Decorating Styles vs Comfort

I have no quarrel with decorating magazines--in fact, I subscribe to a passel of them. It's just that generally speaking, their styles don't fit in with my way of life and we're both comfortable with that.


Mary Randoph Carter is my kind of comfort maven. In her own house she fearlessly incorporates her favorite old fabrics, tattered books, bits of scruffy old furniture and textiles into a melange that spells comfort to her family and welcome to her friends.

In this book, she displays homes of people who put comfort and life style before fashion and what they accomplish is an art form in itself.


Here's a perfect example of a cosy inviting corner to think your thoughts or read your book.




More formal but comfortable are the houses shown in English Home magazine; soon the decorators will close in and take away the fun but in the meantime, enjoy. In many of the houses the high chair is on display in the kitchen and the dogs have comfortable beds everywhere.



English Home describes this delightful hodge-podge as the cloak room. I hope there's a lock on the door, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I still have to ask after I glance through Architectural digest, if you have several houses or pieds de terre all over the world, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just rent a hotel suite?

Just asking.