Anaglypta becomes her

After several weeks of working as a donkey, uncountable bad sleep nights and and a series of unfortunate events, I’m back !

Missed me ?

You suspect I’ve been doing nothing?

Nothing like earn a livelihood and go on overdraft twice ?

Or you think that I’ve been procrastinating in an island in the pacific? Being pampered by the Hemsworth clan ?

Just for the record this would be more like me in an island:

But I couldn’t be left alone in a deserted island neither. As I can’t be left alone anywhere for more than two days, I go batshit crazy.

That crazy , that I showcase nomadic traits inside my house. I’ve come to understand how cat ladies become cat ladies, as I’ve experience stage 1 of the process. Which starts with sheer loneliness and domestic chaos.

Daniel has been in Italy for the last three weeks excavating the church of Saint Ambrogio in Salerno ( which contains one of the earliest images of the madonna as the mother of god), so this clearly means that I’ve been all alone and short of a driver to take me to buy supplies.

So after all this melodrama, we’ve been working on the large spare room.

About a month ago we went to our diy Center of choice and I got some paint samples, I finally decided to order the lightest one of them as I only wanted ” to refresh ” the room.

” Beige blush ”

Who gives the names to paint swatches?

Surely beige can’t be anything like blushing, and certainly if that’s your level of blush you’re either Voldemort’s offspring or Meryl Streep in death becomes her.( don’t pay attention to my shabby *chic looks, but rather concentrate on the magnolianess of the wall )

Beige blush is also most probably the name of the kind of makeup powder I would have used in victorian times. Don’t judge me cos it’s just a posh version of my deadred magnolia, but this has an explanation. This colour will match the dark green I plan to paint the lower half of the wall to achieve forest realness.

Why the lower part of the wall ?

Cos….

Something unbelievable has happened.

The odds for this to happen were 1 to 727838.5

My hubbie has allowed me to install a dado rail,

and……..

Right beneath it……

Wait for it

ANAGLYPTA

A-NA-GLYPTA ( me in anaglypta frenzy )

Lets have a flashback to 6 months ago :

Daniel: oh precious beautiful master and god of the decorating Ben, please promise me that when we decorate the house you won’t use that wonderful and luscious anaglypta.

Ben: oh yes dearest husband Daniel I super-super promise you this, not even in my wildest dreams

Daniel: cos you know I hate it, even do it’s the most wonderful creation under the heavens.

Ben: I know, and truthful and happy couple life is about compromise, isn’t it ?

***Disclaimer: our actual conversation might not resemble the soppy and highly imaginative speech reflected on this paragraphs. Any likeness to reality is completely accidental.

The end.

We all knew full well what was going to happen.

I would have gone into retrofitting frenzy, find a the heritage design of my dreams, and I would have bought 4 rolls of it while Daniel was away as a form of style protest and self pampering to cover the dark holes of loneliness left in my soul by his selfish abandonment.

So I chose a design from the anaglypta heritage range called Howard.

My original plan was to leave everything white but we’ve realised that with all the blemishes of this house and the overall unevenness of every surface, nuclear white might highlight this even more.

So finally getting to the point, we are painting woodwork, dado rail and the paper in dark green.

It will probably end resembling an Irish pub.

But the look of a pub that you would die in a tuberculose fit isn’t just wonderful?

I had other project to tackle as well:

Nailing down floorboards in the smaller room so I don’t end falling through the ceiling onto the hallway of the house.

It doesn’t look like much yet, but I’ve got big plans for this room, like a built-in-canopy-Marie Antoinette- wonderfulness-extravaganza bed setting.

To put it simply, I want and alcove bed ! ( hopefully it will end looking similar to this )

So the window in this room will end encased on the background of the bed with matching drapes.

Unfortunately before the pretty and fabulous comes into place, I need to do the ugly jobs and ensure that everything is safe, even and secure. Curious note, my grandpa was a carpenter and I don’t think he would appreciate my sheer idiocy and way of using the jigsaw, as I’ll end cutting a limb sooner than later.

The wall coverings for this room need to match the opulent decadence of the framed bed so I had an idea a while ago.

As I’m a well known hoarder of pretty things I’ve been stashing away tons of remnants of vintage wallpapers for years ,specially from the 1920s,30s,40s and 50s. And I plan to do something rather fabulous with them.

After binge watching all the episodes of scape to the chateau over and over again, I’m gonna borrow Angel Adoreés idea of her wallpaper museum.

She very carefully cut all Her remnants of wallpaper that she found in the attic into diamonds, and created the most exquisite patterned paradise. So I plan to do exactly the same, this great idea shouldn’t go to waste!

This are just some of the wallpapers I own but as you can see I’ve already started the tedious task of cutting all of them into diamonds. Never fear cos I kept a large piece of each with enough repeat that I’ll be able to reproduce them in the future if I desire.

Alas, this is all the craziness that has been going on lately in our place, tons of little ( and not so little ) jobs happening altogether at the same time.

I will keep you posted with further developments so stay tuned!

Love,

Ben