Now I’m trusting you not to judge me too harshly on my ‘taste’….and it was the 70′s after all. But there are a few threads that have carried on! I still love a rainbow, and fur, AND shag for that matter.

…and integrated spaces. While I may have grown out of monochromatic colour schemes….I still can’t shake the stripe addiction.

and no, I wont be cribbing this anytime soon…but I’d like to think (pretend) it was only the dry-scrubbed floorboards that drew my attention to this VERY Canadian interior.

Well, it was a start wasn’t it……

This particularly chatel house had Nicky slamming on the breaks, children flying across the seats, cars swerving…a silver box, bathed in sea salt, weathered and worn.

Oh so pretty in its simplicity, oh so pretty in its shab.

Shwitter would have adored this don’t you think?  A merzbau fit for a mermaid?

How delicious is this idea…a book bed, found on www.oddee.com.

Well for someone like me, who wears shirts with Proust badges on them…this is utterly regressive…

To get lost, to live in a book is one thing but to sleep and dream within its pages is almost unbearable.

WITH…a bitta Carmen Miranda thrown in of course!!!!!!!!!!

‘Oh gosh, so sorry, pardon us’ we begin our apologies for trespassing ‘ it REALLY just IS such a fabulous house we couldn’t resist a better look’!   And the kind faced, kind hearted Grandson of the builder/owner invites us in for a proper look around.  This is a real treat, for as he rightly laments, the sea really IS eating this house alive from the inside out.

‘The Risk’ (yes strangely aptly named), was built by the grandfather, an amateur architect, who typical of his day built with rebar (now rusting) enforced local concrete, most of which was carted from the beach and is full of salt.  The salt thus corrodes the internal structure creating an irreparable situation where the building is decaying from within.

Even in our wildest romantic heat stroke of a genius we can see there is no way this terrific house can be salvaged and its days are very numbered.

Little fern peeking out of the pink concrete…..a little touch of Elsie I think to myself with an internal grin.  She would have loved this house I think.

Anyway, no one is shedding any tears here…just great memories.

We’ll be back next year to say hello.

The good think about blogging a LOT is that you can take credit for everything that comes subsequently, that bears similarity!!

Remember our Nov 10th 2010 blog (that’s over a year ago right!?)

Well clearly Sarah Burton’s been reading it…and cribbed it for her latest window displays.  Ok let’s be honest and admit I’m just jealous that I didn’t come up with this broken porcelain idea for my latest dress but that’s another story.  My latest creation looks like a grotto and I wore it to the AD Top 100 Party!! pics to follow I promise.

Do you ever buy things for a client and find you can’t bear to part with them…??

Like this I found..its Barbara Cartland’s dressing table set, and its already been installed in a fabulous clients room – but I miss it!!

It’s amazing how we just cannot get enough Cecil…well actually I DID feel a bit over saturated but I wasn’t going to miss this exhibition.

And despite much of the material being familiar, this is a terrific collection and I felt newly infatuated with the man as I savored so much original material, and marveled at them three dimensional quality his photo’s have….the essence of which does not show up in books I can assure you.

….or gelatinous silver prints to be precise.

Albrecht has a terrific curatorial style which really evokes a tangible and romantic spirit of the moment.

And you all know this one.  To my mind seeing the original was worth the pilgrimage alone…I lent in so close the guard started towards me…and for a second I almost kissed her…well, almost.

Robert Stern may see it, we rightly so I’m sure, as “Manhattan’s monument to frenzied finance” but to me it is one of the few places I am closest to Dorothy ( no Draper silly…I’m entirely straight).

…and while the intertwined H’s greet us, there is not much time to ponder because…

…there is really only time for a quick ‘nose against the glass’ before the doorman makes a fuss.  And we walk on…’Goodnight Dorothy….wherever you are’.