I’ve heard it said that you shouldn’t make any decision about a room’s purpose or décor until you’ve lived with it for a while and really get a feel for how you’ll use the space. If like me, you’re a little impatient, this can prove to be infuriating. However in the case of one of the rooms we inherited, this proved to be a good idea.
Attached to our house, but accessed only via the Garden is a long thin room that was used as an office by the previous owners. If we had gone with our initial idea that every single guest who visited us in the first month came up with, this room would now be a Bar. As much as I like the idea of a gorgeous gold gilt bar cart, glass jars filled with limes and a wine fridge filled with vino (one of those fancy ones that keep your white wine cool and your red wine at room temperature), it seemed to be a bit of a waste of the space to devote it to a drinking hole for the one sunny weekend we have a year.
As much as we love our dual aspect lounge because its windows face both east and west (so we get both morning and evening sun), at the height of midday it can be a bit dark. Our ‘Summer House’ has the luxury of facing south and so we wanted to take advantage of the extra light and carve out a little living space. However, if it was just dedicated to being a lounge area you would be waving at your guests 20 odd feet away as it’s only wide enough for one sofa. Depending on your choice of guest this isn’t really ideal… So, given two summers of afternoon studying, working, lunching, napping and film watching up in the Summer House, we’ve decided to split the space into two areas - one for work and one for play using a billowy curtain to divide the space.
In terms of style I’m going for a slight Moroccan feel with plenty of ikat pillows, lots of leather pouffes and lashings of gold.
As always I hope to reveal soon but there might be a bit of a delay as I hunt down the finishing touches to complete the room.
Have you got any spaces that you lived with for a while before taking the decorating plunge, or any stories about regrets of jumping in early with the paint brush?
Lauren x