My secret shame: I love shabby chic and chintz.

[quote]Do you have any suggestions for interior design?

Why? It sounds like you know exactly what you like.

[quote] I watch old, British sitcoms

Which ones?

Love shabby chic

More

R2 All of them. Pretty much anything that comes on PBS and I've been hooked for years. "Keeping up Appearances", "Last of The Summer Wine" "Are You Being Served?", I have "To The Manor Born" and "Only Fools and Horses" boxsets and I used to love "The Vicar of Dibley" when it was on. If anyone were trying to gauge the viewing demographic, they'd assume I was a 70 year old woman.

This pretty much my ideal bedroom:

R4 Love that!

I hate flowers on everything that isn't a vase. Or a garden.

R5 Can't believe I forgot "As Time Goes By"!

Well if you live in the USA and not humid Britain or Florida, may you get your wish and develop a violent allergy to dust!

If you were in the throes of passion, you tumble into the bedroom and there's this chenille bedspread on the bed, what would you think?

Open up yourself a B&B and be happy.

King of Chintz Mario Buatta

I used to have a fuck buddy who was relatively masculine policeman. He had a four poster bed with billowing net curtains around it.

Also, my aunt has doilies on every single surface.

R11 read my mind. There are plenty of women of a certain age who flock to Laura Ashley outposts.

If you could provide costuming, you'd have tons sweating all over the chintz.

R9 I live in CT, which pretty much looks like this, most of the time:

R14 That advice was as useful as tits on a bull. Thank you.

R13 Thankfully, I haven't fallen to doilies yet but I'd like to meet that policeman. Was it netting or crochet? How would you describe it?

Speaking of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" , isn't it sad that my first thought during this scene was "Jeremy Irons is hot when he's playing hot and bothered" but it was quickly superseded by "I love that wallpaper!"

Maybe I should lean towards that; late 70's, early 80's Georgian revival. It's not too girly-femme. I like rust colors on creams, too.

I like shabby and rustic. I like chic. I don't like when they are mixed together, as it's a very very very VERY dated look. If you like your chintz and patterns and comfy stuff, just go all out and don't mix it with shabby. If you want to live with beat up old surfaces, have at it. I find the latter look very calming. Like sleeping in a barn or a cabin. No chic mixed in required.

Any time, Toots. Just be glad I didn't suggest marrying Kirstie. Outside of a spiral ham and cocaine, there's nothing she loves more than shabby chic.

R20 Love her, so maybe I could make it work. I suppose I could marry her as a cover for my love of shabby chic. No one will ever know the truth.

I swear my grandmother had that wallpaper seen at R18. It looks like the exact pattern.

OP, it is Bouquet.

The UK troll has done his daily thread. Now he can move his bowels.

[quote] If anyone were trying to gauge the viewing demographic, they'd assume I was a 70 year old woman.

When IRL, you are only a 62 year old woman.

R17 it was netting, not crochet. Like this sort of thing but with an old world wooden bed rather than metal:

OP, please tell us all about antimacassars. I've never understood what this is about. They just come off become detritus and litter.

OP, I recently met with a designer and told him of my dream of having at least one room which looked like an authentic British cottage in the Cotswolds. He declined the job.

You should have eased him in ala Aaron Schock "Downton Abbey, but not depressing".

R27, not OP but it's my understanding antimacassars came into being when men styled their hair with oil. Antimacassars protected upholstery from absorbing the oil. Initially they probably weren't decorative, but that changed over time.

[quote][R2] All of them. Pretty much anything that comes on PBS and I've been hooked for years. "Keeping up Appearances", "Last of The Summer Wine" "Are You Being Served?", I have "To The Manor Born" and "Only Fools and Horses" boxsets and I used to love "The Vicar of Dibley" when it was on. If anyone were trying to gauge the viewing demographic, they'd assume I was a 70 year old woman.

Then I recommend The Good Life, & Mother Makes 3 (I'm not a fan of Butterflies).

I don't know how you can tolerate Last Of The Summer Wine.

Get Bouquet Of Barbed Wire (not a sitcom but many a gay would find the humour within).

My mother ruined one of my chairs when she visited. She dyes her hair at home and the dye came off on the back of the chair. Gross. if ID known, I would have placed an antimassacar on the chair.

They are also used on the arms of chairs and couches for pigs who don't wash their hands. They soil the furniture with their greasy, dirty fingers.

