Decor Extremus:

During May there was something of a special moon. Or something strange happened to the sun and there on the wall of Douglas’ new bathroom was a shimmering apparition, as close as you could get to magic.

It was in fact a reflection (or was that projection) of the acid-glazed window, which portrayed autumn in the form of a neo-classical young woman, complete with sheaf of wheat, scythe and sandaled feet.

Like a lot of these hefty neoclassical models there seems something slightly transgender about them. But she’s a beauty, no doubt about that.
She came from the centre of a pair of beautiful glass doors which came from the local auction mart. There once would have been a matching goddess in the other central pane – perhaps winter or summer?

But by the time we got the doors she had vanished.

Douglas made the decision to lift the existing goddess out and make her into a solo picture in his bathroom. It was a good decision, as the light is diffused – and every afternoon she positively glows.

The double doors weren’t cheap – but much cheaper than at a demolition yard, where anything decently odd gets priced astronomically. Douglas actually did the delicate work of removing the glass pane by pane. The doors reused in the Morning Room featured in an earlier posting – where in most of the old coloured glass that once surrounded this apparition and her twin still reside.

It was a pain-staking process of  chipping out crumbling putty and removing old nails – but almost all of it came away intact. Ironically it was one of the smallest pieces that broke – small enough to be reset in the doors in its divided state. The large autumn pane was left till last and although slightly nerve-racking it was eventually lifted out in one piece.

These panes leave another lovely hue on the walls as the sun sets in the west – it makes you wonder why clear colourless glass seems to reign supreme in contemporary houses.

PW

Are we guilty of décor neglect? Probably. A follower has reprimanded us for our lack of postings and it is true – our minds have been elsewhere.  That is not to say that the pressing issues of décor haven’t been top of the list – but we’ve been doing other things – working, writing, travelling, gardening, relaxing and of course hunting out new décor items.

Yet I now realize there has been some neglect of the serious issues. Every morning as I travelled through the Studio, bleary-eyed (making my way to the coffee pot), I had been suffering certain disquiet. What was once the centerpiece of the whole house – our show off room – seemed to have lost its zing.  Was it that, with the renovations now largely finished, the new spaces have taken attention away from the main event? Now that the party happens out in the Morning room and deck is the Studio simply now at the wrong end of town?

It took a while – a few coffees and a long Easter weekend (in which a big garden project was ruined by torrential rain) to take another look at the Studio. What had happened?

Essentially the Studio had become the initial resting place of newly acquired pieces, new paintings, new vases, new pieces of furniture and a collection of 1954 royal tour flags. Here paintings had been put up on any convenient nail, vases have been deposited en masse on tabletops and the neglected dining room table had become home to everything from unsorted mail to glasses awaiting rehoming in the armoire. This had resulted in the generally disorderly jumble that we only ever passed through – and nobody was paying much attention.

What took a while to sink in was that the whole room needed a do-over. This is not an invasive project – but simply a rehanging, a simplification and a rethink.

There was something of a question as to what the Studio is now used for. Initially – when we only occupied 1/3 of the house – we lived in this room – it was our house – now there are other spaces and the Studio basically becomes a large formal dining room and entertainment space.

Early on we thought a lot about making it feel like an Edwardian artist’s studio – that is with a strong Orientalizing feel – Japanese mirrors, Moroccan occasional tables, boxes of artist’s paint and an easel or two. Although we had essentially decided the look was unattainable – without it seeming as if the room was filled with faded tat – however some of these early directions still lingered

There had also been the Shabby Baronial approach. The term had been invented by the fabulous Claire Regnault – as a deeply masculine version of Shabby Chic that allowed us to do sprawling and comfortable but have the whole effect seem big and male. As part of this the mounted deer’s heads and the occasion flag still work and work well – but the wing chairs had gone off to their intended destination in the library and the big Joseph Gaut had gone off to have conservation work done on it. What was left simply no longer hung together.

One of the questions we had asked ourselves was does the Studio need new furniture – and the answer of course is yes. A good large-scale butler’s stand or open sideboard would look great where a smaller sideboard now stands and I for one am still not sure the dining room table is quite right. However these things take time and we needed to work with what we had.

