The Blenheim Suite: The finer details....

Many of the great Georgian houses of Britain had a Chinese room. The Blenheim suite is going to be our Chinese room.

Chinoiserie, from 'chinois' the French for Chinese, was a style inspired by art and design from China, Japan and other Asian countries. In the 18th century porcelain, silk and lacquerware imported from China and Japan were extremely fashionable. This led many British designers and craftsmen to imitate Asian designs and to create their own fanciful versions of the East. The style was at its height from 1750 to 1765.

Above: The old Silk Road which stretched between Europe and the Far East. Chinese porcelain and silk flooded to the West after China eased its restrictions on foreign trade in 1684.

The Chinese Room in Claydon House has the most elaborate Chinoiserie interior surviving in Britain. It was designed in 1769 by Luke Lightfoot. Above each door is a pagoda motif supported by Chinese figures.

Oriental faces also appear among the flowers around the chimney-piece. The most remarkable part of the room is the tea alcove which is painted with a latticework design and covered in an abundance of Chinoiserie details.

Hand painted chinese wallpaper was also de rigeur...

Today there are many good quality machine manufactured chinoiserie wallpapers...

Here is the [limited] range of chinoiserie wallpapers, in duck egg blue, that we've found so far...

Above and Below: Colefax and Fowler Chinese Toile Pattern in aqua colour, with swatch of matching fabric. Lovely Chinese theme, but it has only 2 colours - beige and blue.

Below: Colefax and Fowler Rousillon pattern in aqua colour, with a complimenting fabric swatch. I like the metallic gold paint of the blue background.
In the full pattern the branches form a diamond shaped lattice.

Below: 3 Fabric options

Below: The Colefax and Fowler Marchwood pattern in aqua colour. I like the magnolias. They add some colour to the duck egg blue, but are not explicitly Chinese.

Ideally we would like a duck egg blue background with a more colourful foreground pattern, which was particularly Chinese in its motifs.

Which one of the above 3 papers do you like the most???

The Blenheim suite will also showcase much of our Chinese porcelain and furniture.
Here are some ideas of the style we are plumbing for from other houses:

Chinoiserie Laquerware...

Orientally inspired screens...

A mixture of 17-18th century gilded furniture

Oriental Mirrors

Sconces with Chinese porcelain

For more inspiration for the Chinoiserie lovers out there, check out this excellent blog... Chinoiserie Chic

Blue Pools, Bathrooms, Mosaics and more...

Inspired by a few days of sun, I thought I would write a post about pools and tiles, which turned into bloggorhoea about blue things. We are contemplating whether or not to have a pool at Willowbrook. We currently have an outside pool, but seldom use it due to it being unheated. Despite the lack of use, however, we still have to constantly maintain it. Therefore if we did have a pool, it would have to be a heated, indoor pool. There are some outdoor pools I love...

Above: The pool at Versace's house in Miami
Below: Rob Lowe's house and pool.

Above: A formal pool in a terraced setting
Below: Examples of of mosaic tiling...

Below: A shot of Versace's pool from above showing the tiling

Now for some stunning indoor pools...



Above: The pool at The Ritz

Above and Below: Stunning cobalt blues and mosaic work.

Check out Architect Design's post on this pool at San Simeon here.

The blue and gold colours remind me of lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli is a rock, made of various mineral constituents. The main component of lapis lazuli is lazurite (25% to 40%), a feldspar silicate mineral. Other constituents include calcite (white), sodalite (blue), and pyrite (metallic gold).

Lapis lazuli has been mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for over 6,000 years, and trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Pre-dynastic Egyptian sites. At excavations in the ancient centers of culture around the Mediterranean, archaeologists have found decorative chains and figures made of lapis lazuli among the grave furnishings. Countless signet rings, scarabs and figures were wrought from the blue stone which Alexander the Great brought to Europe.

For many years - until synthetic pigment was made - lapis lazuli was ground to a powder and combined with binding agents to make the brilliant aquamarine blue found in Old Masters paintings.

Unlike other pigments, it does not fade in light - in many museums, it is the one paint colour which still shines through.

The death mask of king Tutankhamun's (1341 BC – 1323 BC) was created from gold and precious stones, including lapis lazuli. The mask has symbolic significance; Tutankhamun's beard and headcloth were symbols of his royalty; the cobra on this forehead was protective, its role being to spit poison at enemies of the Pharoah; lapis lazuli was also believed to have powers of protection.

Lapis Lazuli became fashionable in the 18-19th centuries for use in interior decoration and the arts...

It also makes a stunning cabinet top, and could be suitable for a bathroom at Willowbrook:

Other bathroom ideas inspired by blue tiles and mosaics...