A Paper Series Post
Worn out sheets and quilts inspired the Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 5 with its collage of French Country bedrooms, furniture, and linens. Once again the bulletin board is a functional board for organizing thoughts for a new household project: adding French style with new bed linens.
B U L L E T I N B O A R D I N S P I R A T I O N
french country bedroom
No. 5
Dreaming of Paris is an appropriate title of this September bulletin board. Daydreaming of a beautiful French Country bedroom with handcarved ornate wood-paneled walls and luxurious embroidered linens leads to nighttime dreaming of sleeping in a Paris hotel to awaken to a traditional French petite dejeuner (breakfast) of hot chocolate and croissants with butter and jam.
Or, better yet, awakening in your own chateau in the French countryside. Beds piled high with pillows underneath a spectacular chandelier and atop an iconic black and white stone floor are ultimate French Country style.
France is renowned for beautiful antique embroidered sheets, duvets, and pillow covers. And, France is still renowned for beautiful new linens from design houses of D. Porthault, Yves Delorme, le Jacquard Français. . . In the United States, French-style beautiful linens are offered by Niemann Marcus, sister company Horchow, Williams-Sonoma, sister company Pottery Barn. . .
Distinctive French style beds for all those gorgeous linens have cane frames, handcarved wood curvy frames, and upholstered headboards and footboards.
Fabric styles include floral prints, stripes and checks, and bespoke personal monograms.
Timeless toile bucolic patterns in blue and white are favorites that never seem to quite go out of fashion completely before the next surge of popularity.
As always in the bulletin board inspiration series, I have a few tips for styling a bulletin board so your inspiration boards look stylish in themselves, not just a haphazard collection of clippings.
Tip #1
Paper clippings can be folded to show what you want to see instead of an entire page. The small blue and white toile photo in the upper right has been folded to show only the bed, not the entire page with its clutter of price lists and other non-related items in the catalog.
There is another photo on the backside of the of toile bed linens that is also saved. Folding saves that photo from destruction of cutting out the featured toile bed.
Tip #2
Related three-dimensional objects add to the overall effect of a bulletin board display. Careful placement allows all of the clipped pages to be seen and integrates the 3-D items into the overall design.
French-style finials and a preserved boxwood in a white flower pot are classic French decor symbols. A fleur de lis instantly brings France to mind.
Tip #3
Remember to stagger the position of three dimensional objects so some are in front of others, not lined up like soldiers.
Also remember to place items so the varying heights lead the eyes back toward the grouping. Often arrangements of tall objects like candlesticks have the tallest ones at the outer ends of the grouping, but doing so causes the eyes to look up without having another object to bring the eyes back into the arrangement. Notice the preserved boxwood is shorter than the white ceramic fleur de lis finial. The shortest item, the wrought iron fleur de lis, is between the two taller items.
The short fleur de lis leads the eyes downward from the boxwood; then the eyes are led upward to the tall white fleur de lis; finally the eyes are led downward to the boxwood once again. The heights create a visual circular eye movement.
If the three items were placed in the order of their heights, say shortest to tallest, with the tallest on the outside end, then the viewer's eyes are led stair step upward to the last tall item pointing the eyes off into the wild blue yonder, _:" , with nothing to bring the eyes back downward.
Tip #4
Study your favorite decorating style for objects that symbolize that style. Fleur de lis are well-known symbols for French style, but crowns are also French symbols. By identifying several symbols of your favorite style, you can incorporate a greater variety of items in your decor which makes your arrangements fresh and unexpected.
Tip #5
Use slightly quirky push pins with their own special personalities! Instead of discarding items that are not perfect, use them to give a whimsical, happy look to your bulletin boards. This little Eiffel Tower push pin has become my favorite with its twisted tower.
Tip #6
Repeat colors, textures, styles to make your arrangements cohesive. There are two fleur de lis, two wrought iron items, and two white ceramic three dimensional objects. There are two pictures of blue bedrooms, two photos with toile patterned quilts, multiple ruffled pillows in several photos, and two shots of the same chateau-style bedroom with slightly different items. Rooms with dark colors are grouped together at the top of the board; rooms with neutral colors are grouped at the bottom of the board.
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Clipping Sources
All clippings are several years old.
- Horchow Catalog
- Country Living, UK Magazine
- Pottery Barn Catalog
A side view gives a better perspective to the location of the bulletin board with respect to the living room.
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A future post will show the new sheets and pillow cases I bought to replace the worn-out old ones. Plus, there will be photos of my French Country bedroom with my favorite blue toile fabric.
SOURCES
Pinterest Board Botanic Bleu Bedrooms for more inspiring bedroom ideas
Pinterest Board French Country Design has more than 900 pins