I had dermatitis from a detergent allergy on my hands and arms up to my elbows a few years ago, R32. I discovered the ointment the dermatologist prescribed stained fabric, so I fashioned antimacassars for the arms of some of my furniture. My mother and I laughed about needing to buy doilies.

Your mother needs to rinse her hair after she colors it. She probably leaves that color everywhere, like her car headrest.

R24 I'm American. Accept it. I'm looking at my framed flag, at this very moment.

R25 Caught me! Every morning, I make my cup of Earl Gray pull out my Thomas Kinkade needlepoint, ring up Betty and talk about yesterday's gossip, then I swing onto DL to get my daily dose of men presenting holes.

R30 Marry me.

R33 God help me that I know this and I don't have a hair of gray on my head but she must be using one of those tints in the pink bottle, the Fanci-full stuff I see in the shampoo aisles.

Did SNL ever have a segment called "Chintz Chat"?

R35 I don't know. It should have. We should start a "Sewing with The Nancies" thread.

Nancy is scary. I prefer the tailer.

I like toile patterns, but not the ribbons and bows variety. I like more of an architectural pattern in deep moody colors. I love Chinoiserie patterns in bold colors, they work beautifully against weathered black lacquer painted furniture. I really don't care for any small patterned florals, they make me dizzy.

OP have at it and decorate your home, *the place where you're supposed to feel most comfortable* as chintzy as you like. Get the pva glue out and decoupage some old tin jugs, channel Miss Marple and put your very best table cloth out for tea even when you're alone. Watch back to back episodes of Mapp and Lucia and memorise all the put-downs. Do whatever it is that makes you enveloped in Gemütlichkeit. Life's too short to worry what other people think. Have fun.

We should move together. I would love to live in a grandma's house or mansion. Everything feels so much cozier and inviting compared to todays sterile design.

I love "Hetty Wainthropp investigates", too. R39 You are wonderful. Maybe we should start a chintz commune with R40 and actually feel like we're living in a home and not a processing facility.

Now you understand why gay retirement homes never make money. Anal leakage on the chintz is expensive.

You know, you can buy trendy updated toile these days. There's New York City toile, Mexican cowboy and cowgirl toiles, and my favorite, Harlem Toile.

[R38] It sounds like you live in my home. I love old things, but love to mix it with modern art and Chinoiserie. It's also important to me to have a different look that what is popular right now, like industrial, and bathrooms that are so sterile that it looks like you could do surgery in there. If I see one more blue and white beach house, I'm going to scream. I mix up everything, and it seems to work. My friends and visitors love my place. Just buy what you love and it will work. It's better than following the crowd. Do what you love. It's your home.

R41 OK but if we all live in a cosy commune I have to absolutely draw the line at toilet seat covers. For TV we'll add in Father Brown Investigates (the British one with Mark Williams), the original Upstairs, Downstairs and all the Hetty Wainthropp your heart desires. Ask r40 if he can make scones, mine are like hockey pucks.

Well, OP, my home is decorated in early Hansel and Gretel; so, I wouldn't worry too much.

You do need to learn the difference between Shabby Chic and Traditional Chintz however. Shabby Chic was specifically developed to bring the English look to hot, sunny areas such as Southern California. Also, Shabby Chic does not utilize actual chintz so much a American 1940s floral prints.

There's a book you should get called English Decoration by Ben Pentreath. It features a couple of his own interiors but the highlights are all the old English houses it features.

I covered this when it first hit market, but I believe I've found the perfect place for OP.

Get help, r5!

No. You get help, Bump Bitch r49.

He's been on a tear for the last half hour or so, R51. I suspect the Bump Bitch is also the racist antisemite who is whining that one of his sockpuppets can't post because he got FFed too much.

I love the layered English country house style. Ben Pentreath mentioned by R47 is one of my favorites too.

Florals...I LIVE FOR FLORALS.

Nancy Lancaster (who popularized the English Country House style) used to leave new curtains, rugs and upholstered pieces outdoors for a while to fade them.

It’s nouveau riche to have things that look brand new.

You too huh?

I fucking hate minimalist interiors, I want fussy and ornate with shitloads of floral patterns, gilt, tassels, doilies the fucking lot. R4 and R5 look like something I'd live in

You have to draw the line somewhere.

This is the most terrifying bed I've ever seen.

Enjoy, Sweetie!!

OP, here's your new favorite blog:

R56 at least you embrace it, sweetie.