We started in one corner – in a moment of guerilla action Peter had moved a contemporary artwork by Ian McMillan from its corner behind a door – to a more prominent position, displacing two Victorian embroideries but leaving a third hanging high above it. Climbing a ladder I brought down the remaining embroidery. From there we moved around the walls of the room – replacing a Japanese painted mirror with a plain colonial one – hanging a portrait – and then two Theo School panels – that were really propped up awaiting being placed in their specially made crate to go into storage (these are remnants from my last mid-century modern house). We moved around the room hanging pictures so there seemed a conversation between them and at each point we measured and hung paintings at exact heights and equal distances.

This precision and a strong sense of paring back was exactly what the room needed. Vases were disappeared, tablecloths removed, footstools exiled and at the end of the day we had achieved a certain big simple antebellum style that so suits this room and the Studio is back to being the show off room it always has been. What’s more we achieved this in good time for a formal dinner to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic this Saturday.

Sometimes it is worth taking a second look at a room, forget silly notions of new wallpaper, carpet or light fittings and ask yourself if what is really needed is a simplification – a paring back to its essence – maybe a good re-hang and a cull of a few unnecessary objects – all of which remain to feature another day, ready to reflect a different mood.

DLJ

Ticking is a material most people remember from mattresses. It is, usually, cheap and decorative. It suits old furniture, having a certain Jane Austen quality of elegance and utility (ie it is cheap as chips).

Ticking comes in black, red, blue and green as a general rule, though I have starting seeing variants on these.

It does have a demerit: it gets marked very easily and the very quality which makes it effective – its highly graphic quality – shows up dirt very easily. Douglas had a regency chair recovered and almost immediately it got a spot on it. It’s almost impossible to clean and you can’t hide in such a stark pattern.

All you can do is put a book on it, as on this stool in a masculine Georgian style I picked up at a local auction (useful for the end of a bed where you tend to drop clothes undressing at night.)

When I faced a decision about reupholstering this charmingly ugly colonial chair I went for ticking. It was done by an expert, as you can see from this careful alignment of a button.

This ticking was cheap. From memory it was around $15 to $20 a metre at Spotlight. At the same time high-end upholstery shops were selling ticking for $45 a metre approx. Usually it was of a heavier fabric, which does have its point. (And even fabric @ $45 a metre I have since found out is a bargain…)

Why do I like ticking? It is graphic, strong, simple and goes well with furniture from the Regency period backwards. As you can see here, it kind of goes well with a David Hicks obsession with tiny patternings.

But I almost ran amok when we ordered ticking material for curtains for the new bedroom on line – www.marthas.co.nz.  (This was from the lovely Martha’s in Newmarket: their cafe is highly recommended – and for people who like fabric as a fantasy, what better combo can you have than a cafe where you can think options through: like I shouldn’t really buy it. I can’t afford it while munching on delicious pastry.)

Anyway long story short, I looked at a ticking at Marthas which was basically like the other ticking we have, but stronger fabric. Back home in Napier I ordered it on line. I was slightly mystified by a slight change in price, upwards, but put this down to on-line buying.

Imagine my horror, dear reader, when I opened an expensive roll of fabric ($52 a metre) to find a different ticking. It was a pale cream background (as against stark white) and the fabric also had a kind of almost tweed herringbone pattern woven into it.

Basically it was a contemporary take on ticking. The bars of colour were wider apart. I contemplated suicide or had I already committed décor suicide.

I went back on line and found to my mortification I had made the mistake myself. (Damn!)

However…as it turns out, the cream of the new ticking has gone very well with the nice creamy paintwork of the wooden French doors. Now I have adjusted my sight to what it actually is (rather than isn’t) I find I like it a lot.

I do have a worry. We are getting a logburner thingy for the bedroom so we survive Napier’s arctic winters (in our wooden house). I am a little worried about a sooty hand reaching out to close the curtains.

The fact is, like most things from the eighteenth and early 19th century, they were predicated on an underground staff who laboured hard to keep things looking clean. After all, white was associated with the gentry (white linen) simply because it was impossible for poor people to attain. But since this house operates on the fantasy that there is some unseen Downtown Abbey type staff working away, I guess we have to take on the role of the invisible Minnie and do the damned cleaning of the ticking ourselves.

PW