ACCESSORIES THROUGHOUT THE
HOME
Collections of items built
around a relevant personal theme can add great style to every room in a house.
Globetrotters are particularly lucky with objects plates and glasses in
different styles from different countries make spectacular shelf displays.
Cushions and wall hangings in ethnic fabrics can highlight a room scheme and
bring back memories.
Old leather luggage sporting
original labels makes a wonderful display in a redundant fireplace. Some rooms
such as the bathroom suggest obvious accessory themes: a nautical air with
groups of polished pebbles, tropical sea shells, dried urchins and starfish
arranged on a large dish and teamed with sailing prints and pictures.
A glass jar filled with
seashell guest soaps is another marine touch. In a bedroom with flowery fabrics
or wallpaper, follow the floral idea through with generous arrangements of
fresh, dried or silk 180 flowers, baskets and bowls of pot-poori and heaps of
cushions embroidered with flowers. In living rooms create an eastern flavor
with tabletop collections of jewel- colored Indian paper match boxes and
intricately carved ivory and jade oriental perfume bottles for light relief.
A
group of palms in ceramic Chinese cachepots also emphasizes the eastern
feeling. In a dining room or large family kitchen, fruit or vegetables may hold
the key - a table center piece of ceramic fruit in a ceramic bowl, cabbage
plates on the walls and reproductions of old Dutch paintings burgeoning with
glossy apples and half peeled lemons.
Kitchens also lend
themselves to 'theme' displays of antique cookware: old copper pans and jelly molds
can blend in quite happily with new stainless steel pans. Or hang up your own
kitchen utensils as a batter de cuisine together with bunches of fragrant herbs
THROUGHOUT THE HOME Studies,
libraries and hobby rooms are perfect places for displaying framed photographs,
botanical prints and cartoons. Display the paraphernalia that goes, say, with
being a musician: old music hall scores and battered brass percussion
instruments can take pride of place; metronomes have unusual shapes, often made
in fine woods, and they can provide a strikingly unusual display. Hallways are
particularly good places to display a 'theme' collection.
A set of old school boaters hung on a wall
together with school photographs and other educational memorabilia can reflect
your family's past. Accessorizing children's rooms calls for wit and
originality. A beautiful toy - a wooden rocking horse, for example - is a
delightful focal point and could spark off the inspiration for the rest of the
decor: rocking horse motifs could be appliqued on to cushions and echoed in a
frieze. Similarly, a beautiful doll's house with some embroidered sampler
cushions and a framed sampler picture is a pretty theme for a young girl's
bedroom. Accessories in bedrooms can be functional too. Blanket boxes, linen
chests or presses and baskets provide storage and look pretty.
The colors in the wallpaper
have been picked out in a picture frame and mount to great effect and provide a
handsome backdrop for dressing-table accessories and objects troves of wood and
tortoiseshell. RIGHT Plain white painted shelves provide a disciplined grid for
displaying all kinds oj collection in the dining room} ordinary everyday cookware
with its classic} clean lines is left out on show.
ACCESSORIES BOXES &
SCREENS Old cigar or crystallized fruit boxes - even strong card boxes - can be
softly padded and covered with fabric. Line them with felt or wallpaper, and
use them on dressing tables or desks. Hat boxes provide decorative storage
containers; blanket boxes, decorated with a paint finish or padded and covered
with fabric, perhaps with a buttoned top, can co-ordinate with other
furnishings and add to the storage capacity, provide extra seating or a resting
place for a tray. Screens are decorative, movable objects that can delineate
areas in a large multi-purpose room, or simply provide an elegant accessory. If
you do not have a frame, you can make a simple one from three rectangular
frames of softwood, covered with panels of hardboard, and hinged together so
they can be folded into a concertina.
