Mauve and Green

I have always been drawn to mauve and green. Show me a wall covered in the wide curved leaves of a fig tree laden with purple clots and I’ll be happy. I like my porridge studded with blueberries (not with Bruce Forsyth precision, piled is ok) and if you want to make me blueberry pancakes, that’s even better. Wisteria, lilac and purple irises are my favourite plants (even my favourite rose…is shades of dark and light mauve). I even got excited about a men’s mauve candy stripe linen shirt the other day, and I am never without my green wool winter coat (particularly fetching with my faded mauve cord skinny trousers!). 

 So when I saw Nina Campbell’s Barrington fabric from her new Montacute Collection (to be launched at Decorex at the end of September), in all its mauve and green lilac-ness, I fell in love, and am determined to cover the walls of my bedroom in it. Below is an image from The English Home September issue of the fabric used in Campbell's own guest room. I like the way she has used mahogony furniture and crisp, purple-edged linen and the way the room feels traditional but not at all chintzy or twee. In my own room I have a gorgeous double mahogany and cane bed which would look fab set against this wallpaper and then I'd have very plain, heavy, off white curtains, perhaps edged in mauve or green so that the effect is not to girly. I better start saving...

My bed, And So To Bed (poodle not included!), Paint in String, Farrow & Ball,  Ashburnham Quilt,  OKA

I also have been coveting for some while Cole and Son’s Madras Violet wallpaper which is a slightly edgier floral print.

Finally, true to form, I almost bullied my mum into using this gorgeous Sheila Yates Butterfly Ball fabric for the blinds in the renovated kitchen of our seaside house (sadly no longer ours, along with the fabric which I hope the new owners appreciated!) Taking the duck egg blue coloured AGA as our starting point we chose a colour scheme of said blue with mauve, cream and green which were brought out in the tiles behind the AGA and above the sink. The blinds were also lined in a fresh green candy stripe to look nice from outside and when rolled up.