To Make The Boys Wink

Pink. The first refuge of the feminine expressed visually. Second most used color in Shabby Chic next to ivory. Quite guilty of monopolizing it, having spent 12 years known as Pink Woman due to my candy cotton hair, so I don't mind at all to be strolling through Shabby Street with a pink hat on. I do though want to feature only English pinks and I'm going to get the ball rolling with two specifically London home owners who have embellished their rooms without a care for who else hefts their hobnail boots onto the coffee table. Yay. I'm all for that. 
The inimitable and glorious company that is Timorous Beasties have produced a Toile de Jouy of London scenes. Just to be clear, sights of London in a medium made popular by the French created by a Scottish company. That's alright then. The house is in London. So there. 

Then, a very British (unless the northern knobbly bit makes a run for it soon) kitchen in London taking the Union flag and pinking it out. 

I cannot resist velvet anything, especially on furniture. Whether Chesterfield buttoned at Admiral here (why do Americans say Tufted? There's not a tuft of anything in sight. Grass is tufted. Settees are Chesterfield-ded-ded).

Or here at Lordship Park, two examples I'd haul off in a second if I thought I could get away with it. 

But if you're after the perfect classic Shabby bedroom, Balham House has it down pat. Crisp bedding, way too many pillows and lovely finishing touches of fireplace and chandelier. If I was shown into this on my first night as a house guest, I'd know the dinner ingredients were coming from Waitrose and not Lidl. And I'd refuse to budge for a month. 

These double width armchairs seem to be everywhere currently. I was shown one last week while in Laura Ashley (yes, I said that, but under the mitigating circumstances of being with a client, and besides - stubbornly - their cushions are fab) but I can't really see what their point is, unless you either spend all of your time with other people sitting on your lap (awkward) or need everyone to know you can afford 1500 quid for one chair. Lyndhurst has one, going rather nicely with the palest pink room, but I do wonder if that isn't the spare person underneath it. I can see a slipper. Lavish drapery hides all manner of sins, especially bodies.

Much more interesting if you add a shot of hot pink into the mix, as they have here.

If I had a house of infinite rooms, most of them would be plastered in PIP STUDIO wallpaper. Here is one of their more restrained, which would do very nicely for the Shabby Chic guest room. Don't be staying a month though, at those prices I can't feed you on top of that.