House Notes #9
Where to buy affordable art, why you need a pair of silver shoes, room of the month – and a really good book.
HOUSEKEEPING: My month this month
As you read this I will be in Mexico City for a week. Our younger son is doing a five-month internship at a sculptor’s studio and we have taken the opportunity to fly out and see him. Expect a Design Postcard on my return. Writing this a week before we go I’m less excited about the sights and more worried that I will be bent like a pretzel after 12 hours in Economy Class. Wondering how to fit a lifetime’s yoga into a week…
And on that note - upcoming content not yoga - there will be no design postcard next Monday but, set your alarms as, following our super popular live chat on all things vintage Lisa Dawson and I will be hosting another chat this time on all things Art - sourcing, buying, hanging, finding your style. It will take place at 2pm (UK time) on Friday 4 April and we will send the video out to everyone (free and paid) afterwards.
Now then, new earlier this month I went to Mallorca to meet my client whose hotel I am helping with. It’s been a long project. She bought the building – a former stationery shop – in 2017 but the pace of Spanish bureaucracy, a global pandemic and the sheer scale of the project have slowed things down. I last went to visit in September 2021 and when I returned to the site a couple of weeks ago it was so exciting to see kitchens and bathrooms coming together at last.
There will be a shop on the ground floor using all the original stationery display cabinetry, with tables and banquette seating for coffee and wine tasting, while in the basement there are plans for a cookery school and bar. Upstairs there will be six apartments on the first and second floors and a three-bedroom penthouse suite on the top with access to a roof terrace.
Now the major building work is only now in the final stages, so the fit-out is just beginning but the colour scheme has been chosen to reflect the local environment in the historic centre of old Palma, with a mix of soft yellow, plaster pink and berry red.
We have created headboards from tiles and co-ordinated the kitchen cupboards. There are arched dividing panels and luxurious burgundy veined marble in the bathrooms.
The headboards will have lots of cushions with reading lights built in. They go the full width of the wall and the bedside tables will sit in front of them.
The purpose of this last visit was to sort out all the fabric for the curtains, cushions and banquettes as well as desk chairs, dressing table chairs and lampshades.
The kitchens, of which two are yellow, will have cream marble worktops and foxed mirror as splashbacks, with shelves running across to give a cool, bar feel, as they are mostly open-plan with the living spaces. Talking of mirror splashbacks in kitchens, paid subs (below) can have a glimpse of Pearl Lowe’s new kitchen with its diamond mirror tiles. The rule of journalism is that two is a coincidence and three’s a trend. That makes two (does it count if my own design is one of them?) so here’s looking for the third one and a post will surely follow.
As you can see it’s still a work in progress, but it will be fully open in October and you will be able to book a room – so if you’ve never been to Mallorca and fancy a trip to Spain, then that’s your moment.
And talking of travel there are still a few places left on my design retreats in Turin. I’ve written about the itinerary before but if you’re new around here and you fancy coming along send me a message or an email. Don’t hang about though as they are filling up even though it’s a way away.
DESIGN DISCOVERY
Earlier this month I interviewed former Vogue fashion director Lucinda Chambers on the link between fashion and interiors and asked about her tips for creating great interiors. The interview was for paid subscribers but you can upgrade to read it here. That will also give you access to my upcoming interview with the hottest designer in town, Beata Heuman, as well as more than 200 archive posts – more than you can read in a month so you might want to consider a rolling subscription!
This month’s design discovery is the launch of The Art Shop by Lucinda on her e-commerce site Collagerie. Fed up with being sold “affordable art” costing several thousand pounds, she has put together a collection of prints by 15 artists who, until now, have only created one-off originals.
The resulting collection can be bought with or without a frame depending on your budget. However, it’s worth noting that the frames are super quality and come with glass. So often I have bought pictures online and the perspex, while easier to post, makes the pictures look cheaper and catches the light in ways that doesn’t elevate what you have bought.
The Art Shop, which ships anywhere by the way, allows you to choose your size from A4 to A1 and the frame to go with it. While Collagerie will always suggest a frame you are, of course, free to choose one you like more.
I’ve seen several of the frames and the pictures in Lucinda’s house and can tell you it’s very good. One of the artists works for Levi’s, another is a designer at the fabric studio Pierre Frey while others are people Lucinda has come across in her wide travels. The first 15 artists are all women. There will soon be 20 more, including some men.
This post is always a mix of free and paid content, so to learn my trade secrets, see the room of the month and find out what I have been buying, watching, wearing and reading you can upgrade at the link.