Room for imagination

In a month's time I would be back at sweet old London, plummeting into the midst of autumn - moving into a room with a panoramic view of Hampstead Heath and the best yet, no internet. So I will be spending my evenings reading, chatting over wine (a half bottle Burgundy pokes out from his Barbour's poachers pocket as he hurries upstairs), listening to vinyl, unmaking beds, tendering to my plants - which co-habituate with my books and picnic basket on the top shelf.

1. Some inspiration, all images from milk & mead
2. Tiny apartment tips from reading my tea leaves
3. Note to self: small room = promises of big mental space

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Apartmento

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

- Franz Kafka

For interior inspirations and interviews about creative people in beautiful surroundings: first two images from mieke verbijlen, the next two from eefje de coninck, both based in Antwerp, Belgium.

And of course, how could one not revisit Margaret Howell's Suffolk home, when one's own balcony plants are withering from the cold and light in London is becoming ever so scarce... (although to be fair after the thundery rain comes the most beautiful light pouring into my bathroom in late afternoon)

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An Ideal Dwelling

*sources: Freunde von Freunden

My idea of the dream house - it will be flooded with light and small plants and jazz music and bird songs and aroma of fresh cut flowers. There will be books, old and new, all scattered around the place. My parents will come for tea on weekends and we will walk around the market; then we will prepare a full-blown dinner for family friends. I will cook, and my boyfriend will pick the wine.

But location of the house? Yet to be known.

Stella

Stella McCartney's beautiful country estate - an Eden reborn.

“I grew up with gardens, but not like these,” remembers Stella, whose family also has a farm in bucolic Sussex. “You can’t plant a pea in Scotland!” she says, laughing. “In Sussex we had a beautiful garden—but it was very different. Ours is a quite traditional English garden. People don’t build gardens like this anymore,” she adds, “and I can see why! They are ridiculously expensive. It’s insane. It’s literally like building a house. But a garden becomes another room, an escape. Being out in a beautiful garden is nicer than sitting in a beautiful room, in my opinion. They bring you so much joy. We recharge our batteries in that environment. You have to feel extremely privileged to have a garden—I don’t take it for granted.

*Read the full article here.