I am a day late with my blog this week!  This is largely because I have been busy rectifying a minor decorating disaster and have become absorbed in the process, determined to get it finished asap.  Style is an interesting thing.  I think my sense of style is reasonable but relatively safe and unadventurous. Of course, when my husband was alive all decisions about household decoration were  joint. We tended to agree on most things but, if I am honest, there were probably times when I felt he ‘cramped my style’ a little. (Sorry Ivor). To be fair to him he probably pulled me back  from more outrageous choices which we would have  later both regretted.  I would describe our household style as having its roots in the 70s with Habitat, more recently Ikea with a few more expensive pieces which are vaguely in the Scandi style: greys and blues, beech, light oak, that kind of thing.

So last year I decided to change my bedroom.  I had already painted a few walls in my study and on the landing in a rather striking ‘teal’. It seemed to work well and I decided to continue it into the bedroom.  I wanted this room to feel ‘different’ and I discovered boho!  Ah! Romantic. Chaotic. Mixing of textures and colours. Layers. Jewel colours: emerald, maroon, deep blue. Perhaps it was the desire for a little dark cave in which to retreat, to snuggle in.  I had wallpapered one wall in what was effectively a paper still in my Scandi style, so not strictly Boho but I liked it.  I had bought a few bamboo lamps which gave a gentle light and decided that I would buy a bamboo dressing table. I have never had a dressing table, always resorting to various mirrors in the bathroom or the landing. It works fine but I had this idea of a special little table with mirror and chair. After some exploration of various web sites I found a company who specialised in bamboo furniture from the 70s. This is now the fashion! Retro. Vintage. Hence it seems to command a price far higher than similar non-vintage pieces.  So I decided to ‘go for it’ and ordered the said dressing table.

In the meantime, on eBay, I had also found a bamboo upright chair which I thought would complete the look. The purchase entailed a horrendous drive to Southend via the M25 with any hope of spending a little time by the sea  dashed by the rain. I think the seller was amazed that I would drive all that way for a simple upright chair!  I finally arrived home after detouring to Chelmsford and having spent over three hours in the car. Still, I had the chair.  A few days later the dressing table arrived. The delivery man took it upstairs for me and I set too to remove its layers of plastic and bubble wrap and reveal my new furniture. When finally unwrapped I stared at it in anticipation of falling in love with it.  But no. The bamboo was darker than I had imagined; but worse was the smell.  If you are old enough to remember the days when smoking was allowed in hotel bedrooms then you would recognise the smell. Ingrained smoke.  My suspicion is that this was part of a job lot from a hotel which will have updated its look, probably some years ago.

I sat on my bamboo chair in front of the bamboo dressing table gazing into the bamboo framed mirror, my heart slowly sinking.  It was all wrong. I looked round the room and decided it was a mess.  I was going to have to sell the dressing table!  But wait. Perhaps they would take it back.  I quickly wrote to the sellers emphasising the bad smell. They were adamant that it had been stored for some time in the bubble wrap and that non of their workforce smoked. They clearly were too young to have stayed in 1970s hotel bedrooms!  However, they were good enough to say that if the smell did not go in a couple of days they would take it back.  I had already made my decision but waited a couple of days before asking them to come and collect. I was very relieved to receive my refund.

So the long and short of this tale is that, despite my deep desire for a cave-like bedroom, me and boho do not mix. I have bought some light grey wallpaper from Homebase and spent the last 48 hours decorating. My teal wall has been covered and the white Ikea chest of drawers is back.  I have bought some curtains which will go up when my new light oak curtain pole arrives later this week. The room now fits with the rest of the house.

As I always seem to have to draw some life lesson from my ramblings, this week it might be that in some way your surroundings say something about and reflect your personality or even, dare I say it, your soul.  I have a dear friend (yes - you know who you are!) who has a gift for transforming old objects into something beautiful. She can spot a bargain in a charity shop and know just where it will look good or what needs to happen to it to make it look good.  I do not have that talent!!  So in some ways trying to do that goes against who I am and is probably doomed to failure!!   What my home does have, so I am told, is a sense of peace. And that makes me very happy.  Oh, but there is a Bohemian desire in there too, that longing for wildness…………….maybe one day……….. I do still have the chair!!