Shopping for Chinoiserie...

The other day I went shopping in Dubbo for Chinoiserie for the Blenheim suite, and was surprised to come cross a fairly large stock of it at one shop, of varied shapes and quality...

I ended up buying only 4 little jars (which cost me $3 each) which I thought would make nice accents in the room:

When I get home at the start of next month I will be in full decorator mode. We have a professional photographer flying in to take photos for the website and promotional literature.

The main task I will have will be editing the rooms. Peter is currently cohorting all the themed items together for each room. I will then go through each room and arrange them, deciding what is going to stay and what is out. 

One of the things I have learnt from reading through many of my fellow bloggers' posts is that editing is the key in making sure a room looks tasteful. Anyone can find a conglomeration of themed items, be it cultural themes, colour themes, or temporal themes; but the real art to creating a tasteful vignette is to be incredibly selective in what goes into a room, and not just where it goes. 

One of the Hotel Inspector's biggest bugbears with interior design is people who offer boutique accommodation amongst the second hand detritus of their homes: idiosyncratic curios collecting dust, unedited surfaces decreasing both beauty and utility of spaces. 

Below is one such unedited vignette of the Blenheim suite. Peter and I have started to group the things we want to display in the room together, but as of yet there has been no editing...

For a start the temporary stained oak shelves are going in favour of a lighter brighter rococo gilt wood console with a Carrara marble top. The gold will help keep the room feeling light and bright and luxurious, whereas the dark timber starts to bring the room down.

We should have chosen to have the balloon chair water-gilded as well, but I don't think that the mahogany will have too much of a dampening effect with the large volume of teal silk comprising the bulk of the chair. 

We are pretty pleased with how the wallpaper turned out. It is a very strange colour to try to match, but we have chosen to try to match it to shades of blue always, and not shades of green, in an effort to bring out the most blue in the walls, carpet and fabric as possible. Then using gold accents, which will go with any colour, we will try to  create multiple vignettes, such as by using a range of sconces to display our oriental porcelain, Chinese Foo dogs, and cloisonne enamel vases on the walls...

I think a couple of sconces go a long way...

it may be a case where less is more...

We have a few very jolly Chinoiserie prints which we are having framed for the walls, and plan to create a seating arrangement at the foot of the bed with themed art books on oriental art and design, as well as books on the room's namesake, Blenheim palace. As you can see, there is enough room to carefully create a little sitting area at the foot of the bed...

Similar to the design of these other hotel rooms, which all seem to make use of the foot of the bed to create a separate area within a bedroom...

The black and gold lacquered Chinese cabinets have gold butterflies Japanned upon them. The little red and gold Chinese lamps on the bedside were the ones on either side of our bed at our last house. We have bought a pair of blue and white vase lamps to replace them, which are about twice the size, and will have a better scale within the space:

And of course we will have a few white phalaenopsis orchids. All our rooms have fresh flowers for guests whether they be cut china tea roses, or potted orchids...

A few of my favourite blogs which have many more examples of Chinoiserie design and offer items for sale are:

The Pink Pagoda

Chinoiserie Chic

The Enchanted Home