My Design: Family Room

Well, the big day finally arrived. The sofa, pictured above, that I picked out months ago was delivered this week. It's an old cliche, but very true: A designer can decide in a nanosecond what her client needs, but when it comes to the designer's own home? Forget it! The hold up was I couldn't decide what chairs would look good with the sofa because it has dramatic lines, with a high curved back, great depth, low - almost nonexistent - arms, and gorgeous, dark wood mouton legs. The truth is, I have waited my whole life for a George Smith sofa and arm chairs and I guess I'll be waiting for another life time. It's just not going to happen this time. As hard as I tried to make a pair of Smith's club chairs work, they just didn't look good next to the French styled sofa. So, after a few months of turmoil and indecision, back and forth, I finally decided on French wing chairs with mouton legs. The lines of the chair are very similar to the sofa. Decision finally made, chairs built, voila - it's here. As big of a change that it is to me, if you walk into my family room today, you may not even notice there is any new furniture at all, unless, of course, you're a design freak. Both my old and new sofa and chairs are slipcovered in white linen. The old wicker arm chair, my former perch, is now gone, replaced by the wing chair. But still, the overall effect is the same: white slipcovers contrasted with dark wood furniture. While the new furniture is not from George Smith, it is custom made, with all down cushions and it is tres comfy. Here's what my family room looks like with the new couch and chairs:





The only decision left concerns the pillows. This is what I'm thinking about - it's new from F. Schumacher, thick linen, gray and white - birds, of course, with the Quadrille negative-color toile feel. The fabric pops on the white sofa and repeats the high contrast of the white against the dark wood. What do you think? Should I use this fabric, or perhaps zebra, or even, dare I say, kwid or lulu?

Below, is another F. Schumacher fabric that seems to coordinate with my first choice. Or would a solid in deep raspberry or dark charcoal be better? What is your opinion? Do you have another suggestion?

AND.... One last design note. On my coffee table (which I would like to replace with a zinc one!!!) is a large blue & white Oriental bowl. It's huge and it's from Tozai Home, the upper-end division of Two's Company. Inside the bowl, I keep tons of loose photographs and old Christmas cards. I suggest this to all of my clients, especially the ones with myriad tacky picture frames cluttering every table and shelf. I've discovered that loose photos placed in a bowl invites conversation. At family gatherings, inevitably, one or two people will sit by the bowl and go through the whole thing, picture by picture. When was the last time anyone really looked at all your pictures in their frames? Toss those frames, put the photos in a big bowl, and watch your friends actually look at your photos for the first time.

Diana

If you, like me, admired the beauty of the person that was Diana, the once Princess of Wales, this weekend you are probably thinking of Diana and of your own special memories of her. Everyone that knows me, in real life, is keenly aware of how much I adored Diana. There was a point in time where books on Diana and the Royal Family dominated my library. I have scores of these books, books about Diana's outfits, books about the Royal Jewels, books about the Royal castles, and books about their private lives written by fired or disgruntled past employees. The one book I own about the royals that I think would be of interest to design bloggers is The Garden at Highgrove, written by The Prince of Wales.


It is a beautiful garden book, somewhat similar in tone to David Hick's garden book, My Kind of Garden. It chronicles how Prince Charles bought a rather plain country home and turned it's barren land, save for one magnificent, aged cedar of Lebanon, into a magnificent parkland, filled with secret gardens, wildflower pastures, and garden paths, all the while using a environmentally sensitive approach to gardening. It details the help Charles received in designing his gardens, and how special care was taken to how the garden would look from inside the home, not just from the outside. It is a wonderful book, and is a companion to another book by the Prince written a year prior titled Highgrove, Portrait of an Estate. Filled with glorious pictures of wildflower fields, garden sculpture and pottery, garden gates and pathways, one does not have to be a horticulturist to enjoy it.


Aerial view of Highgrove. Note the cedar of Lebanon behind the home. Over 200 years old, the tree is now overtaken by fungus and other nasty things and is being dismantled.

A garden walk of yews, with another picture of the cedar.

From inside the home, a view of the yew walk. Doors are held open with the help of blue and white garden stools.

A garden walk through an arched wall.

A touch of whimsy in a garden.

A wildflower field at the front of Highgrove.

A dewy morning shot of Highgrove.

Cows grazing at Highgrove.


A door covered with climbing roses leads to a secret garden.


In the ten years since Diana's death, the Royal family has gone high tech. Prince Charles' own web site is top rate and if you are interested in visiting any of his homes or learning of their history, I highly recommend a perusal of it. Most interesting, is the fact that you can actually stay as a vacationer on his land. In cottages owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, a huge land holding that is the Prince of Wales' birthright and his main source of income, you can rent out these rather fashionable vacation homes. The information is on the Duchy's web site, along with pictures of the cottages that apparently are rated a 5 star by the English travel bureau.

One of the charming cottages available for holiday rental on the Prince's land. Interior shots of a few of the cottages are below:

With all this talk of Prince Charles, you may, like me, still have trouble believing that Charles would give up a wife like this:

To marry a wife like this:


If so, perhaps you are better off siding with the Spencers, Diana's own blood family. The Spencers home base is at Althorp, where Diana once lived. Althorp also has a wonderful web site. Her brother, the Earl of Spencer, currently lives at Althorp and opens it each summer to visitors. You must have a ticket prior to going though, don't expect to show up and visit without one. Diana is buried on an island in the middle of a small lake at Althorp and there is a wonderful exhibit of her childhood, life as the Princess, her wedding dress, and her charity work in the former horse stables. Another book I highly recommend was written by the Earl of Spencer and it chronicles the history of Diana's ancestral home:

The small lake which surrounds the island where Diana is buried at Althorp.

The monument at her grave.

Diana's handsome brother, Charles, has cashed in on all the fame as her only brother and heir to the estate of Althorp. He currently sells reproductions of the antiques at Althorp. Theodore Alexander is the company that markets this very expensive line of furniture.



Charles, the Earl of Spencer is ruggedly handsome and single, though it is reported he has a new girlfriend following his second divorce. But, if you want to try to catch his eye and become his new Countess, the Earl will be in Houston at Louis Shanks, of all places, on September 7 from 10 to 12 noon. Good luck!