Getting plastered

The third in the London Lisbonite series on wall coverings just had to be about plastering, not least because it's something I'm going to try myself soon in a last desperate attempt to smother the Artex Palace. More and more people are restoring old ceiling roses and coving rails to bring the character in old homes back to life. Portuguese designers and plasterers Crere Portugal are really capitalising on this. They create custom-made plaster wall sconces, ceiling roses and other decorative features (just look at the detail on that column!) in a really inspired modern take on a traditional feature.

Padded walls

What do you think of when I talk about padded walls? I'm willing to bet it's more an image of "Girl, interrupted" than understated elegance. However, after yesterday's musings about Artex and wood panelling, I decided to look at some of the others on offer. I have to be honest, I'm not sure that the padded walls aren't a little "Mrs Bucket" but they're certainly interesting. I'm presuming that they're made by affixing backboards to the walls and then covering and stuffing them. They may not be exactly to my taste but I suppose they'd result in less bruises in day-to-day life. Given that I'm probably the clumsiest woman in London, maybe I should start looking at this solution. But how on earth do you keep them clean?

Images from Diario Artes Graficos, Stop the 70s, Cococozy and Singapore Home & Decor.

Would that I had wooden walls...

There are a lot of things that come in and out of fashion in interior design, not least wall coverings. One of the easiest way to make a home look unusual is to expose a brick wall, or to cover it in tile or glass. Or, if you lived in England in the seventies, you could have gone for the most elegant and modern look you could think of: Artex. Not only was it a cheap way to cover up cracked or uneven walls and ceilings, you also got a nauseatingly swirly pattern that your eyes could wander for hours without running out of new patterns to follow. The boyfriend currently resides in the Artex Palace and if it weren't for the threat of the Asbestos (he insists there's only a little bit - whilst I tend to think that a little bit of Asbestos is like being a little bit pregnant) we'd pull the lot down with a sledgehammer but there you are. So new and original wall coverings are always of interest. I'm particularly fond of exposed brick and natural tiles but this Paris apartment designed by Damien Langlois-Meurinne has some wonderfully modern wood panelling I'd love to use. I adore the way in which he's made wood a theme throughout the house, from the wooden headboard over the double bed, to the panelling in the living room to the decked patio. The whole house looks and feels relaxed, clean and cozy.




Photos from Maxima.

Plant yourself on one of these chairs

It's too cold to be outside but I can't help thinking back to the summer with a wistful fondness. One of the things I regret not doing enough this year was having picnics. There's something so relaxing about stretching out on a blanket with a glass of wine and enjoying the smell of freshly cut grass. Assuming, of course, that the grass you're sitting on has recently been cut. However, I managed to find a few really unsual chairs that might help bring that summer feeling back into your house: chairs made using plants as an integral part of the design!




Photographs from InHabitat, Team Sugar, Double Takes and Design Launches.

I burn for you, woodburning stoves

It has happened. Every year I spend weeks gradually building up the layers of clothing that I'm wearing until one day I realise that I'm shuffling, armadillo-like, through the flat with my duvet wrapped around me. On this day I finally cave and turn on the heating. I blame this reluctance to turn on the heating not only on British Gas but also on my father, whose cry of "Oh for God's sake pooch, it's not that cold. Just put on another jumper" reverberated through the halls of my childhood home in Portugal. Portuguese houses are built of stone to keep the cold out, which makes them quite uncomfortable during the winter and my father would wander about swaddled in multiple layers and muttering curses about waste under his breath as he fiddled with one of our gas heaters in a resentful fashion because one of his daughters had stood over him insisting that being able to see your own breath inside the house wasn't normal. Luckily, given that most Portuguese winters were so warm that we'd have to leave the french windows open in the evenings when we had the fire going so that we could roast chestnuts and enjoy the atmosphere without overheating, it wasn't a situation that happened very often. I really regret that because of a particularly bad smog in the 50's that killed several thousand people, Londoners are quite severely limited in what they can burn in their fireplaces. However, smokeless fuel does make a woodburning stove possible and after spending a long weekend with one glowing cozily in the living room, I'm trying to come up with foolproof plans to make my landlord install one for me. Persuasive plots and schemes on a postcard to the usual address please.

Storytailors: Clothing for the beautiful and the damned..

Storytailors weave a tale of dark beauty with their amazing, one-off creations. Corny? Yes. But these Portuguese fashion designers create collections of edgy prettiness that is worth appreciating for the imaginary dress-up value alone. The little spiders that scuttle over their designs and past rusted clockwork cogs on the website fit the mood perfectly. Their dresses are fiercely sculpted and edgy (much like the names of their collections: "Cupid and Cliché" anyone?) yet curiously feminine and their website is a work of art that I could flick through for hours.

Try these on for size: fairytale industrial footwear by Valentim Quares

When most shoe designers sit down to sketch their newest creation, they're concentrating on balance, texture, heel height and, most importantly, where they're going to stick the tiny little bow that will differentiate their shoes from the millions of others churned out that year. Looking at Portuguese designer Valentim Quares' work, you are left with the impression that he's more concerned about how he's going to stop the wires from snapping when Tim Burton makes his wild-haired heroine run through a forest in them. Quite aside from the fact that his website has an eerily pretty clockwork-toy-covered-in-cobwebs look (which makes it a strong contender for one of the best Portuguese websites seen this year), his creations all demand to be studied as individual pieces. I got sidetracked by the amazing shoes. Have you ever seen anything so unusual? Shoes made from random rejected industrial widgets can be elegant. They shouldn't be sexy, but they are. These aren't shoes, they're foot-shaped weapons and I. Want. Them.

