Shamelessly bumping up because of the long delay between when I tried to post this and when it finally showed up.

That bed!! (As gorgeous as it is, not sure I'd want one. But still. That bed! :D) Thank you for sharing, Rita. About to watch the video.

ETA: That pink! Love it. The details are amazing.

Thanks for sharing.

Love the colors, patterns and mix of art and bric-à-brac. Fun rooms, cozy and elegant at the same time.

Pink, I believe our houses are a reflection of ourselves and I believe that if we are not true to ourselves we injure something terribly important inside of us. I know you will find a way to bring just a small scale of what you desire into your life, because you have brought that into your house. The smallest tea party, just you and one other person, and store bought cookies perhaps.

I wish we were neighbors in real life as well as here! I wish that for all of us actually. I love this virtual neighborhood.

Pink, do you think you could paint the inside of a closet or line a chest of drawers pink? Something hidden away that brings you joy when you open it and see it?

Thanks Rita. I have a lot of pink clothing. I lived with a friend for a while once while looking for an apartment. He had a laundry room in his basement that I used. He joked that I was the only person he knew who routinely did a load of pinks.

A load of pinks! Love that. :)

She's someone who knows her style and is not afraid to embrace it wholeheartedly, where the gutsy Oriental paintings are an intriguing counterpoint to the feminine pinks.

"She's someone who knows her style and is not afraid to embrace it wholeheartedly,"

Well said, ingrid. I do wonder why it should be any different for anyone. Susanna (the blogger) mentioned courage at the beginning, if memory serves. I don't understand why one needs to be courageous to use colour in one's home.

Some much to look at. I absolutely love it!

I love it all, and especially kitchen, and all the animals, and am envious of her armadillo-she has an amazing armadillo, almost life-size..and I don't have an armadillo yet. Her camel and my camel could be friends..mine is also a) bronze b) very funny..but now it feels like I should hunt an armadillo..)))

(Susanna Salk has several cool books, where she showcases beautiful rooms..one of which is called "Decorate fearlessly"..that's one of my favorites. Lots of things that you think "WOW and why I never thought of it myself")

Astonishing attention to detail, obvious high end finishes, and yet it all manages to be so warm and inviting. The room with the rhino on the wall -- the slightly disheveled nature of the bookshelves attests to an effortlessness that is purely organic and cannot be faked. I think this is all fabulous, and while definitely OTT, it's a joy to see such creative spark without fustiness alive and well.

I don't think it looks all that planned at all, just a cool space where she knows what she loves and has a good sense of scale and proportion--a natural artist. What I love is that it doesn't come across as stuffy, pretentious, or formal instead it's a complete expression of personality. Maybe that's part of why it's a great space, the appearance of being so naturally just-so yet behind that a well planned execution

This kind of look is somewhat difficult to pull off though, because not everyone is a natural artist. I think that is why decorating for the masses shies away from these styles.

It would really do the world a load of good if basic home design principles and aesthetics would be taught in school. Home design's main purpose should be to facilitate the good life lived within those spaces. When I finally bought my first house, I read up a lot on such things and started following this forum. It really does enhance your life when you think carefully about what to include in your home and how to arrange it and what colors and textures to use. Some folks come by this naturally, but some of us have to work at it.

Also, getting outside your box and seeing how others have dealt with the same issues gives you new inspiration and ideas. I really miss that old home channel show where they started with a picture of a high-end designed room and showed you how to create it for yourself in your middle class home. I loved the way they analyzed the photos of the high end spaces and pointed out what the essence was of the look and how to make that work even if you couldn't afford the more expensive pieces.

I do think a lot depends on a region, local culture, traditions etc

I still can't understand all the assumption about how I'm so very likely to get tired of a pattern, or of a color, and of tiles these or those, etc

Why would I get tired of something I love? I'll put in a lot of thought before I pick it, to make sure I really love it and it gives me just the right amount of whatever I look for..a balance between freedom and restraint that I want for a room. But then I'll put in a lot of thought in everything I pick..

With all the challenges the moves around the globe brought me-I'm really grateful, in a sense, to have had this experience. Travel for pleasure and books are great too, of course.

It's very hard to imagine something you never ever saw..requires a genius level

It's easier after you have a glance into what exists out there

"It's very hard to imagine something you never ever saw..requires a genius level"

Yes, that's true, April. How some people can imagine a whole never-seen-before world in their mind's eye. I admire that type of vision. I don't have it. I can see a room and see its potential - space, light, the hiccups of nooks and crannies - but can't envision a totally different world in it if I haven't come across something like it before.

As for tiring of something we love, it happens to me. I'm convinced this is how some of us are wired neurologically. I crave the visual "new". Always popping in HomeSense to see their "new" stuff. New colours, shapes, things. I hunger visually for new images. Can spend way too much time on Pinterest and the like, feasting on images. I might still love something in my home but crave something different after a while. Still love my bedroom wall colour but I'm pondering something different after twelve years. And yes, I do have ADD so... it's just how some of us are, I think.

