decor



so the new house, should I end up owning it, has a small breakfasting area in between the living room (there is no hall, you walk straight into the living room) and the kitchen (which runs across the back of the ground floor space, which is weird for a London Town house to have a kitchen running across the width of the house and thus no view of the people who back onto you) (however, this arrangement creates the small but private courtyard garden in between the kitchen, across the back, and the living room at the front, and the small breakfasting area to the side)

and in the breakfasting area there is a wall upon which I thought would be the near perfect place to hang my Hopper print

I have a "thing", you know one of those "things" that you have have*, about lighthouses and beaches and sand and sandcastles and mermaids and the sea and oceans and waves and seaweed and fish and flotsam and jetsam (*and this is only one of my "things", but I'll spare you the rest) (for the moment) and as such over the years I have found and purchased items of this nature and friends who know me well have bought me things of the same theme - you know, the usual girly stuff: a jug with an underwater scene, a mirror made of "found items" from the beach, a beautiful book about mermaids, a photo of an enormous wave crashing over a lighthouse, a ceramic lighthouse spaghetti holder (sounds horrible, but is gorgeous - made by someone who lives in Brighton) and my framed Hopper poster

anyhow, the other day I was thinking about how fed up I was with living in a house painted magnolia (rented houses are always painted magnolia and people always paint their houses magnolia before they sell them, so we had painted the last-house-but-one magnolia when we wanted to sell it, we never redid the paint in the old house after we moved in, which the previous owners had painted magnolia in order to sell it, so I've been living with magnolia for almost five years now) and how when the children were little, and living in the last-house-but-one, they loved the fact it was colourful

when we moved in I had painted the downstairs living space in the colourwash style that was so popular ten years ago and most of the kitchen was aqua, with one yellow wall and one pale brick red wall - and I thought in the new house, rather than painting the wall in the breakfast space blue and hanging the Hopper on it, I should paint the whole wall like the image on the print!

what do you think?

I'd have the detail in the bottom left hand corner of the wall (on the left as you walk thru) but make the sky much much bigger in proportion thus most of the wall space would be the colourwash sky, with a few of those streaky clouds - and the reason it would work is cos the breakfast area opens onto the courtyard garden (window and door to the right as you walk in from the main room) and the courtyard garden faces southeast - so the light shining in would be the right angle to light up the detail in the image - just as it does in the original!

:-)

and!!! I found this really cool site on the net which sells decals which you just paste up, so rather than doing fancy paintjobs on other walls or bothering with wall paper, I am going to purchase some weird and amusing shapes to stick to the walls. . .

and rather than invest in fancy lamps, I thought I'd do this!

anyhow, I'm sure you have more important things to do with your day, so I shall take my decorating thoughts back to the drawing board and let you get on with the slightly more important stuff of your life

have a good one!
.

post script for some reason
"decor" has won an award chez Australian David. . .
thanks David!

10 comments:

Dave said...

I have a couple of lighthouse pictures - including one with an enormous wave (only my enormous wave is spelled correctly) breaking over it.

I, Like The View said...

do you know, this new laptop won't spell check my posts for me? anyhow, I always like having an extra U around to keep me company. . .

is it the French lighthouse, with the guy standing by the open door having a fag? it look like a painting, but is actually a photo - if so it's the same image!

Dave said...

Yes. I have two photos by that artist.

Mel said...

*chuckling*

Well, you know me and lighthouses and beachy things....

YES! :-)

Ohhhhhhh....and I love the stickies!
(mostly cuz I can't paint worth a darn.....) Don't they look wonderfuly with the sunlight streaming in on them!
(we have a print of Guichard's with three progressive shots of the enormous wave ...yep....)

I, Like The View said...

(that has made me smile Ms mel! a big one!! thank you!!!)

Anonymous said...

If I had anything hanging on my walls that was not painted by either of two of my great uncles or my mother I probably would be shot... except for my maps, I have some maps framed on my walls. Fortunately, for my sake, they are all very good at painting.

C:)

Anonymous said...

I can never bring myself to decide on any art for the walls. I look and I look but can't 'pull the trigger' on anything.

I would someday like to have a fancy medievl type tapestry.

Anonymous said...

I am having email problems, but to answer your question... I have the skills, but I have never exercised them. when I need to work something out I write, not paint. C:)

I, Like The View said...

it was much about your techincal skills in the household department as your artistic skills, I guess. . .

. . ."have never exercised them"!

I was just curious

:-)

mig bardsley said...

I think you should definitely paint the whole wall like the hopper print.
That's what I think
:)