…it’s the same at the start of any design job, but most especially ones like this, with a completely blank canvas…days and nights of playing around with ideas before anything gets tentatively committed to paper or screen. As Oran Na Mara is destined to be a holiday house, there is greater scope to have fun…in fact, this house is such fertile ground for a myriad of different ideas that the greatest challenge is being selective in order to remain coherent throughout.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring the surrounding birdlife, flora and fauna (unbelievably beautiful – all of it!) and thinking how we could express everything in the house, without it becoming obviously “themed”…to make the interior a celebration of the colours, textures and sense of the sea and shoreline in front, and the machair behind. I thought it might be an idea to take a bird/flower as the starting point for the more intimate rooms – bathrooms and bedrooms – celebrating the “bigger picture” in the main areas…there, concentrating on those extraordinary aquas, blues, jades and turquoises…
Here are my first toe dips:
Oran Na Mara Bathroom Conceptual Development
Oran Na Mara Kitchen Conceptual Development
Oran Na Mara Bedroom Two Conceptual Development (3)
Oran Na Mara Bedroom One Conceptual Development (2)
…and tomorrow, I’m biking over to Lismore to see my lovely and talented friend, Sarah Campbell of Mogwaii Design, so that we can start bouncing a few ideas for her applique work…thinking cushions, headboards, lampshades…in Harris Tweeds and natural linens…FUN!