Clutter

The contestant who failed to win the Great Interior Design Challenge this week was accused (justly!) of clutter. She was a warm and enthusiastic person who, at the end of every programme wiped tears of emotion and exhaustion from her eyes with her paint-spattered fingers. I have sympathy with clutter, but not the random assortment of stuff that these contestants introduced into people's rooms. I'm a great one for clutter, you need only look at My Life in One Hundred Objects blog to see that I'm swimming in the stuff. BUT, mine is personal, things that are about the life I've lived; a clay figurine brought back from Spain when I was a child or a jigsaw from a holiday in Venice. The objects cover a long timespan, from my earliest childhood up to the present day.

 

Any flat surface in the house is an opportunity for the placing of objects - luckily our windowsills are deep!

I'm all for rooms evolving gradually over time, but I don't suppose that makes for good television.

The so-called 'experts' in the programme were very dubious about using strong colour in dark rooms. I tend to think that if a room is dark then why not stick with it, exploit the fact and make it richly dark. We've done that in several of the homes that we've lived in and have always been pleased with the result. Our small dining room is a case in point, painted a strong green to recall the felted walls of a Victorian gentleman's study.

 

Much of the furniture here is Victorian, the spoon-back chairs

and my grandmother's walnut veneer table.

Flowers always display well against the dark backdrop.

And a bit more clutter is lined up along the piano top.

There's a motley collection that includes a paper knife from Kenya, a perfume flask from Singapore and a wax red apple candle from New York. (Don't tell me that I should toughen up and start chucking stuff away!)

All that lot fits into our little cottage, pictured below.
Crowded, yes, but for me it makes a home.

I wish that Steve's Urban Cottage blog was still running, it was an inspiring example of creating a home  that was totally in sympathy with the building whilst still displaying great creativity and individuality. All the work was being done with such attention to detail that it left me awestruck. None of that knock it together in three days rubbish!