Edwardian bedrooms recreated in contemporary interior design colours

The interior design in bedrooms during the Edwardian era often had floral stripe wall papers in green, blue and pink. In Australia the range of wallpapers for interior design were available from Coles & Son. The Rose du Barri a floral stripe patterns in shades of green, blue and pink were popular. Also popular were the Cole’s Moirés. Radford Furnishings are the sole distributors of Coles and Son wallpapers to the design trade in Australia.

A fascinating site on the history of wallpaper is the Wallpaper History Society website   http://wallpaperhistorysociety.org.uk. There is a great video called Wallpaper That Moves http://vimeo.com/12600359
 
Interior decorators during the Edwardian era painted walls in the bedroom pink beige or apricot or milkshake or arctic blue. Magnolia was often used on the mouldings as was green with the cornice and ceiling painted white. The joinery in the bedrooms could also be painted a light bronze green or grey green or pale cream or grey green. Sometimes these surfaces were French polished or varnished. The chart below shows some British Standard colours used during this era.

The interior design project The Edwardian house I am working on was built in the 1920s. So some of the colours used during the 1920s could have been used. The 1920s interior colours tended to be stronger than those used during the Edwardian era. Shell pink, salmon pink, light cream and mushroom were popular for the body of the walls in the bedrooms. Ceilings and joinery were painted white. Sometimes joinery was just oiled or varnished in a redwood colour. The chart below shows some of the British Standard colours used in during 1920s.

You can see from the images of the bedrooms the house has decorative features from the 1920s. The architraves and skirting boards are still deep as in the previous eras but have plainer profiles .The fireplaces of the 1920s were as in this house simple in style with rectangular openings, small tiles and timber mantels and surrounds. The Edwardian fireplace tended to have arched opening and were more decorative. The doors used in this house are also in the later 1920 style with fewer panels and a high lock rails.

The paint colours I have selected for the bedrooms are modern versions of some of the traditional colours. The colours in the house at the moment are very dark and much duller than the photographs of the interiors indicate. I wonder if an interior decorator was called in and selected the colours. The colours really belong in a Victorian style home.

The skirting boards and joinery in the bedrooms will be painted Dulux Antique White USA. The ceilings are in very good condition and have informed my colour choices.  The walls in bedroom one will be painted in Dulux Garlic Suede a soft green picking up the lightest green in the fireplace tiles. Bedroom two will be painted in a pink beige colour called Tree Less. The blue cupboard doors will be repainted in the Tree Less colour. Bedroom three will be painted in Manila at half strength similar to Buttermilk BS 4052 and bedroom four will been painted in Great Star a soft green grey.

Although I have selected fabrics for the window treatments, curtains, pelmets and blinds the final selections will be made later as will the other furnishings. Well I hope you have gleaned some useful information on the colours used in bedrooms during the Edwardian and 1920s eras and this will help you with your interior decorating.
 
Interior Designers often find they have to work with the colours already present in a home. In this home the ceilings in most rooms are highly decorative and are painted in the soft muted colours of the era. The fireplace tiles, the timber floors and wall panels and the stained glass windows have all had to be considered. As always the client’s desires have also been taken into account.

The Edwardian Bathroom Recreated in Contemporary Style

The bathrooms of the Edwardian era were usually simple affairs. Walls were tiled with small white rectangular tiles laid in a brick like pattern. Sometimes feature, border capping or pencil tiles were used. Decorative borders in flat strips or of candy twist, egg and dart designs were popular. Patterned feature tiles varied from classic, Art Deco, Art Nouveau and floral motifs  Floor tiles were often white mosaic tiles, with feature tiles of black. You can see an example of this in the photograph of the house I am working on below. 

Tessellated tiles were another option for the floor.The colours and patterns used varied from check board black and white designs, to octagon shaped tiles and designs to patterns with names like Chelsea. Wealthy home owners also used marble on the floor and walls.

Vanities were often timber cabinets with white sinks or white wash basins on legs. Baths and sinks were usually white porcelain or enameled cast iron. White toilets with timber seats and cisterns were situation in a separate room.

Showers were attached to the bath with a semi circular surround. Or placed on a flat porcelain or marble basin and surrounded with a water proof curtain. A huge shower rose and semi circular pierced piping allowed the water to shower the body. Heated towel rails were popular features of the Edwardian bathroom. 

The wall above the tiling, the cornice, ceiling and joinery were usually painted white. Sometimes a dado placed about 2100mm from the floor was used and painted in the BS381 107 colour called strong blue or harbor blue.      

There are a number of sources of items from the Edwardian period for example the Edwardian Tile company if you visit http://edwardiantile.com.au you will find numerous tiles available.

The client of the Edwardian home I am working on wanted to honor the integrity of the house but wanted a contemporary look. He has already selected a modern free standing bath. I suggested using the lead light stained glassed windows (see image above) as a starting point and presented some ideas on sample boards.