Cornwall: Quackling and otters and history, oh my!

I really do love London. The city is vibrant, with great restaurants and theatres, amazing parks, helpful policemen and wonderful expositions. Unfortunately, it also has an over-crowded transport system that doesn't work, air pollution, noise, unexpected expense everywhere you look and too many tourists. So every so often you have to get away, which is exactly what I did last weekend when my boyfriend took me away for five perfect days in a tiny listed cottage in the middle of the Cornwall wilderness. Hold the eye-rolling at the mushiness please, I have a point here. Until I can move to the countryside, I intend to go back on a regular basis, and this is why: ever since I started planning to move to the UK years ago, I dreamed about evenings in front of open fires, long walks across the cliffs to tiny country pubs where I could sit and read the papers in the sun, stumbling across random farmers markets and wildlife by the tonne. Thanks to the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Sanctuary (forget the Eden Project, this is the only place to visit in Cornwall), even the last one happened, with otters, deer, wallabies and the infamous Indian Running Ducks running (aptly) all over the place. Everybody was so friendly that I found myself peering at them suspiciously until I relaxed and enjoyed the banter, especially with the local producers at the market we found. Quackling (like pork crackling only made of ducks) is going to be huge: remember that you heard it here first. In short, if you want to take a look at truly relaxed Britain, log onto the National Trust website, rent a listed building and head for Cornwall. Don't even stop to grab your handbag, just go. You'll thank me for it when you arrive.

How to live with art in a truly grown-up house

One of my best friends is a bit of a mover (literally) and shaker in the art world. She works for one of the most famous galleries in the world and has a tendency to look pityingly (but not unkindly) at me when I betray my ignorance about art in general by going on about one of the up and coming artists based in East London that I've recently discovered. Clearly I am fooling nobody. Recently I've been thinking about art and how, to the uninitiated, there are two main types. There's the kind of art hung in museums that you go "oooh" at (or, in the case of Gustav Metzger, "what is the point of that?") and then there's the kind of art you display in your home and it can be hard to make the jump between the two. While most people will manage to find a print or two that they like, finding a sculpture or large piece they're confident enough to display in their home takes nerve. That's why the first photograph of this duplex decorated by Portuguese interior designer Cristina Jorge de Carvalho really jumped out at me. "Here is a woman", I thought as I mused on the sheer size of the statue, "that has no fear of large pieces and the way in which they dominate the landscape". Whilst I've never been a fan of pale minimalism, this apartment has the kind of modern, extremely grown-up look (note the individual pebbling on the door in the bathroom) that I find very attractive, despite my Art Deco obsession. I might not choose to live somewhere this modern but, (friends that live in London please pay attention) I'd very much like to visit. This is not an apartment for casual TV watching. This is an apartment for dinner parties, wine drinking and the reading of heavy books.

How exactly do you decorate the smallest room in the house?

I once read an article that made me laugh. It postulated that you could tell the social class of a homeowner (or, at least, the class that the aspired to) by the way in which they decorated the house and, in particular, the loo. Apparently, the location of your "Wall of fame" will give you aware every time. This is based upon the idea that if you display prestigious awards you have won, or photographs of yourself shaking hands with famous people in your sitting room then you are middle-class or below. For the upper-middle class and above, the only acceptable place for this kind of collection is the downstairs loo. Whilst I can see a certain grain of truth in the theory, surely even the downstairs loo shouldn't be subject to things like swimming awards (although if you can get a signed copy of the amusing little cartoon about you that was featured in the New Yorker, that should certainly have a place on the wall!). However, until I have said cartoons to hand, I much prefer this ingenious and tongue-in-cheek idea that I first saw on the lovely Bodie and Fou blog. They've essentially stripped the walls and pasted book pages onto them in a home-made wallpaper design that's then sealed with PVA glue. This would be a really simple and inexpensive way in which to paper a room, although it could be somewhat labour intensive. Other places that this might look unusual would be a library or even a kitchen if you used old cookery books bought at flea-markets. However, I stand by my original assertion that this could be a truly unusual interior design idea for a small bathroom.

Other images from Anthologie Mag and the fantastic, very inventive Design Dazzle.

On interior design porn

Recently I sat down and worked out just how much I spend on interior design magazines. The answer? Actually not that much. In general, I'd much rather read a design blog. They have a personal touch that you don't get with a magazine used to providing editorial coverage for large companies and you often pick up on unusual ideas that can prove to be fashion leaders. In addition to this they often focus on real homes rather than design space which, whilst pretty, are surely impossible places when it comes to sustaining normal (read: messy) human life. The only exception to the rule for me is the large number of Portuguese interior design magazines I pick up by the armload when I'm home for a break in Lisbon. When you live in a different country, sometimes that's the only way to keep up to date with changing trends. One of the things I've learned from reading design blogs is to pick and choose what you post and that they're an excellent way of finding unusual ideas you can use in your own home. So, given that I'm currently redecorating the boyfriend's flat for him (spare a thought for the poor patient chap), I thought I'd share a couple of photos from a Maxima shoot of a Lisbon flat. I'm particularly drawn to the different hanging lights over various parts of the kitchen (although I'm unsure about the Brabantia bin look-a-likes) and I absolutely love the way that the back of the kitchen shelves has been painted to pick up the colours in the vintage fixtures such as the old-fashioned blender. The owner of this Lisbon apartment has also made excellent use of a sloping ceiling to install some bookshelves. But my favourite part simply has to be the woodburning stove in the master bedroom. With winter drawing near I can think of nothing cosier than snuggling up in bed in front of the fire to read the papers on a Sunday morning. I'm off to scour ebay for a stove that I can rescue for just this purpose.