Oh, april, I am so glad you popped over here. I thought of you immediately when I saw her animal pictures and sculptures. (Still no DMs for me.) Your point about having experienced all those international moves and how it helped you envision more possibilities is so true. That makes up so much of a visual education.

friday, I think you and I show up to a lot of threads praising the rooms with a lot to look at and a lot of high energy colors.

idaclair, yes, yes, the creative spark, without fustiness. And while I think there had to be a lot of planning to get the details and audacity right, the authenticity of the feel, the lack of artifice, absolutely comes through for me too.

melle, for me, it does look very tightly planned. The attention to detail and ability to use such bold colors and patterns as a background seem to take a lot of consideration to my eye. It's a little like the effortless look of the figure skater gliding and sailing on the ice- looks easy after a lot of work. But maybe I am just imposing my own limitations to someone else's natural genius.

pink, I never the the TV show you mentioned. Do you remember what it's called. I would love to watch something like that.

tartanmeup, interesting point about craving newness. I am with those who do not crave newness in my house, which is not to say my house is set in amber. I lived in a tiny house for 20 years and that precluded being able to buy much in the way of additional decor. The house could afford precious little inside, lest it become useless to its six inhabitants. I sorely missed being able to pick up pretty things here or there. But I never desired to change the general look, just wished to tweak. As for ADD and images, I am wondering if all we see online is not making us more impatient with real life images. I find myself almost impatient in stores- they can't put enough stuff in front of me to consider compared to Google.

Thank you all so much for stopping and chatting.

Wishing everyone a great weekend.

My landlady where I last lived in the upstairs apartment had a huge clean dry basement and also giant garage where she was able to store furniture and rugs, curtains, art, dishes, etc. She was able to easily change out the look of her rooms. She enjoys it. It's always neat to go visit her now (we're still friends) and see her latest tweaks. And I think I mentioned this before, but almost all of her stuff is thrift shop/garage sale/dime store kinds of things. She just has one of those natural eyes. She has a beautiful fake tree that she decorates in unusual ways every Christmas, and she told me she found it on the street with someone's trash on trash day. It's one of the nicest ones I have seen. That's the kind of thing you can do if you have the storage space. Sadly we do not. I used to have a similar basement in my last house, but my current one doesn't even have a decent attic and no basement and we've exhausted the garage with sports, garden, carpentry and camping stuff plus canning and our freezer and some household small appliances that we don't use every day. We even have a small shed but that hold the mower and snow blower.

I too wish I could remember the name of that show. It was long ago, back in the day when Candice Olson ruled the waves and before the trading spaces and overnight makeover and rehab craze. It was just one room makeovers. I think they had different designers on different episodes. Edited to add that with some googling I think I found it, it was called "Sensible Chic." Some of the episodes were better than others, depending on whether you liked the inspiration room or not. Plus some of the choices were questionable, but one could see how to do it and find something better than the hosts did but just as cheap.

Was it Design on a Dime, pink? Never saw the show but heard of it. Never saw Candace Olsen either.

Rita, yes, Google! The Web's infinity doesn't calm my ADD, for sure, but you know, even younger, long before the Internet was a glimmer in Al Gore's eye, I craved change in my surroundings. Growing up, there was a long period during my early teenage years where I changed my bedroom every week. I'd say tweak but sometimes, I'd change the whole configuration of the space. Moved my bed every which way possible, removed the bed frame to have it just the box spring and mattress on the floor, put it back the next week (oh my parents loved that one! Ha.)....the fentak (?) for posters on the wall - arranged as a grid one week, sometimes less, sometimes more. I had no money to add anything but I changed it all up, all the time. My grandmother would come over for cards every Friday night and that was her first stop in the house. "What has Tartan done to her room this week?"

Pink, I envy your former landlady. I like so many styles, I'd need the lottery and a few houses or a large storage unit to assuage my taste cravings. :P

The "decor bug" hits me hard whenever there's a huge hormonal change, it seems. I know pregnancy has been shown to awaken a nesting instinct but I wonder if other hormonal changes have been linked to it as well.

"It's a little like the effortless look of the figure skater gliding and sailing on the ice- looks easy after a lot of work."

Very true, Rita! Is it our limitations that interpret it that way? Was reading another chapter in The Tree of Life and one designer, Michael Zabrieskie, says "you either have it or you don't. Fabrics, color, proportion - those are decorating's three main aspects. If you can sense how they go together, you can do anything." I know people in my circle who say they just don't have it. I can't help wonder if they're simply not bothered or interested in trying. To me, curiosity can guide someone far.

