La Maison London

One weekend when we lived in France we went to visit friends in the Massive Central, it was a delicious weekend, our friend was finishing a book on the cheeses of the region.  The home was one of those meandering old buildings built over different times. It was stone and the furniture from different periods, solid oak pieces. One of the pieces was the a bed, a bateau lit or sometimes known as a sleigh bed. It was a great piece of furniture all solid wood with carvings and curves that just embraced you. The one problem was it was made for the height of people in the eighteenth century. They were much shorter than I and I am not that tall. So it wasn't a good night sleep.

However, I am telling this story because La Maison London makes reproduction bed frames of the type and style that a king or queen slept in but made for our taller frames and more spacious living.

Imagine sleeping in a Rococo bed all carved with medallions in the center and cherubs overlooking. Imagine a Baroque bed all stately and majestic gilded and ornate. You would sleep like a king or queen. Imagine these beds that fit your frame and your space. That will make you sleep very well.

When I visited the showroom on Kings Road, there they were these beautiful bed frames and made and carved in the traditional manner, the gilding done with gold leaf, hand carved and painted and custom finished. Beautiful beds, they would be lovely contrasted in a contemporary setting dressed up with rough linen sheets to make the carving stand out like sculpture.

La Maison also supply antique furniture and architectural ornaments as well as beds for kings and queens and for us too.

Happy Valentines

For this evening, make it lovely, take your little ones to bed with you, read them stories, bring a glass of red wine to bed with your lover, put pink sheets on the bed and enjoy Valentines Day.

All images via Pinterest.

Sunday Mornings

Lots of pillows, and a bed and .........

The Unmade Bed

World of Interiors, June cover photo, Ricardo Labougie

When we were growing up, we were taught always to make your bed in the morning. My Mom would say if you were not able to get anything else done in the day, make your bed, it will always feel tidy and organized.

I have been aware over the last few years, the unmade bed is shown in magazines, across blogs and in advertising catalogues. Photographers and stylists have left beds unmade, messy and pillows rumpled. Each photo shows a bed evocative of a long Sunday morning with coffee and the New York Times or the tender moments of reading stories to your little ones and most pleasurable, shared intimacy with your lover.

In photos for portfolios, magazines and advertising, the bed used to be smooth as a board, with a neat stack of elegant pillows. I was thinking of where the ideas of messing up the bed came from and remembered Tracey Emin exhibited her bed at the Tate Gallery for the nomination of the Turner Prize in 1999.

Tracy's bed tells a different story, one of profound sadness with the mess around the bed of refuse of personal matters, it speaks of the inability to care for oneself or others after relationships fall apart.

I always thought Tracey should have written the story and let our imagination fill in the sordidness, but now the materiality of it is an interesting contrast to the sumptuous and dreamy beds that are used to awaken our feelings of intimacy.

  A beautiful bed painting by Maggie Sinner

I still make my bed everyday, I like to pull the covers back and get in between clean sheets each night.

The Bedside Table

This humble table next to our bed is an intimate piece of furniture. We wake up to it as we reach to turn off the alarm and go to sleep next to it as we reach over to turn out the light.

It holds our intimate items, the latest book of our current passions, always a lamp, some pictures of loved ones, a clock, maybe some flowers, a glass of water. Perhaps you will take off your earrings or your watch and place them there, maybe a night cream. It is a personal space but one not lacking for imagination or design.

As interior designer, I have thought of this space often as I have helped people choose the right table for their intimate needs. Like many design problems the same principles apply; the amount of space you have, the height of your bed and how much do you need to hold. Do they have to match? I would be the first to say no, but it is nice to have the right height just even with the bed and enough surface to hold a book and a lamp and whatever else.

A good use of a narrow space, holds the essentials, maybe a little high.

This is smart and minimal, easy to clean and take care of, but knowing me books would pile up on the floor.

A practical use of books.

A good flea market find.

Smart, tidy and good storage and a lovely lamp.

                                                   

   Mirrored, this is glamorous.....

        Very elegant, lots of surface space, storage, good light, maybe a little low.

Very Judd inspired...

           What is next to your bed?

Violet

I asked on Facebook this week what is your favorite color. I had a rainbow of replies. What is my favorite color? I am always stuck for an answer, ( I can hear my Dad say that about challenged people) so I often answer with a question, "what is your favorite song?" However, I can't say I have a favorite color, I love them all. But I love them when the are used with sensitivity and care to the relationship of the other colors around it.

Violet or purple which is the correct name for this color that is not blue and not red, Newton listed it violet when he published his notes On Colour, violet is the shortest wave on the visible spectrum.

That makes it relaxing and calm. I so often associate it with bedrooms, my sister had a purple bedroom when we were growing up in Florida, a good color there, to a project in the Upper East Side recently where the bedroom was covered in a light violet grass cloth with a white tufted headboard, it was very pretty.

So bedrooms, violet bedrooms, thinking of violet bedrooms in the past couple of days I saw many images of wonderful, dreamy beds:

Very soft a lavender violet for an elegant French bed.

I like the contrast of the elaborate carved bedhead and the simple violet squares on the pillows and duvet cover, it creates balance.

wow..... pleasant dreams.... Patterns in violets: