Category: Great Brownings
Great Brownings bathrooms
Three years after we finished renovation works on the rest of the house, we finally decided to sort out the master and ensuite bathrooms upstairs.
These were in a pretty dire state (see my previous posts on them here), having progressively deteriorated over the course of this period: there were tiles were held together with tape, regular leaks, a suspicious squelchy feeling underfoot (most likely water under the linoleum) and water kept mysteriously gushing out of the ensuite window – I still have no idea why this kept happening.
Tackling each of the bathrooms in turn, we decided to do both in roughly the same style and went for a look that I’ve seen in a lot of bathrooms in modernised mid century homes: square basin, 10×10 square tiles with contrast grouting, terrazzo-style flooring and a wall-hung toilet.
We did avoid one design cliche, however: black tapware and accessories. It’s not that I don’t like it (I do) or think it’s a passing fad – it was more the hassle of finding the more obscure items (waste and bottle taps etc) in the same finish as the taps and shower unit. As such, we ordered all of the fittings in standard chrome.
The other key differences between the two bathrooms are the bathtubs (my partner insisted on a larger L-shaped tub in the main bathroom even though this doesn’t leave a huge amount of room to actually climb in, given the fixed panel) and the basin/storage combination (under sink storage in the main bathroom and a large medicine cabinet with under-lighting over a wall-hung basin in the ensuite).
One thing that I really wanted was a Japanese-style washlet in each of the bathrooms. Having grown up with a continental-style bidet, I’d long dreamed of having the next generation version installed in our home. They used to be obscenely expensive (and still can be – a top of the range model from Toto, the Japanese brand most associated with washlets is about £10,000) but we managed to find a more basic model (with all of the functionality built into the seat rather than the pan) from a Victorian Plumbing for just under £500.
We asked the same builders who did the rest of our house renovation to do these two bathrooms and they did a good job for a reasonable price. It did take slightly longer than expected, however: around 3-4 weeks per bathroom due in part to the relatively small size of the wall tiles and general fussiness on my part.
- Orchard L-shaped shower bath with 6mm shower screen from Victoria Plum
- Orchard bath filler set from Victoria Plum
- ENHET / TVÄLLEN wash-basin cabinet from IKEA
- Grohe Essentials toilet roll holder from Victoria Plum
- Bianco Wall Hung Smart Toilet with bidet wash function and dryer from Victorian Plumbing
- Terrazzo floor tiles in Cori Grey from Victorian Plumbing
- Spellbound Matt White 10x10cm wall tiles from Walls and Floors
- Mode Spa round thermostatic shower set from VictoriaPlum.com
- SVENSKÄR wash-basin mixer tap from IKEA
- Orchard Square edge straight shower bath from Victoria Plum
- Aqualisa Midas mixer shower with bath spout from Victoria Plum
- Roca Senso Square wall-hung basin from Victorian Plumbing
- Bianco Wall Hung Smart Toilet with bidet wash function and dryer from Victorian Plumbing (as before)
- String pocket shelving in black and white from SCP
- Spellbound Matt White 10x10cm wall tiles from Walls and Floors (as before)
- Terrazzo floor tiles in Cori Grey from Victorian Plumbing (as before)
- Hudson Reed three-door mirror cabinet from Victorian Plumbing with under and over-strip lighting from Amazon
- Delabie toilet roll holder from QS Supplies
Modernist Pilgrimage returns
After not having posted anything in over a year (and not having been anywhere in over 18 months), the end of lockdown has meant that I’ve been able to get out and about to actually generate content for Modernist Pilgrimage.
In addition, the shabby bathrooms that we left out of our house renovation project for budgetary reasons have packed up after three years (the ensuite is currently being held together by tape) so I’ll be documenting the renovation of these as well over the coming months.
Thank you to anyone still reading Modernist Pilgrimage!
Great Brownings garden
Updated 1 July 2020
Having prioritised doing up the house when we moved in, we pretty much left the already pretty ramshackle garden that we inherited from the previous owner to run wild for over a year (as my previous blog entries on the garden from April and June last year – see below – demonstrate).
We were finally forced into taking action when a large tree at the end of the garden fell down during a storm, crushing the row of tall bushes that previously divided our garden and the communal green behind it. While this did mean we no longer had any privacy from any neighbours using the communal green, we quite liked how the garden now felt a quite bit longer and brighter.
Great Brownings, communal green behind house (March 2020 – after the tree fell)
We factored this new absence of dividing line between our garden and the communal green into our plan: in the back, we would replace the dirt patch with turf (which wasn’t possible previously, given lack of sunlight), levelled with the communal green so that when looking out from the house, there would be the illusion of a continuous grassy lawn as far as you could see (or at least to the back of the communal green).
Garden plan – before
We would lay a new back patio (concrete slabs with gravel poured in between them) and the sloping dirt path running down the side of the house would be fitted with stepped sleepers, paving stones, gravel and new planting. We would re-lay the wonky paving stones out front and install a large box planter, to be planted with herbs, behind the fence next to the old shed (which was just too full of crap to even contemplate getting rid of). Finally, the dirt patch in front garden would be completely filled up with new plants and shrubs to frame the cherry blossom tree in the centre.
Garden plan – after
In a bit of very fortunate timing, we hired a team of landscape gardeners to carry out this plan at the end of February which meant that they had just finished work as lockdown began at the end of March.
On the whole, we were really pleased with the end result and it’s been really nice to witness everything blooming and flowering (lawn aside, which always seems to look a bit brown in places) over the past three months spent at home.
Front and back gardens – work in progress
Front garden – finished result (June 2020)
Back garden – finished result (June 2020)
There are, of course, a couple of things we might have done differently with the benefit of hindsight. For instance, whilst the gravel/slab combo we used for the back patio would have been great in Palm Springs (the source of inspiration) where there is practically no wind and the only vegetation consists of cacti and palm trees, it has proved pretty unsuited to a windy English garden with the sorts of trees and plants that shed on a daily basis – I find myself constantly having to kick dislodged gravel back into place and picking debris out of the cracks like food from between teeth.
Back garden (June 2020)
Side passage (June 2020)
Back garden patio (June 2020)
We also probably wouldn’t have given total control over to the landscape gardeners when it came to the planting: due to a lack of knowledge and confidence on our part, we just handed them a sum of money to purchase whatever plants they thought would look good and would have the best chance of survival in our garden. It just so happened that the landscape gardener had a thing for rhododendrons (which admittedly have done pretty well thus far, even under the canopy of a huge tree of heaven out front) and so we have ended up with… quite of a lot of them.
Rhododendrons in front garden (June 2020)
Lawn leading to communal green behind in back garden (June 2020)
Back garden patio (June 2020)
The same goes for the herbs: due to the landscape gardener’s selection, we seem to have a lot of mint (which we don’t really use and also seems to grow like a weed) and not much of anything else. This, however, may be also be down to the family of foxes which seems to have installed itself in our garden, though it’s entirely possible that they have been here all along, camouflaged in the overgrown mess that our garden used to be.
Herb patch in front garden before the mint strangled everything (March 2020)
Knock-off Tolix table on back garden patio (June 2020)
Lawn in back garden (June 2020)
In terms of finishing touches, it would be nice to get some smaller pots and planters for the back patio to soften it up a bit. We also recently bought a Tolix-style metal circular table (aka a knock-off from Swivel UK) and some stools to accompany the loungers on the back patio just in case we have a socially distanced barbecue before the end of summer.
23 June 2019
Given that we have no appetite for a full-on landscaping project this year (we did call in a gardener to remove weeds and anything that was clearly dead/rotting but that was the extent of it), we decided instead to make a few additions to make the garden a little more inviting for when we have guests over this summer.
Back garden (June 2019)
Inspired by this photo of the rooftop garden in the Berkeley Hotel in London that I saw in a magazine, we decided to get a pair of budget-friendly Applaro loungers and the matching side table from Ikea and cover them with sunshine yellow pads and cushions from online store Maison du Monde. We also bought a simple Dancook barbecue and hung up some solar-powered lanterns and some Ikea outdoor lighting.
Inspiration from magazine article
Loungers and roses in back garden (June 2019)
This limited window dressing does not conceal the fact that the garden is still a bit of a ramshackle mess (I still want to re-landscape at some point, adding bit of grass and more planters/beds containing a variety of different plants and shrubs) but it’s going to have to do for now.
Back garden patio (June 2019)
22 April 2019
Given that both my partner and I have lived in flats for all of our adult lives, neither of us have any experience of looking after a garden.
Front garden (April 2019)
This meant that we were at a bit of a loss when it came to dealing with the quite mature front and back garden that came with our new house – we had no idea what to do with it or when so we just left it to its own devices (save for removing a rusty old washing line and getting the builders to straighten out the wonky wooden fence in the front garden) while we concentrated on doing up the house itself.
Back garden (April 2019)
Six months and two season changes later, it feels like we should do something about it. All the dead leaves and mulch that accumulated in autumn and winter have formed a crispy brown dirt bed everywhere, interrupted by spiky-looking weeds which have started springing up at an alarming rate in the last few weeks.
Back garden patio (April 2019)
Side passage (April 2019)
The trees, plants and shrubs that aren’t weeds (which it was quite nice to witness sprouting out of the ground in unexpected places at the start of spring, especially the little tree in the front garden which unexpectedly turned out to be a cherry blossom which flowers in mid-March) could also do with some attention before they get even more overgrown and out of control than they already are.
Front garden (April 2019)
Cherry blossom tree in front garden (April 2019)
We’ve called in a gardener to carry out this haircut in the next few weeks so I’ll update this entry if there is any discernible difference worth reporting on. In the longer term, it’d be nice to carry out some slightly more adventurous landscaping. The wonky paving stones leading up to and in front of the house could definitely do with being re-laid and while the ground is too uneven for a lawn in the back garden (and I don’t think I could face maintaining that every week), I like the idea of cultivating a few planters or beds like some of our more green-fingered neighbours.
Front garden (April 2019)
Great Brownings Living Room
Updated 1 September 2019
Although I experienced extreme buyer’s remorse as soon as I’d paid for it (compounded by the Vitra sample sale’s “no returns” policy), I’ve come to like and enjoy our new all-black Eames lounge chair.
When it first arrived, I was initially warped by feelings of guilt coupled with the sense that I’d been a bit ripped off. The all-black version of the chair that I’d hastily grabbed in the sample sale reminded me a bit of Chandler and Joey’s BarcaLoungers in Friends and I regretted not holding out for the more classic model with a palisander or rosewood shell that I’d initially wanted (see below). I have since come to my senses and can appreciate the chair for what it is: a compact and very comfortable design classic in a slightly different colour-way.
I’ve also filled that awkward space in front the wall between the door and the snug with a 1950s Robin Day-style bench that I bought from an Etsy seller. The bench is as uncomfortable as it looks to sit on and I couldn’t face paying £150 for one of the official Mourne cushions from TwentyTwentyOne so I employed one of my cheapskate hacks and covered some bog standard square cushions from John Lewis with a cheap grey tweed fabric that I found in eBay. Like my Artek-inspired stool seat pads in the kitchen, no one is going to be mistaking them for the real thing but I don’t think they look too bad.
The real thing: slatted bench by Robin Day with Mourne cushion from twentytwentyone
I also did another cheapskate hack to recreate the Eames small dot print cushion from Vitra (which also cost an obscene £150 each) by buying two Eames print t-shirts from Uniqlo (at £5.90 each) and using the fabric to cover some bog standard 40×40 cushion pads.
Eames small dot print cushions from Vitra (£150) vs Eames small dot print t-shirt from Uniqlo (£5.90)
Eames small dot print cushions: the finished hack
Ok, so the cushions feel like t-shirt material to the touch rather than the rougher canvas of the real thing but I think they look pretty good if you squint.
Updated 18 April 2019
We ended up buying that Tomado unit from Designs of Modernity (which is definitely worth a visit if you’re passing through Crystal Palace – it’s in the basement of Crystal Palace Antiques, a warehouse of tat just off the Crystal Palace Triangle).
According to the owner, this unit is the “super rare” teak version with the “super rare” fourth deeper shelf that was originally designed to hold one of those small B&W 60s TVs but is now probably better suited to art books. To be honest, I wasn’t that fussed about whether or not the unit was rare – I just thought it looked quite nice and was the perfect height and width for that corner of the living room. The price wasn’t bad for something supposedly rare either.
The next purchase I’d like to make for the living room is a new lounge chair – my partner has requested something comfortable that we can put by the window and pivot to face out into the garden when we want to.
The obvious choice would one of those classic Eames rosewood and leather lounge chairs with the matching ottoman (it’s a timeless style and is the perfect size) but I don’t think we can justify paying the quite frankly obscene £7,380 price tag for a new one.
I did look into sourcing a vintage/second hand model but these tend to be priced at between £3,000-6,000 depending on condition (this damn chair really holds its value) and this very informative post on Manhattan Nest about the susceptibility of decades-old Eames loungers to snap in half really put me off the idea. The remaining option is a knock-off and while I didn’t want to have to resort to this (my long-term ambition is replace all of the fake items in the house with genuine items over time), I’ve seen some fairly convincing ones priced between £500-1,000, a much more justifiable (though obviously still expensive) price point.
Updated 4 March 2019
Now that we’ve finished decorating and putting up/arranging our stuff in the living room, I think it’s looking good from certain angles but slightly lacking from others.
The wall unit, I must say, has never looked better than it does in this house (it was probably a bit too big and overwhelming for the smaller living room in my previous flat) and I’m similarly pleased with how the rest of the “formal lounge” looks, though we could probably do with another lounge chair – something vintage (a Hans Wegner if I can find one at a decent price somewhere?) would be nice.
Turning round the camera to face the other wall, however, reveals the fact that we don’t have quite enough stuff yet to fill the room.
It looks a bit empty and the furniture which is there (that three-legged Tablo table and those fake Artek stools, for example) are a little too contemporary and don’t quite work with everything else – I’ve been sniffing around a teak Tomado unit from Designs of Modernity for the wall next to the window to put there instead. It’d be nice to put up the rest of our pictures on the bare walls as well.
I’m not quite done with the tv area either. I’d like to replace the sofa, which looks alright but is a terribly designed, uncomfortable piece of furniture (don’t ever buy a sofa from West Elm) and I can’t help but think that the sideboard and walls could do with a bit more decorative tat on them.
I plan to update this blog entry once we’ve made a few (hopefully) final improvements to the room.
15 November 2018
The living rooms in the Great Brownings houses are comprised of a rectangle with a sliding patio door and floor-to-ceiling window on one wall and a square tacked onto the side, making a large L-shape.
Even though the square tacked onto the side increases the size of the room, it makes for a slightly awkward room to furnish and “zone”. We have seen some of our neighbours using the square as a study off the sitting room whilst others have tried to incorporate it into the main living area.
We have decided to use the square on the side as a tv area, with the tv positioned in a way that means you won’t be able to see it when you enter the room. The main living room will be a seating area (or “formal lounge” to use more poncey terminology). I fully expect that we will spend 90% slumped in front of the tv in the tv area and only 10% sitting and receiving guests in our “formal lounge”.
In terms of inspiration and other rooms to copy, I’ve always liked this living room in a Barbican flat that was on sale via The Modern House a while ago and sought to copy it when furnishing my current place (it does look a bit like a higher end version of my current living room).
I also look to that flat that I narrowly missed out on buying (and that I’m not at all bitter about) as inspiration as it had a nicely furnished and styled, neutral Scandi-style living room.
As ever, blog entry to be updated once we’ve made some progress beyond this:
“Formal lounge”
1. Black and white rug from Copenhagen recycled from my current flat
2. Fake George Nelson saucer bubble lamp for centre pendant light – I think the 60cm version is the right size for the room
3. Marimekko floor cushion from Marimekko factory store recycled from my current flat
4. Fake Arne Jacobsen floor lamp from my current flat
5. Vintage rosewood Poul Cadovius Royal system recycled from my current flat
6. Heals Eclipse tables – currently on loan from my sister
7. Tom Dixon Jack light – recently bought from the Heals equivalent of Ikea’s bargain corner. It’s comically massive but I’ve wanted one ever since I saw one in that photo from the Barbican flat (see above)
8. Heals Mistral sofa recycled from my current flat
9. Fake Eames organic chair recycled from my current flat
10. Vintage mid century magazine rack
11. Donna Wilson knitted pouffe recycled from my current flat
12. Merbau three-strip engineered flooring (as before)
TV area:
1. IKEA Mosslanda picture ledge behind sofa
2. Danish rosewood coffee table recycled from my current flat
3. Fake Panthella lamp recycled from my partner’s current flat
4. Habitat Vince walnut sideboard recycled from my partner’s current flat
5. West Elm Peggy two-seat sofa (aka the most complained about sofa of all time due to buttons popping out and sofa cushions sliding off the base) – having lived with this sofa for two years, it isn’t quite as bad as the complaints online would lead you to believe but the quality and durability hasn’t been great for the price.
6. Ferm living rug from the Skandium sale recycled from my partner’s current flat
7. Fake George Nelson saucer bubble lamp for centre pendant light – I think the 45 version is the right size for the tv area
8. Merbau three-strip engineered flooring (as before)
Great Brownings house tour
Now that we’ve finished doing up the bits of the house that we planned to do this year, I thought I would do a quick round-up of the individual Great Brownings room entries that I’ve been updating along the way – please click on the photos to be taken to the relevant entries:
Living room
Kitchen
Hallway
Bathrooms
Master bedroom
Second bedroom
Guest bedroom/study
Study
Garden
Great Brownings guest bedroom/study
Updated 4 August 2019
The final room in our house to receive a before/after update, the guest room/study has received a thoroughly neutral makeover.
