Oh dear, I've gone and done a classic Alice. It's a typical me story, and it goes something like this:
Once upon a time, there was a (not so) young girl who got an idea in her head. This time, it wasn't shoes that she wanted. It was an antique nursing chair. 'I know, I'll buy a cheap one on eBay and save us ££££'s and give the baby's nursery a touch of classic, old-fashioned style.'
So off she went, figuratively, and got online and found the chair - see earlier post. 'Wow, get me', she thought to herself, as she deposited £100 in the seller's PayPal account. I am a clever girl.
She hadn't forgotten about the re-upholstery, and after Dearest Parents reminded her that she could get it done in Suffolk at a man they've used before, she was even more pleased. 'I'm not even going to pay London prices to get this bad boy looking spanky and new again,' she told her already bored Darling Husband.
But, ooops, there was a hiccup in this story. And it involved a very beautiful, hand-printed fabric, a big (massive) price tag and a little tuition from the girl's favourite Japanese interiors assistant at Liberty. They talked about the expensive cloth, designed by Jospeh Franks for Jobs Handtryck. And the assistant made her fully aware of the price (an eye-watering £139 a metre) of such a unique piece of woven drill. But the girl wasn't going to give up that easily. So she asked for something similar, something a little less crippling in the finances department but no less vibrant on the outside (the picture above does not do this beautiful print justice). In her eyes, the fabric sparkled. Not literally, that would be strange, but in the sense that the colours look electric and the girl loved that. She told herself this baby's nursery would be a pastel-free zone.
'I'm sorry lady', said the shop assistant to the girl, with sadness in his eyes. 'This colour and intensity is very Swedish, the English comparions are more antique-y, more washed out. If you want that Swedish look, you really have to pay for it.' She gulped.
But then she resolved to become undefeated. 'I will find something else; I shall hunt down those colours and wildflowers and animals and get my baby something beautiful for its chair', she said out loud even though no one was listening.
Except that the man in Liberty was right. After searching high and low, and low and high again, the girl realised that she had quite possibly failed in her copycat task. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she started seriously imagining how dreamy the chair would look in its £139 per metre colourful glory. And then, she realised that she had been in this position before, and that once the visual image was stuck in her head, she knew it was a slippery slope to doing something dangerous with her credit card.
The end (well, not quite....)
I know the feeling, sis! We bought a print by an English artist called Adam Bridgland yesterday. It's stunning and it is very much 'us'. The trouble was that so was about 11 other pieces in the showroom and we wanted them all.......
ReplyDeleteLuckily restraint kicked in at the last minute, but it's amazing how once you have an image in your mind, it's pretty difficult to shift.