Home What is the general decor theme in your house?

[Mrs Mitchell]

Date: 4/15/2010 7:47:41 AM
Author: sugarpie honeybun

Date: 4/15/2010 4:14:38 AM
Author: Mrs Mitchell
Interesting thread! We have been talking about this recently and we''re struggling to have a cohesive theme. Our house is late Victorian / early Edwardian, built by a railway company at the end of the 19th century. Originally it had four rooms and a kitchen but it''s been extended over the years. We''ve decorated the newer parts in a very neutral way- off white walls and plain light carpet or wood floor but our furniture is a hodge podge of inherited stuff and antique shop finds.

The old part of the house has high ceilings, cornices, picture rails etc so we''ve gone with period colours from Farrow and Ball and plain wooden floors with wax finish. It''s all quite plain.

However, I would love to make more of the fact it''s an old railway station and that it''s on the coast. I''d love to bring in these themes without making it twee or museum-like. We have a few photos of the station in its heyday and a few seaside ornaments, but I want to do more along these lines. Just not sure how.
I am about to decorate the dining room and I''m torn between rich dark colours that would be authentic to the period (dining room is in the oldest part of the house) and going for more of a beach house feel. Any suggestions? All the rooms open off hallways, so they can be different without clashing (I think...) Any thoughts would be welcome, because I''m struggling with this.

Jen

Your house sounds absolutely lovely and interesting!

Thank you! Interesting is probably a good word for it - we have a lot of work still to do. We had a ten year plan, which would have seen the attic converted into bedrooms, the old bedrooms (in a modern extension) demolished and lanscaped and a whole lot more decorating done. Best laid plans and all that...

We''ll get round to it. Hopefully. This is year seven and so far we''ve painted everything so we can live in it (some scary colour schemes when we moved in) done the living room and master bathroom the way we want them and the rest, we''ll get to eventually!

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

Date: 4/15/2010 11:49:34 AM
Author: Haven

Date: 4/15/2010 4:14:38 AM
Author: Mrs Mitchell
Interesting thread! We have been talking about this recently and we''re struggling to have a cohesive theme. Our house is late Victorian / early Edwardian, built by a railway company at the end of the 19th century. Originally it had four rooms and a kitchen but it''s been extended over the years. We''ve decorated the newer parts in a very neutral way- off white walls and plain light carpet or wood floor but our furniture is a hodge podge of inherited stuff and antique shop finds.

The old part of the house has high ceilings, cornices, picture rails etc so we''ve gone with period colours from Farrow and Ball and plain wooden floors with wax finish. It''s all quite plain.

However, I would love to make more of the fact it''s an old railway station and that it''s on the coast. I''d love to bring in these themes without making it twee or museum-like. We have a few photos of the station in its heyday and a few seaside ornaments, but I want to do more along these lines. Just not sure how.

I am about to decorate the dining room and I''m torn between rich dark colours that would be authentic to the period (dining room is in the oldest part of the house) and going for more of a beach house feel. Any suggestions? All the rooms open off hallways, so they can be different without clashing (I think...) Any thoughts would be welcome, because I''m struggling with this.

Jen

Oh, DO bring out the railway station theme, Jen! Your house sounds lovely.

I would stack up on picture books of old railway stations from the library for inspiration, if I were you. I bet you could find some wonderful images to have copied and framed for your walls, if you''d really like.

When we were house hunting I fell in love with a beautiful home that was originally a one room schoolhouse. It was amazing. They had a gorgeous front mat that read ''Schoolhouse'' and a smattering of photo books of one room schoolhouses lying around. It was really special.

The school house sounds like something I would love too. I really like old buildings with a sense of history, especially when they were built for a totally different purpose.

I''ve been collecting little bits and pieces of railway memorabilia, but it''s actually quite hard to come by. I have some black and white photos from when the station was open, taken round about 1910 or so. I''ve tracked down some more photos from private collections and I''m waiting for them to be scanned and printed. We have a couple of signalman''s lamps, one that we found in an old outbuilding and one that a friend gave us, and a few railway signs, but they are mostly reproductions. Our back gate has a tinplate sign from the 1920s that says beware of trains.

I''m trying to find pieces that are authentic to the era and also to the particular railway company that built the line. The station closed to passengers in the 1930s and the company merged with several others, so there isn''t a lot of stuff to be found. It is fun looking, though.

Funny, I was sitting in the kitchen today when the train alarm went off -doesn''t happen often, but there are occasionally freight trains using the old line. I went to the window to watch (um yeah, not much happens here) and it was a steam train! Made me all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the old days here.

We''d been here about three months when a very elderly lady came to the door, asked if she could look around the garden. It turns out this was her grandfather''s house - he was the station master here and the house was built for him. She lived here when her father was station master and her brother took over after him. Her family finally moved out in the 1970s, when the goods yard and level crossing closed. I was a bit freaked out, because she described exactly how each room used to look, how it was decorated when her grandparents moved in. I have a friend who claims to be a medium and she''d already told me how the rooms used to look and something about the people she thought had lived in it - she was absolutely spot on, down the last pot plant and the names of this lady''s 4 siblings.

 

[Clio]

Mrs. Mitchell, your house sounds so cool!

Our decorating style can best be described as Old Stuff and Chinoiserie. We have a lot of things we''ve inherited or picked up at antique stores and a lot of Asian things. It mostly works.

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

Thanks!

It is unique, but it needs a lot of work. Sigh. I was just looking around some of the rooms in the lovely Spring sunshine and realising that even the stuff we''ve already done needs touching up in places. It''s like a never ending treadmill of a decorating project.

 

[zoebartlett]

I''m not sure what our style is. Here are a few pictures of what we have:

 

[zoebartlett]

dining set:

 

[zoebartlett]

Living room set:

 

[zoebartlett]

Sorry they're so big, especially the last one! The TV table we have looks odd here but that's because in the picture I snagged from the manufacturer's site, it's displayed with sides and a top. We just bought the smaller middle section, so I had to erase the other sections with Paint. The colors of the tables are all different but we have the shade that matches the coffee table I think. It's called Concord on the Brown Street site.


So, I'm not sure what we have. Simple in design (I don't tend to like heavy, ornate pieces), darker finishes for the tables, casual style for the couches. I'm generally drawn to various shades of reds, blues, and greens as opposed to yellows and purples. I'm not into floral patterns on furniture really. A grew up in the northeast where Shaker style furniture is BIG. It's what my parents have and what I still love.

In terms of items we have in our house, I'm a HUGE fan of Crate and Barrel and pottery that I find on my travels. The lamps we have in our living room are from C&B, as are other things throughout our place.

 

[princesss]

Our decorating style is a really weird mish mash. M tends towards heavy, dark wood and dark colours, early American furniture - cozy and worn in. I like dark wood and things that remind me of traveling/living abroad, as well as things we've made ourselves. I tend to like warm colours - very little is blue/green/purple in our house. It's all brown/red/orange/gold. We've got a Buddha head carving next to a statue of Mary and Jesus next to a Thai porcelain doll next to a painting from Paris on our mantle if that gives you any idea of how randomly things are put together.

Once we get our own place to decorate however we like and get our own furniture I'll post pictures. I've got a vision in my head - now I just need the money and time to make it happen.

 

[lulu]

I would call it "inadvertant". Strangely, it seems to work.

 

[Allisonfaye]

My house is and my favorite style is traditional. I do throw in a few slightly contemporary elements. I would love to have a Spanish house but that wouldn''t fit in where I live. I love New England beachy, Hamptonesque style homes. If $$ were no object, I would have one of each of these.