The bedroom is painted cyclamen pink, it's a really rich colour, which I adore. In fact every room in my house is a rich colour. So that if you stand in any one doorway on the landing you can see that the bedrooms are pink- mine, dark lime green-eldests, yellow- youngests, grey- bathroom and the landing walls are the colour of coffee with milk.
My house is full of collections of stuff, I started collecting when I first left home at 21. My first collection was antique perfume bottles, they live in an old glass sweet cabinet in the hall. I have a shelf of old sweetie tins; glass bottles, some of these were dug up from the garden of the house I used to live in; wooden toys, that mainly belonged to my father; paintings, most of which are painted by family members, silver cigarette cases, powder compacts, seashells, books and plants, and we won't even go on to talk about the shoes and jumpers!!!
Most of the things I own go back to the 1920/30/40s. I just love holding a powder compact or cigarette case in my hand, and thinking about who might have used it first. In fact one of my favourites is a cigarette case that inside is inscribed.... 'Ruth 1939' Did she know there was a war coming, did she survive, was she happy, all of those sort of questions go around when I hold onto these things.
So without further ado, welcome to my bedroom.
The paintings above my bed are painted by Kit when he was 14, a family friend, my sister when she was 16 and my niece when she was 12. My sister and niece both went on to get fine art degrees!
The photographs by my bed are my parents and my old dog. And just about visible on the other side are my bears.
The beautiful piece of antique sari material was brought back from India by Kit a few years ago when he went for a summer.
My dressing table has an art nouveau mirror, my collection of compacts and two very old fans on it, one of which is an old ostrich fan. And a silver cigarette box that was my fathers and inside it is a letter he wrote to my Mum when he found out she had cancer. And my Mum's silver brush and mirror that my Dad brought her for their 25th wedding anniversary
My window sill has some of my blue glass bottles, and some old scent bottles and either side are my cigarette cases. On the window itself is the beautiful hanging glass that Sorrow gave me last summer and above that hang four crystals that fill my room with rainbows in the morning sun.
Finally next to my chest of drawers hang some of my evening bags that go back to the 1920s.
Well I hope you have enjoyed seeing in my bedroom, I have enjoyed showing you. It's so easy to stop seeing the beauty around us. And although 'things' themselves don't matter I love to have these 'things' from others and my own past. They give me a sense of continuity with the world, a sense of belonging. And particularly with the things that have been in my family that belonged to my Great Grandmother and are therefore the best part of 140 years old.
