My Apartment -- Pre-Raphaelite Inspirations

Home decorating is a passion of mine. I don't claim to be good at it, but I DO claim to enjoy it greatly. I also love to voyeuristically peek into the homes of other people, especially other like-minded people. Among the most beautifully decorated homes I've ever seen, I can confidently list Anita, Lisa, and Jen.

The other day, I was looking around at my house decor and noticing how much of it was inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites and Arts & Crafts. Of course there's also plenty inspired by whimsy and fairy tales, but I think they are in about equal measure. I thought it might be enjoyable to do a series of posts with images of my apartment decor.

Sadly, although my apartment is a quite unique set-up, it's difficult to capture in pictures, so there are a lot of close ups. The apartment is a townhouse, with the living room and kitchen all on the main floor. The main level has vaulted ceilings (wonderful for fitting all my large scale artworks on the walls), and the bedroom and bathroom are upstairs, with a wonderful little "look-down" into the living room that makes me feel like Rapunzel every time I peer from it. There's also a carpeted basement, but we use that as our "geek / tech room" so I won't share pictures of that. As always, the pictures are a lot bigger if you click on them, so feel free!


The front door, with our favorite wedding picture above. I love how this picture blends in well with all of the Pre-Raphaelite art I have at the same level around the room.
The first thing one sees when one walks in the front door is this side table with a box featuring the art of Evelyn de Morgan, and an antique book by John Ruskin.

The corner cabinet beside the window features a vase found on an excursion with Tess. She has a matching one in her Morris dining room, as we both feel it's quite Arts & Crafts. The Snow White box from Tess' Benefit Auction is also sitting here waiting for its new home.

In a post I did during my first month of the blog on how to decorate like William Morris on a budget, I mentioned Artscape Magnolia stained glass window clings, and how wonderful they are for the budget or apartment-dwelling Arts & Crafts aficionado. These are the Artscape windows in our apartment. Sadly the picture does them no justice.
Tucked beside the front door of the apartment is this little fireplace. Above the fireplace on the small ledge mantle, I put four decoupaged picture frames that represent my husband Tom and my great hobbies/interests. His two are Spider-man and Death from Sandman (he's a big comics fan), and mine are Waterhouse and Kinuko Craft.

A better look at the living room walls, with my favorite framed artwork, Circe Invidiosa, looking down. The living room walls were painted with two whimsical faeries (the second one is to the left of the iron grates, unpictured). The faerie pictured was inspired by an artwork by Charles Vess.
Here's the look-down I mentioned, from the bedroom to the living room! How romantic! The Lady of Shalott is one of the first things you see when you walk into the apartment and look around.

An overall view of everything you've seen so far:

Plenty more pictures to come!