Here's an episode I really liked, but it does show some of the limitations of the show. Like why for heavens sake didn't they go for an exotic animal art piece, but instead chose a picture of almost the exact thing on the credenza! One could easily do one or the other, even find an antique china exotic animal figurine or some animal art. Or ANYTHING other than a picture of the pots on the credenza. Otherwise, I liked the assemblage. If it were me, I'd put some pitchers and dishes I would actually use in the room on the credenza and nix the fake foliage on the counter between the DR and kitchen as dust collectors though. I might even put a coffee maker on the credenza with some solid pottery mugs in the colors featured. I'd probably buy or make nice foliage patterned placemats to break up the large brown expanse of the table. But the table and chairs are brilliant together, IMHO. Not today's minimalist style, but mine.

https://www.hgtv.com/videos/bold-makeover-92846

The video doesn't play for me. :( All I see is a fuzzy picture with a taunting arrow.

I don't know why, I click on the link and then click the arrow and it plays on my laptop and phone.

Might be a country issue. I'm in Canada. Usually there's a message but now, nothing happens. Will try it from my phone later. On my desktop now.

Odd since I think it was a Canadian show. Anyway nothing great about the video and it is dated. But it does show the principle of how you can work through the essence of a room you like to recreate the vibe. The example is fairly mediocre but the principle is instructive. I wish there were more shows that were primarily instructive.

The country coded stuff online does not respect where the show originated, but where it is playing with respect to whatever crazy rules have been devised around this issue.

Just tried it on my phone and same thing. Except the pic is clearer on my phone. :P Sensible Chic, you say? Hmm. Never did see it. Perhaps there's clips on YT. I'll keep my eyes open for it because I too really like the idea of "instruction" in these shows. Something Sarah Richardson would do as well in her early shows (Room Service).

I haven't watched HGTV in ages.

Please forgive the digression into old decorating shows. Does anybody remember a show from Canada where the designer was an English woman and her specialty was paint finishes? I think she was from Pointe Claire in Montreal. I would love to find old episodes of that show. It was amazing. I was just out of school/newly married when I watched it- so 25 years ago.

Debbie Travis!!!

Thank you!!! I am off to YouTube!

Oh, she's wonderful. Lives in Italy (and Toronto) now. Offers retreats in her Italian villa. Harvests olive oil as well. Incredibly enterprising person.

It must take a great deal of thought and imagination to put an interior like this together.

And often money, to be honest. There's a lot of top-notch fabric, wallpaper, and workmanship (the Soane Britain items), plus antiques -- like Syrie Maugham's bergere chairs, which are likely originally from Maison Jansen, and textiles from a Chatsworth House auction -- and items acquired by travelling (she and her family summer often in Turkey), in that flat : ) .

But the imagination is a huge part of the equation, and that reminds me of Ingrid's comment on the other thread (homes with soul) about "imaginative interiors". Lulu's house definitely has soul.

I love the kitchen and her bedroom. The pink bed is in her daughter Bunny's room.

For anyone who's a fan of architect and designer Ben Pentreath and/or his husband gardener Charlie McCormick, it was Lulu Lytle who introduced them. And her house is featured in BP's "English Houses" book, which is where the photos Susanna Salk used in the Quintessence post came from; you can see some of the pages featuring her house in this blog post,

https://www.pentreath-hall.com/inspiration/2016/09/25/pictures-not-words-2/

Also, some more pictures here, including the kitchen before she had the cabinets painted raspberry,

https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/luxury/interiors/at-home-with-soane-britain-founder-lulu-lytle-a-global-treasure-trove-of-textiles-paintings-maps-and-a100921.html

And an Architectural Digest article focusing on fabrics in the home, written and photographed beautifully by the amazing Miguel Flores-Vianna,

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/soane-britain-lulu-lytle-home-visit

Debbie Travis had several shows, I think the one you want, Rita, is Debbie Travis' Painted House, and she published several DB Painted House books, which I bet you could get VERY cheaply on Abebooks.

There are still a lot of houses around here in rural western Alberta with their 20-year-old Debbie Travis-inspired paint finishes lol.

Becky, you're a walking encyclopedia of the decorative arts! Always a pleasure to read your contributions to such threads.

I pinkmountain, I found an episode of Sensible Chic on YT. Glad you brought it up here because I'd never seen the show before. I like the format.

I think of beckysharp as the dean of the decorating boards.

I am wondering if I will be sorely disappointed in my post graduate self for liking her so much. Haven't had a chance to see whats online yet. Fingers crossed.

Some of the effects might look "dated" today. Still, they were inspired by traditional European decorative arts - she popularized them for a general public hungry for something "different". Should still be somewhat charming. I find her inherently charming so might be biased. :)

OMG Lulu has definitely gotten more over the top as time has gone by! Even with a name like LPink I think I like the pre-raspberry overload looks better. Except for maybe the kitchen cabinets.

Thanks, tartan and Rita. Much too kind, and what little I know is mostly about traditional English, American-ish (Sister Parish, Keith Irvine, Bunny Williams, Cathy Kincaid etc) country house style.

And what I don't know, I Google. I will admit to having decent Google-fu skills : ) .

When I think of dean of the decorating boards, I think of chijim and pal, but I guess with pal's departure that makes him dean emeritus : ( .