These images are from the beautiful Royal Victoria Hotel, where I stayed in Italy last month. It's beautiful -quiet, right by the river, and full of antiques. It's a huge building with high ceilings, marble floors, big windows with wooden shutters and leaves hanging outside, and gorgeous art on the walls. These photos hardly do it justice, but suffice it to say it's one of the most beautiful buildings I've been to, and certainly that I've stayed in.
There's been a building there since the 10th century, being developed into a hotel in 1837 - so it's fair to say there's a fair amount of history!
One of the best things about the hotel is that, aside from the bedroom, you also have free use of the hotel's many communal rooms; and, when we were there, hardly anyone else seemed to know about or use them! We particularly loved the drawing room, above in the photos, with a balcony looking out over the river - the perfect place to sit and read, or write at one of the desks or on the old typewriter - and the quaint little piano room at the back of the hotel.
Is there anything much more inspiring than writing in such beautiful surroundings? I don't think there really is - I certainly came back planning a novel set in a gorgeous old Pisan building...
H&M - one of my favourite clothing stores - have just launched their Autumn/Winter 2011 Home collection, and I've spent ages poring over it! It's so inspiring; full of bright colours, floral patterns (which of course, I love), bold fruit motifs, words woven into fabrics and lovely complex textures.
On their website, H&M have broken the collection down into a few distinct categories, each with their own unique styling: Sharp Simplicity, Sweet Sensation, Always at Home, Industrial Modern and Bohemian Chic. The photos you see here are a mix of the last two categories - the bottom three images are from Industrial Modern which is definitely on trend in terms of current popular style, while the top five are from Bohemian Chic, reflecting styles that seem to be more core to H&M brand's design identity.
I'm definitely mostly a Bohemian Chic kind of person, I have to say (hello inner hippy)... I adore everything from that part of the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection. It also seems to be the part which H&M themselves are leading with, appearing most prominently on the Home landing page.
Lovely collection - and very inspiring!Images from here, here and here.
Hello, how are you all? Apologies for the lack of update since Friday, but I've been quite unwell the past few days; I woke up on Monday morning with horrible stomach cramps, sickness, aching and dizziness. Just a stomach bug, I think, but it's really hit me hard, and I've only really been able to manage resting in bed or laying on the sofa sleepily.
I've been thinking about holidays lately, as I think I've mentioned here before; but being unwell has made me think about getting away even more. I stumbled across photos of this lovely little beach house in Seasalter, Kent, a while ago, and drafted a post with all the images saved - and, for a quick post, I thought it'd be perfect to share for a bit of interior and holiday inspiration.
I love the shade of blue inside the house, and, of course, the beautiful green of the countryside surrounding it. And the beach! I know it's always said that British beaches aren't a patch on beaches anywhere else, but I think they get a bit of a hard time of it - there are some lovely beaches over here (if you search hard enough for them...), very quiet and tranquil and with a British charm all of their own (!)
If you'd like to see more photos of the beach house, you can find them here.
A little bit of mid-week interior design inspiration in the form of Mapesbury, a residential house in London's NW2 postcode.
Lovely, isn't it? What I love about this house is the neutral whites - the white floorboards of the living room, white walls, white furniture, mixed with splashes of colours - the red curtains and lamp of one of the bedrooms and the pale orange walls of another of the rooms, brought out by an orange dress hanging up on the back of the door and shoes lined up. I love white and neutrals in a house, but think a bit of colour is always needed - and they seem to have got it just right at Mapesbury. I particualrly love the use of blue in this house; a lovely calming and cooling colour when used correctly in interior design, it's certainly the case with Mapesbury - I love the striking feature wall and the couch.
My favourite image is definitely the second one of the series - I adore the staircase, the mosaic tiled floor, the elegant couch on the landing (and lovely cushions!), the patterned windows and the chandelier adding a further touch of colour to the room. Which is your favourite?
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How is your week going? I'm in the middle of my first full week back at work after a series of 3 and 4 day weeks with bank holidays and a day off and trying to get back into the rhythm of normal working weeks!
Had a lovely few days, though - went out for dinner on Tuesday evening for my cousin's birthday to a restaurant called Samarqand, where I tried delicious Uzbek food for the first time (review to follow soon!), and then met another cousin this evening for another dinner, which was very lovely and filled with a lot of gossip and catching up.
