A Thank You, Some Messy Libraries and a Little Mid Winter Break

Today I received from divine Raina a surprise package of Verandah, Home Beautiful and Elle Decor.   All the way from Colorado.  THANK YOU LOVELY LADY.   If you haven't already, you must go visit her at If the Lampshade Fits.

I was going to  insert a rant here about exchange rates and the exorbitant price of US and UK magazines in Australia ($20 AUD for airfreight US Vogue) but it turns out that magazines are heavy, and shipping is costly, so I can only assume that in fact it is all a very  fair arrangement, for us, the newsagents and those shippers.   But I still die a little when I visit Borders because  I just cannot bring myself to pay the equivalent of a paperback book for a magazine.  

There are so many great things in these wonderful magazines, but the very very best is this, from the Studio City home of a couple who work in production and branding.  The whole house is divine but this room especially, I think is superb.  You cannot tell from the picture, but that butterfly chair is in leather......

I think the fact is that I love any room with wall to wall books.

I may have mentioned, this week even, my dislike of colour coded books.   So, let step away from the delicate libraries of Elle Decor, which I do love, like this:

and look at some real libraries.

First up, and I bet it is in many languages, that of Karl Lagerfeld.  When you think about it, you probably wouldn't expect anything less than this.  

This is Diane Von Furstenberg's in her Connecticut estate Cloudwalk:

And Nigella Lawson from 2004.  Nigella has written a lot of her extensive cookbook collection.   Clearly she was not exaggerating.  

I am off tomorrow for a mid winter break, by the sea, where I will have lots of windy walks, salty air, and plenty of sleep and laughter and reading before the open fire.   


xoxo 

((1)(2) Elle Decor (3) via Alkemie (4) via Habitually Chic (5) from House & Garden) 

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Stacks and stacks and shelves and shelves of painted books

I am really drawn to paintings of books.  Is it because of my library obsession? There is an undeniable cosiness to shelf upon shelf of books. Especially shelves that go sky high.

(When we put shelves last year in I had a crazy idea of raising the ceiling into the roof and having two levels, like a mezzanine, of shelves, a bit like something out of a Jules Verne book - you know those be-whiskered men who always have wonderful studies full of leather bound books, telescopes, globes, stuffed animals, a brandy balloon, a sextant, lots of framed maps etc. Like that. People looked at me like I was insane when I suggested it.)

I have the same feeling when I am in a bookshop, all those wonderful titles and covers, just waiting to be devoured. Or perhaps it is because really, aside from what is inside, like a magical package, the outside of a book is also often a thing of beauty.

Important note: all of the images in this post are paintings, not photographs, mostly oil or acrylic on canvas.



First up, Donald Bradford, an artist originally from California. Amongst other things, he paints piles of books and also open books.

(Stack of Books Spanish Still Life 1995)

(Open Book Francis Bacon 1995)


You can see more Donald Bradford here.

His foreshortened books make me think of this painting,  Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c.1480). When you realise that the Gothic flat no perspective style was still being practiced over many parts of Europe at this time the revolutionary nature of this image really hits you.  Of course pedants point out that a truly foreshortened image would have meant that the feet were enormous, large enough to block the rest of the body. This is in the Brera gallery in Milan. Worth seeing in real life, as they say.





These works are by Holly Farrell. She also does paintings of hats, couches, shoes, bowls etc, which sounds mundane but is not.   See her work here.

(Gardening Books 2009)

(Cookbooks 2009)

(Books 2009)

These photorealistic paintings are by Paul Beliveau, a Canadian.  Some of his works are found here.

A painter I have posted on before is Australian Victoria Reichelt.   This is a very recent work (White Pages) which is being exhibited in Fitzroy at the Diane Tanzer Gallery. 

Here are some works from last year:

(Purple Haze 2009)

(Green Room 2009)

These more traditional still life style works are by Christopher Stott. He also has a blog here.

These are by Jane Mount who also sells good value prints of her work on Etsy.

If you look closely you can pick out the books, including a biography of the wonderful Bruce Chatwin.

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Oh for a Black Bibliotheque

I wrote here recently about my white library, which I truly love. I could almost go so far as to say it has Massively Improved my Life.

When we did the library we talked about joinery colour a lot. Magazines and interior decorators will tell you that white is 'crisp' and 'modern' and that timber finishes can be 'dated'. We ultimately decided on white because it went with the rest of the back of the house which is very modern.

But what about Black?

Black is a big deal in Melbourne. Other Australian cities often joke about Melbournians and our black clothes. Whilst we may not wear black all our lives, we all go through phases where we wear it a lot, and it is of course largely suited to the weather (except for those 45 degree celsius days and then it is not so great). I clearly remember my phase of wearing black skirt, black boots, black T-shirt with the words 'Destroy Disorientate Disorder' printed on it. That phase went for about, oh, 5 or so years.

Indeed, a tailored black suit worn to work is par for the course in Melbourne. Noone bats an eyelid. However when a friend of mine moved from Melbourne to Sydney for work and wore her best black suit on the first day, to a tee, everyone she saw that day said (Cue: sad expression) 'Oh do you have a funeral to go to?'.

So, bearing that in mind, I do wonder why we never even considered black for our library. I have been looking at my shelves and wonder- what if they were black?

It looks fantastic I think, particularly when set against some crisp white:

Images (1) Point Click Home (2) ,(5), (6) Living Etc (3) Cote Maison (4) Marie Claire Maison

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Library at Home - also obsessed

We had a spare room in our house we used for years as a play room \ storage room. It had cork floorboards, yellow walls, open orange brick fire place and dark stained shelves from the 1960s which were literally falling off the walls. On the up side it had high ceilings, original Edwardian windows with stained glass at the top and presented a blank page for renovation.

We wanted to create a library. With more shelves than we needed so we would never run out of space. I also wanted a ladder.

But, and this was a big but for us - how expensive is joinery? It must be the most cost per metre (apart from gold plating!) of any home refurbishment activity. So for many years the room lay dormant and loved only by messy children (and we of course used it for work, not the nicest environment).

Below are some of the types of libraries which inspired us.

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Although we thought about dark wood in the end we went with white and with a very simple charcoal grey carpet and white joinery and walls theme, and had as many shelves installed as would possibly fit, which ultimately gave us three wall's worth. Even the joiner thought it was too much but when we filled it with books he changed his mind!

And once we bit the bullet and had the library done, this is what it looks like (not easy to photograph actually).

There are two more rows of shelves above the shelves in this photo, one below and cupboards beneath.

This ladder slides along stainless steel rails.

It is now my almost favourite room in the house. And, even after I threw out university books and embarrassing Patricia Cornwell paperbacks we are now only a year later running out of space.

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