I was under express instructions from my partner (who uses this room as his study) not to fill it with “tat” but I have semi-succeeded in sneaking in a few bits and pieces to add a bit of visual interest.
The white bed frame from Argos fits the space under the window perfectly but the quality is terrible and came in about 500 sharp-edged pieces that needed to be painstakingly assembled over the space of about 4 hours. We wouldn’t recommend buying it.
On the other hand, whilst it did take an unreasonable amount of time to arrive, the similarly budget-friendly desk from Made.com looks alright and seems to be of reasonable enough quality.
30 December 2018
The fourth bedroom was decorated so distinctively by the previous owner that the estate agent declined to include a photo of it in the listing (we referred to it until recently as “The Red Room”).
Now that we’ve stripped off several layers of wallpaper and removed the built-in furniture, it’s currently looking a bit less oppressive.
We decided that this one would make a good additional guest bedroom (it’s just wide enough to fit in a single bed under the window) and study.
1. Josiah pendant from SCP sample sale – one of those items that I bought ages ago which I’m determined to use somewhere/anywhere in the house
2. Lloyd cabin single bed frame from Argos – this fit the bill for a number of reasons (no bulkiness at either end, drawers underneath, inoffensive looking, cheap)
3. Yet more String shelving recycled from my current flat
4. Northern Sunday bedside light recycled from my current flat
5. Depot desk from Made – I chose this one because it was under £200 and looked a bit like that Pierre Guarriche desk that I saw in Brussels a couple of weeks ago
6. Fake Eames DSW chair recycled from my current flat
House in Great Brownings for rent
A very familiar looking house recently popped up on the rental section of the Modernist Estates website.
Though identical to our house in terms of layout and facade (grey slate and all), this house appears to have almost all of its original features intact, giving it a slightly more vintage feel than ours.
It’s not a total time capsule though – while the owners have preserved things like the original patio doors (much nicer than our uPVC screens), wooden interior doors, entry porch, bathroom suite and possibly the original kitchen cabinets(?), they’ve gotten rid of the less desirable original features like the dividing wall with serving hatch between kitchen and dining room and the hot (and dry) air heating system.
The owners have decorated in an authentically mid century style (I’ve always liked that retro shade of green they’ve chosen for the carpet in the living room) but have used just enough modern stuff to avoid the retro pastiche look. Unlike us, they appear to have kept on top of the garden, which is a lot neater and more luscious than ours.
The professionally taken photos make the photos that I’ve taken of our house look decidedly amateurish in comparison. I think it’s probably time for me to get a new camera.
The house is available to rent for £2,500 per month via Modernist Estates. Given that we live in a pretty similar house on the same estate, I can predict with confidence that whoever ends up renting this house will be very happy there.
Great Brownings garden
Updated 23 June 2019
Given that we have no appetite for a full-on landscaping project this year (we did call in a gardener to remove weeds and anything that was clearly dead/rotting but that was the extent of it), we decided instead to make a few additions to make the garden a little more inviting for when we have guests over this summer.
Inspired by this photo of the rooftop garden in the Berkeley Hotel in London that I saw in a magazine, we decided to get a pair of budget-friendly Applaro loungers and the matching side table from Ikea and cover them with sunshine yellow pads and cushions from online store Maison du Monde. We also bought a simple Dancook barbecue and hung up some solar-powered lanterns and some Ikea outdoor lighting.
This limited window dressing does not conceal the fact that the garden is still a bit of a ramshackle mess (I still want to re-landscape at some point, adding bit of grass and more planters/beds containing a variety of different plants and shrubs) but it’s going to have to do for now.
22 April 2019
Given that both my partner and I have lived in flats for all of our adult lives, neither of us have any experience of looking after a garden.
This meant that we were at a bit of a loss when it came to dealing with the quite mature front and back garden that came with our new house – we had no idea what to do with it or when so we just left it to its own devices (save for removing a rusty old washing line and getting the builders to straighten out the wonky wooden fence in the front garden) while we concentrated on doing up the house itself.
Six months and two season changes later, it feels like we should do something about it. All the dead leaves and mulch that accumulated in autumn and winter have formed a crispy brown dirt bed everywhere, interrupted by spiky-looking weeds which have started springing up at an alarming rate in the last few weeks.
