of boys is about as popular as fish night around here. Farrow & Ball – Wisteria – and Graham and Brown – Tropical Blush.
The vintage angle flopped. We like it in principle, we toyed with he idea but we were too worried that to get bored of it in a really short time. So we scrapped it.
Graham and Brown – Do the Stretch – on the left. Little Greene ’50’s Line papers’ on the right.
So… you might ask… which wallpaper won the contest?
Ta dahhh…
It’s a little bit girlie, but not too much, it’s fresh and the neutral colour will allow me to personalise/change the mood and feel by changing the the bedlinen and cushions and even pictures on the wall…
That’s the plan anyway!
Gilda it is… can’t wait.
The new bed is ordered… so curtains are next… I find those more challenging…
while you're ahead... 