Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Original Shabby Chic








"I would have finished painting around the mantle,
but I just didn't feel like moving that vase."

"We knew Jerry didn't like the mezzotints,
but we didn't expect the target practice!"

The first photograph is by Derry Moore,
from The Englishman's Room, Alvilde Lees-Milne, 1986.
All other are by Barbara and René Stoeltie,
from Irish Georgian, Herbert Ypma, 1998.

9 comments:

  1. Mark too funny!! Love your comments!!

    Do come and enter my Giveaway from Fifi Flowers valued at $200!

    xoxo
    Karena
    Art by Karena

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  2. Oh my word. Mark, Mark!!
    Hahahahaha....!!
    Love this so much.
    Thanks for making laugh out loud!

    H.H.

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  3. Thanks, Karena and H.H. I live to tickle funny bones.

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  4. Dear Mark, If peeling paint is the origin of shabby chic then friends of mine must surely have been the inventors of the term. When many years ago they actually galvanised themselves to move house, the walls looked as if they had suffered a bad case of measles as every picture had been painted round and, when removed, left 'pock marks' everywhere!!!!

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  5. Dear Edith, I've been to just such a house, though the removed pictures revealed what the walls had looked like before the rooms were inhabited by someone who smoked like a chimney! The result was definitely not even shabby chic!

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  6. What an interesting topic for a post.

    On a few occasions I've seen rooms of this degree of decay, and wondered how anyone could live in them. Very Miss Havisham. I keep looking at the noble proportions and details of the rooms and think how lovely they would look when "restored." That said, I realize how busy we all are in the 21st century, and how difficult it is to keep up with household maintenance!

    Now I'm off to putty the cracks in the wall!

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  7. Too funny...love your comment on not wanting to move the vase - thinking the same when I first saw the image. Thrilled to find your blog - it's wonderful!!

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  8. I prefer to call it "faded decadence"....you know, twenty years after the money is gone! I love the second one.

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  9. Thank you Terry, mdc and Theresa! I like the second one, too, Theresa. I guess there was a shortage of ladders that year!

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