First day back to school after the two week half term holiday and bizarrely it’s Halloween…an oxymoronic combination which will probably leave the rest of the week in tatters with the children trying to recover juggling routine and school.  But hey, at least we gained an hour this week… it’ll be put to good use carving pumpkins and slapping on the grease paint later.  Sigh. But leaving blood dripping knives and the prospect of tired kids aside, I need to actually write a post so I’m going with something that struck a nerve whilst we were away in Hastings.

We stayed in a little wooden lodge that was very pleasant….but didn’t look like anything in these pictures.  Which has become a bit of a bug bear – in England, when you go away to a resort setting, chances are you are either paying a fortune for a properly imagined rustic aesthetic (casing point: Soho Farmhouse) or you’re having your tastes dictated to by a narrow number of bulk buying, short sighted, cheap loving, tight fisted suits that think modern always means good.

But the rub is rustic isn’t about expense.  It’s roots lie in making the best use of the materials available in the best way possible, given the space available.

It’s about finding elements that are both practical and will stand the test of time, yet still look good: Re-using, re-thinking, re-energising.

It’s not generic canvas’s from Ikea but vintage pictures from a charity shop.  Not ready made velour curtains but re-imagined blankets and kantha quilts.  Not  shiny carpets but wooden floors and battered rugs.

Does taste cost more? Sometimes…but mostly it just takes a bit more thought.

And how often is it that those thought out things cast the longest shadows?

Laters, Kate x