The bathroom is very small so I suggested using white wall tiles. However instead of using the small rectangular tiles similar to the ones used during the Edwardian era using a much larger version would give a contemporary look. The addition of a horizontally placed line of feature wall tiles as illustrated on the sample boards was another suggestion. Using some 10mm aluminum trims powered coated in colours to match the stained glass colours is another and/or option.

I also suggested painting the very high ceiling darker. The walls above the tiles, the architraves, doors and other architectural features will be painted white to match the wall tiles. The aim of the white colour scheme is to make the rooms appear bigger. This bathroom is not open plan like many modern bathrooms. There is a separated toilet, sink room and the bathroom has a bath, shower and vanity (see floor plan and elevations above).   

Both sink cabinets will be custom made. The doors will be white and the bench top in a colour to match one of the suggested colours schemes presented on the sample boards. This will add another horizontal line of colour overcoming the verticality of the room.   

We (that is the architect and I) spent some time consulting with the client and I presented the client with a number of sample boards to help him visualise the different colour options for the room and help him make decisions. There is another bathroom and one of the suggested colour schemes will be used for that room.

Well that’s all for this week. The creative Edwardian buzz continues…..

Edwardian, Federation and/or Queen Anne instead of Art Deco

Image via Wikipedia

As I explained in my last blog I am working on an Edwardian restoration. On my first visit on site I realised my creative buzzing about Art Deco may need to be revised. Although built in the 1920s the house was Edwardian with features from other eras. On my second visit I noted numerous variations. 

The house above is Caerleon found in Belleve Hill Sydney. Many consider it one of the best examples of  the Queen Anne style built in Australia.  

The Edwardian style a term used by some really denotes a time in history in the early 1900s. The style was influenced by the Queen Anne style popular in England from about 1700 to 1720. It was an unpretentious era with warm colours, restrained ornament and a sense of spaciousness. Furniture was designed in simple curving shapes with little carving. The cabriole leg is a feature of the era. Indian prints and crewel prints were popular and the scallop shell was one of the main motifs.

A style of architecture popular in Australia during the early 1900s was the Federation Style. Last year I did a blog on the Australian Federation Style. So if you are interested please refer back to that blog for more information.

Some Edwardian Exterior Features

• Walls are usually of red faced brick

• Slate with terracotta edging or marselles terracotta tiles was used on the roof

• In country areas corrugated iron roofing was used and painted Tile Red

• The broken roofline has many gables

• Faced red brick chimney stacks with brick corbels and motifs and terracotta chimney pot with hat

• Shades of green or cream to buff were the most popular outdoor colour schemes

• Mid buff and beige was also a common colour combination during this era

• Deep Indian Red was used on window sills

• The front door often had many panels painted in red oxide or forrest green with asymmetrical sidelights

• Double Hung leadlight windows have colourful stained glass in Art Nouveau patterns

• The window sashes were often painted cream

• Gutters and down pipes were painted in darker colours

• Veranda floors were either cement render or encaustic tiles

• Veranda brackets were usually painted off white
•  

The examples of colours shown are from British Standards (BS) 2660 and BS318. Australian colours are taken from these standards when working on heritage or traditional buildings. This is a small sample only. Other colours used (besides those listed above) include Red Oxide BS318 446, Pale Cream BS4052, Opaline Green BS318 275 and Terracotta BS318 444.

Sample Board's New Site & Creative Buzzing

Sample Board Online ended the year of 2010 with the launch of a new improved brilliant website renamed Sample Board www.sampleboard.com Roz and the team have designed an awesome digital mood board editor for the creative industries.

The basic creator is free and the advanced creator is only $9.99 per month. The Sample Board www.sampleboard.com site has been extended to include the design disciplines of Graphic and Web, Fashion and Textiles, Wedding Planning and Landscaping as well as Interior Design. This is what the new site looks like. Awesome !

The Creative Buzzing blog replaces the old Sample Board Online blog. The aim is still the same to promote the brilliant Sample Board website and design. As we start the new year of 2011 I make a new start too. I lost control of 2010 in October. The reasons are numerous. We had a three week holiday, we again considered putting our house on the market and moving interstate and I had health issues to deal with. I am sorry to say I let Roz at Sample Board down.

But I am now back on tract and hope to redeem myself with Roz. I plan to try to stay within my limitations this year. I will now limit my blog posts to one a week and plan to write one article a month. I do love to write but I must limit my time on the computer. Maybe you are like I am; once I start to research and write I get lost and can be at the computer for hours then suffer later. 

Sometime this week I will write a blog about the Edwardian era. I am consulting with an architect on the renovation and extension of an Edwardian house. When he first offered me the job saying the house was built in the 1920 I assumed the house would have been built in the Art Deco style. When I visited the house I discovered it was built in the Edwardian style. So I have been on a voyage of rediscovery into the Edwardian era. I thought I would share my journey and findings with you.     

If you haven’t visited the new Sample Board website www.sampleboard.com I invite you to do so. It’s brilliant and great fun. Maybe it will help you start the year with a creative buzz. I hope you have a wonderful, blessed, creative and successful 2011.   

‘There are two kinds of failurers: 

those who thought and never did 

and those who did and never thought’

Lawrence. J Peter