Our home at Ednovean Farm has developed its own unique country style over the years, with pretty, romantic, nostalgic bedrooms have their own individual vintage style.. I love to mix antique furniture with vintage finds and I often spending hours sanding and stripping a piece before giving it a gently distressed painted finish and finally protecting it with a final coat of wax.
This is a corner in our Blue room where an Edwardian Dressing table, dressed with pretty china and flowers, reflects the wardrobe topped with vintage hat boxes, in its old oval mirror.
Lamps, shades and accessories
I always look for lovely balanced shapes when choosing furniture and older pieces are often very well made with the mitred joints not often found in modern pieces. I like to set the pieces off with carefully chosen accessories and gorgeous lamps of course. Laura Ashley always has a wonderful collection of interesting shapes and well made silk lamp shades.
Dressing tables
For our dressing tables I look out for pretty vintage pieces – coloured glass perfume bottles or tiny inlaid boxes will all look pretty with a jug of causally arranged roses. (Well OK my flower arranging abilities are more of the cut and plonk variety!) Still it all lends a subtle, thoughtful, nostalgic feel to a bedroom.
Bathroom essentials
For our en suite bathrooms at Ednovean Farm, we chose deep Roll topped baths to keep the old fashioned romance of yesteryear. The baths hark back to a time when there was time in the day to devote to “me time” Time for a leisurely, relaxing soak. They are just perfect for a romantic holiday of course.
To keep clutter to a minimum, I’ve looked for pretty enamel containers to hold bathroom ephemera like cotton buds and make up remover pads and cache boxes. In some bathrooms I’ve been able to add a comfortable chair for perfect for relaxing chat, and for tiles I’ve chosen natural marbles, travertine and Italian terracotta to stay in touch with the natural world around us. Finally I sourced hand made soaps from Jean Barrie soap co just the other side of Penzance and liquid soap from St Kitts Herbery Co
Curtains and blinds
With our French inspired schemes I’ve chosen Toile de Jouy in a gentle monochrome and faded greys to drape in long relaxed folds backed by striped blinds for the curtains for two of our rooms and gorgeous cut velvet for simple blinds for the third with deep cottagey windows. Try Red Rose Textiles in Penzance – it’s a labyrinth of interesting and unusual fabrics piled deeply along the walls with just enough room to edge along to the counter at the back!
Introducing colour and texture with fabrics is a wonderful way of softening a room scheme and in our little guest sitting room I’ve chosen pretty silk curtains to contrast with the exposed granite walls before adding a big hand embroidered hanging to bring dramatic colour to another wall. There’s a great shop – eastofhere – that sells eastern carpets and hand embroidered throws in Chapel Street in Penzance.
Farmhouse style
To build our country farmhouse style, the elements definitely didn’t come “off the peg” but the fun is in quietly building up a look and then subtly tweaking it as time goes on. A relaxed classic look is definitely not a follower of fashion but more of a gently evolution around “good bones” and you always have to be “on the lookout” – I used to keep a notebook in my handbag with key dimensions for furniture written in it, until I came across just the right piece for a space.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed a look around our bedrooms this week with with our gentle country style. For more information about our Bed and Breakfast accommodation you could always come and stay with us of course just to make sure!
Over the years Ednovean Farm has featured in several glossy magazines, hosted fashion shoots and even made a TV appearance in Germany
To download copies of some of the magazine articles click here and scroll to the bottom of the page for the pdf file.
See Ednovean Farm as a film location
The Pink Bedroom dressed for filming
Scenes for a Rosamunde Pilcher Film Almost Unmarried or “Almost Divorced” at Ednovean Farm in 2016 and will be screened in Germany on Sunday the 26th of February. Just follow the link for other locations used in Cornwall and a run down of the story – personally I can’t wait to see it and do look out for the Pink and Blue Bedrooms, redressed in vintage hippy style by the props department!
