Glamour - creating the look

Creating a glamorous home is really quite easy.  Think of a fabulous vintage couture dress and take it from there; sumptuous fabrics, velvet, silk, brocade, sequins, mirrored beads.  You get the feel?  Think old school Hollywood glamour.  Lights dimmed down, plump cushions trimmed with Marabou feathers.  Not for the fainthearted or for every room in the home but perhaps a bathroom, dressing room, or if your partner didn't object, your bedroom.  Tented ceilings and mirrored finishes all add to the look.  I love a tented ceiling and I've had quite a few in my time!  The first one I did was a very small dining room I had in 1980!!  I've chosen some images here of a pared down look of what I'm talking about this week.  See what you think.  I particularly love the up-stand of the stairs being mirrored - great trick to liven up a staircase.

Stair runners

Recently carpets have made a resurgence in popularity.  I think people are getting fed up with timber floors (laminate or otherwise!)  Warmth and texture are what people are after and something with a bit of interest.  I'm totally loving stair runners at the moment. I really like the look of a plain carpet in the hallway and then a runner on the stairs in a pattern using the same tone or colour-way.  Say a taupe or gold plain carpet in the hallway and a leopard print carpet runner on the stairs!  That is so up my street!!  I may actually do this in my own hall as I need to renew carpet before my daughter's wedding next year and this would be a fab idea.  Just need to get on and do it.  I also love the dotty and geometric runners, they look great with stair rods too (something else that's popular again).  See what you think.

Gothic influences

This week I've been looking at Gothic influences used in interior decoration; namely skulls.  They are so popular at the moment and not in a 'Halloween' way, super trendy and actually very glamorous.  Everyone is using them in their designs; from Jan Constantine, with her embroidered skull cushions, to Barbara Hulanicki and Meg Matthews with their new wallpaper ranges.  I've found some great uses of skulls in product design - cross head taps using skulls, skull egg cups and some fab skull printed fabrics used on chairs. in our shop (ANGEL & BB) we have some amazing skull prints done on hand blocked wallpaper and then embellished with crystals and gem stones.  They are selling really fast, but I've managed to snaffle 3 for my bathroom and they look great.  I've also ordered skull candles, which will be coming in to the store in a month or so (see second image down).

Black kitchens

There is nothing more utterly glamorous than a black kitchen.  You probably think you need to be very brave to do this, maybe you do, but it looks totally amazing.  In the 80's I had a black kitchen with marble floors and white tile work tops with red grout (well it was the 80's!!).  I so loved that kitchen and it was really small but looked great.  Contrary to popular belief, black doesn't make a room seem small, it actually enlarges a room because you can't see where walls end and they seem to go for infinity.  If I was having a black kitchen again I would have antique mirrored splash backs and vintage chandeliers!  My favourite image here is Kelly Wearstler's actual kitchen.  Kelly is a very famous American Interior Designer, and one which I greatly admire.

The kitchen below is Kelly's kitchen - this is my favourite!

Fabulous china

I just adore crockery and china, I have far too much of it and I just can't stop collecting it.  Old or new, anything will do as long as it fits in with the vintage, girly, afternoon tea vibe I'm so loving.  I'm lucky enough to have a Limoges dinner set which is more than 100 years old.  Some of it is pretty faded, but that only adds to the charm.  China looks great all mixed and matched en masse on shelves, mantlepieces or anywhere you can create a 'display'.  It's also good to colour block using different patterns but the same colour for a stronger look.  You don't even need to actually use the china, it's just so nice to look at.  We have some lovely china in the shop at the moment from Miss Etoile, very quirky and French themed in beautifully soft sugar almond colours.  You can see them in the photo section of our Facebook page - ANGEL & BB.