Even though my daughter is a thoroughly independent young adult with a job and apartment I still harbor the idea of having her around as much as possible. Towards that end I’ll attempt to lure her with food and a lovely room overlooking the swimming pool. And feeding this fantasy is a bit of Our Daughters, Ourselves-making the room as an IDEA of a daughter’s room, a daughter’s room say from between the wars in a comfortable English house. Something for us both (yeah, who am I kidding?!!!). Her room and my son’s room have been carved out of a larger space to fit in the new bathroom between them, the bathroom of the Ming green sink and toilet. The rooms are now identical in size with a hallway that opens left to her room, right to my son’s and center to the bathroom. A sweet little Jack and Jill situation.
I’m going to paper the walls with a new Nina Campbell paper called Swan Lake. I fell in love with it in this particular hue. Thrillingly, there is a companion fabric; how’s THAT for a fabulous nostalgic look. On both the paper and fabric the silver color (look closely at the trees) are actually metallic; on the fabric the silver has even a glittery look. I love how the pattern is reeking of nostalgia but has a sly modernity to it.
I’ll be using a turn of the century white painted faux Louis bed that I bought for $25.00 in the 70’s and a couple of assorted vintage tables I’ve picked for their splendid shapes and wonderful white painted finishes.
There are also two cool old chairs, one dating from my childhood, a real Little Miss Muffet slipper chair and the other another white faux Louis piece ( so beloved by Ogden Codman, Edith Wharton, and ME). To view the best of this charming species of furniture take a tour of the cottages in Newport, R.I. The bedrooms are filled with great examples. Somehow they speak to the fancy French side of things with a distinct cottage accent. Lastly there will by an item that’s always included in both my and my daughter’s decor, a dressing table. When she was a small child I loved the fact that she called her dressing table her “beauty desk”.
So where to use that matching fabric? Not sure I want to smother the room with matchy/ matchy. But the beauty desk could surely look fab with billowy curtains of Swan Lake. I also love the idea of valances on the three wide windows in her new room, so old-fashioned but yet could catch what Nina Campbell did so remarkably well with her Swan Lake pattern, tweaking the frumpy with a wink.