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June 24th, 2008
vintage inspiration: patterned walls + fabric

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i’m rarely the type of girl who can pull a whole room together. when it comes to picking out furniture, wallpaper, fabrics- i can handle the individual choices but when it comes to putting them all together, i’m a mess. so i love looking at historic homes to see how people combined fabrics, bedding and wallpaper without looking like a total circus. my friend and domino colleague katy elliot sent over these photos she took of an historic home that was part of the strawberry banke tour she took in portsmouth, new hampshire. strawberry banke has a walking museum tour that allows visitors to tour restored homes from the mid-late 1700s. katy was surprised by all the wallpaper and i was surprised to see wallpaper mixed with such bold fabric. but i could definitely learn a thing or two about taking a chance with combining the two. click here to read katy’s full post and see more photos.

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8 comments
kimberley said:
June 24th, 2008 - 8:37 am

I am the exact same way! I love picking out all the cool things for a room/house but when it comes to arranging/putting them together I’m at a loss. Luckily my mom is the opposite :)
Love that mirror next to the bed in the first picture.
Thanks Grace!

Nathalie said:
June 24th, 2008 - 8:44 am

that’s a really good point Grace, i like you think i am okay at choosing individual pieces but i feel always insecure about how to mix and match different patterns together without it becoming too disjoint !

Ursula said:
June 24th, 2008 - 8:52 am

Wow! I took the Strawberry Banke tour last fall but don’t recall seeing such a colorful house. I must have missed that one. That blue wallpaper is beautiful.

Karen said:
June 24th, 2008 - 9:48 am

It looks like the key is to narrow down the choices. Less is more in this case! I fall into the trap of having too many different elements competeing! It’s like the Coco Chanel lesson of removing three accessories from your look before leaving the house!

katy said:
June 24th, 2008 - 10:20 am

Thanks for the link Grace!

I’ve been dreaming about that canopy bed in the top photo this morning. Thinking I might use some curtains I picked up at a John Robshaw sample sale to copy the look. You can buy them at anthro.

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-553691661232267620&id=880072&parentid=DECOR_WINDOW_WARMS&pushId=DECOR_WINDOW_WARMS&popId=DECOR_WINDOWS&sortProperties=&navCount=4&navAction=poppushpush&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=pin

Kristan said:
June 24th, 2008 - 11:16 am

You know, I could like the patterns, but I’m not loving all the other stuff in the room. Too stodgy and busy…

Mimi said:
June 24th, 2008 - 4:40 pm

I probably wouldn’t want to see quite that much of it, but I’m absolutely in love with the fabric pattern on the bed.

Abbey Goes Design Scouting said:
June 24th, 2008 - 8:34 pm

I love historic homes!

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