The renovations to my home last year were a labour of love. I was more stressed, more happy, more in despair, had more meetings with the bank and Malcolm, my architect than I ever imagined. It was a quick one month project. Yah..no. . but in the process, I learned more about myself, my sense of style (and my idiosyncrasies) than I thought possible.
Earlier this year I decided to get curtains for my bedroom. I had been using white cotton hemstitch tablecloths until I decided on a direction. But the truth was I couldn’t. Decide that is. With wedding season upon me, it wasn’t a priority and the tablecloth remained.
Why was it that planning and designing someone else’s wedding was easy for me but deciding on how to design my own home sent me into a spiral of indecisiveness? I had hundreds of ideas but, like a wedding, had to ensure they were cohesive. In a flash of clarity, I realized this was exactly what many of my brides experienced with the different aspects of their wedding! Lesson learned – truly.
All the elements had to fit within the overall budget and I wanted a look that would be timeless, elegant, feminine and yet whimsical.
In the background, I hear the high piercing whir of a drill as the curtain rods are secured into place. A dark espresso wooden rod is being positioned between the heavy winter white ceiling beams and the bank of French doors. Two shorter rods frame either side of the bed. The effect I wanted was one reminiscent of 1920’s Paris: soft and romantic evoking a feeling of sensuality that was almost palpable.
And all is quiet. I walk into my bedroom and see the ivory gossamer liner which does not even pretend to hide the sun. It can be drawn separately from the main curtain, an ethereal silk ivory gauze. I can’t help myself, I push open the French doors and step out onto the Juliet balcony overlooking Hamilton Harbour. A gentle breeze plays with the curtains. The hem flirts with the floor creating enough of a kink to bend “just like a gentleman’s trouser leg as it falls on the front of his shoe”.
I sit on my bed, with my arms clasped around my knees and the veil of material dances with the cool autumn air. The patterns, designed by the sun, play mischievously on the floor – I am giddy with happiness and for a moment in time feel captured by the rare feeling of living ‘in the moment’.
