With increasing numbers of people moving to busy cities and towns, peace and quiet can seem a rare commodity. Some people are happy living close to the action, but for others, a quiet home is a priority. If you are house hunting, it can be difficult to know (beyond the obvious) of what to consider. […]
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A sci-fi novelist and a psychiatrist have brought a cheerfully eclectic mix of styles to their period apartment
When we moved in here, we dreamed of making a home with plain white walls and a Zen-like atmosphere. But I guess that was never really going to be our style,” says Chloé Valentin. She and her husband, Thomas Valentin, live in an apartment in a late-19th century building in Lyon, France, with their children Isaac, five, and Sidonie, three. The idea of a serene blank space, interrupted by little more than a few fine linen curtains wafting in the breeze, has long since been shelved. But nobody minds, because in its place is a family home full of warmth, character and creative ideas.
The couple found this place just after Isaac was born and, at first, the neighbourhood was much more of a draw than the flat itself. “It’s in the Croix Rousse area of Lyon, which feels more like a village than a part of the city, set on a hill above all the noise and bustle,” says Chloé. “The streets are small and quiet and there are lots of parks, so it’s popular with families. In summer, the neighbours in this building come together and have picnics in the small shared garden.”
Continue reading...A sci-fi novelist and a psychiatrist have brought a cheerfully eclectic mix of styles to their period apartment
When we moved in here, we dreamed of making a home with plain white walls and a Zen-like atmosphere. But I guess that was never really going to be our style,” says Chloé Valentin. She and her husband, Thomas Valentin, live in an apartment in a late-19th century building in Lyon, France, with their children Isaac, five, and Sidonie, three. The idea of a serene blank space, interrupted by little more than a few fine linen curtains wafting in the breeze, has long since been shelved. But nobody minds, because in its place is a family home full of warmth, character and creative ideas.
The couple found this place just after Isaac was born and, at first, the neighbourhood was much more of a draw than the flat itself. “It’s in the Croix Rousse area of Lyon, which feels more like a village than a part of the city, set on a hill above all the noise and bustle,” says Chloé. “The streets are small and quiet and there are lots of parks, so it’s popular with families. In summer, the neighbours in this building come together and have picnics in the small shared garden.”
Continue reading...How a revolutionary idea became our go-to way of living.
Shop the look: our pick from the high street
Spending a night at the hallowed Bauhaus school in Dessau, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, was my teenage dream come true. The walls of my childhood bedroom were plastered not with posters of pop stars, but with the furniture manufacturer Vitra’s wall chart of iconic 20th-century chairs. As a design geek, growing up in a house bedecked with Laura Ashley, I found the idea of the Bauhaus thrilling: each chair was a mini manifesto, embodying the world of stripped-back modern design that I might one day inhabit (I’m still waiting).
Yet, almost 20 years later, when I got to stay in Josef Albers’ former bedroom in the Bauhaus dormitory block, surrounded by chairs and lamps designed by the school’s various luminaries, it felt disappointingly like a sleepover in an Ikea showroom. There was a stack of four coloured nesting tables in one corner, of the kind readily available from Habitat for £95, but these were in fact Albers’ original version, designed in 1924, now reissued by the German manufacturer Klein & More – yours for £1,614 (from connox.co.uk). In another corner stood a simple bent tubular steel chair by Mart Stam, of the unremarkable sort you find in restaurants and meeting rooms around the world. There was a steel coat stand, too, which I thought betrayed the hand of Marcel Breuer – but which turned out to be from Ikea.
Continue reading...As the influential design school celebrates its first century, here’s our pick from the high street
Read more: Bauhaus – 100 years old but still ubiquitous in our homes
Continue reading...Wherever the hardy brassica is sown, the delightful springtime butterfly will follow
There are many reasons to grow honesty, Lunaria annua: for the transparent, silvered, papery discs of the seedpod that persist all winter; because it merrily self-seeds, so once established you need do little else than remove the odd seedling in the wrong place; or for the froth of flowers in purple, lilac or white that dance effortlessly between tulips and daffodils.
But for all its elegance, the real reason to grow lunaria is to entice its guests to your garden. Where there is honesty, there is always a fluttering of orange-tip butterflies. These are some of the first spring-emerging butterflies in our gardens and they are such a delight – a welcome sign that the new season has arrived.
Continue reading...Plus, give pots some TLC and visit Great Comp garden
Plant this The flowering currant’s sprays of dark pink flowers (Ribes sanguineum) may be enlivening gardens across the land, but is it fashionable? No. Some people object to its musty smell – earning it the unhappy moniker “cat-pee plant” – but, for me, it’s the scent of sunny spring days. Embrace the nostalgia and plant one in full or partial shade. Try cultivars ‘Elkington’s White’ or ‘Pulborough Scarlet’.
Visit this Great Comp garden in Kent reopened to visitors last Monday25 March. The dozens of magnolia varieties are the springtime draw to this garden set around a 17th-century manor house; greatcompgarden.co.uk.
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