The trees, plants and shrubs that aren’t weeds (which it was quite nice to witness sprouting out of the ground in unexpected places at the start of spring, especially the little tree in the front garden which unexpectedly turned out to be a cherry blossom which flowers in mid-March) could also do with some attention before they get even more overgrown and out of control than they already are.
We’ve called in a gardener to carry out this haircut in the next few weeks so I’ll update this entry if there is any discernible difference worth reporting on. In the longer term, it’d be nice to carry out some slightly more adventurous landscaping. The wonky paving stones leading up to and in front of the house could definitely do with being re-laid and while the ground is too uneven for a lawn in the back garden (and I don’t think I could face maintaining that every week), I like the idea of cultivating a few planters or beds like some of our more green-fingered neighbours.
Great Brownings – an apology
Apologies to any subscribers of this blog who received an email containing a very long and even more incoherent than usual post about Great Brownings – I accidentally published and circulated a draft post which I’d been using as a virtual dumping ground for all images and text that I was planning to use for individual posts.
For anyone who is actually interested, here is a link to all of the relevant posts about Great Brownings in a much more coherent format:
https://modernistpilgrimage.com/category/great-brownings/
Thanks for subscribing and apologies once again for the spam!
Picture courtesy of Great Brownings’ resident association website
Great Brownings Master Bedroom
Updated 2 June 2019
I’ve somehow resisted the temptation to fill the master bedroom with clutter, just adding this Flensted mobile (“Turning Leaves”) to the corner of the room as a finishing touch.
I also picked up this rather natty duvet set for £20 from the new Överallt range at Ikea, a series of items covered in a colourful abstract print of people and animals.
The en-suite bathroom remains a crusty pink mess.
Updated 18 February 2019
One of the more difficult rooms to redecorate (thanks to the wall-to-wall built-in wardrobes which needed a lot of attention inside and out) and furnish (due to the fact that there’s only one wall to put furniture against), I’m quite pleased with how the master bedroom has turned out – it’s basically a blend of the three bedrooms pictured below that I stole inspiration from.
The best thing about this room is its outlook onto Great Brownings though I think most of this view will be obscured when the trees start to sprout leaves again.
The door to the en-suite bathroom is closed in these photos because it remains a hot mess.
Although it looks alright, the room doesn’t feel quite finished yet. I’d like to hang more artwork – (potentially something above the Boby trolley on the left of the bed?) and source some kind of rug to go in front of the bed (a bit like this). Further update to come when I’ve filled the room with a bit more clutter.
12 November 2018
The master bedroom is at the front of the house with a wall of built-in wardrobes, dusty rose wallpaper and an equally pink en-suite bathroom, which will warrant its own blog entry when we turn our attention to it.
Rather than come up with any original design ideas of our own, we will be aping other rooms we’ve seen in other houses or online again.
The first bedroom that sprang to mind as something we could copy was from a flat in Grenville Court that I narrowly missed out on buying a couple of years ago: it had white walls, textured grey carpet and was simply furnished in a similar style to my existing flat. It was simple, calming and achievable with the resources we have available.
Another potential source of inspiration was the bedroom in one of those Norman Starrett houses featured in Mid Century Magazine. This bedroom was a bit more high-end, furnished entirely with mid century rosewood pieces with a fine, short tufted, almost velvet-like grey carpet. I managed to find a synthetic carpet with a similar look and feel (something called Smart Vienna) but I wasn’t sure how it would look with our non-antique, slightly more modern furniture.
The final bedroom I thought we should copy was from a recently restored flat on the Parkleys estate in Ham. A more playful take on mid-century modern, I liked the use of colour against the grey rubber floor. I also loved the bed so much that I immediately did an online trawl of furniture shops and happily found it on Habitat for about £300 in the sale.
Entry to be updated once master bedroom starts taking shape.
1. Stag mid century chest of drawers recycled from my current flat
2. Fake Tablo three-legged table recycled from my current flat
3. Slightly broken Habitat Flap clock recycled from my current flat
4. Yellow Boby Trolley recycled from my current flat
5. Lucia bedframe from Habitat
6. Textured Kersaint Cobb carpet in Morning Frost – we’re carpeting the whole of the upper floor in this as I couldn’t risk the velvety Smart Vienna looking weird
7. Marimekko bedding recycled from my current flat
8. Fake George Nelson bubble lamp recycled from my current flat
9. Poster Ladder by Marie-Aurore Stiker-Metral recycled from my current flat
Modernist Pilgrimage 