My space is my sanctuary.
I like to customise any space I’ve been given with little personal trinkets and bits and pieces that represent me.
This post was inspired by my undying patriotism and also following fashion trends. Both azulejos and Portugal are becoming fashion trends, with Lisbon becoming a hotbed for artists and cultured travellers alike.
In London, I’m seeing pasteis de nata pop up on every hipster menu - wrongfully called a ‘Portuguese custard tart’. I have developed a personal vendetta for this.
For your own safety, do not call it a Portuguese custard tart around me. You will have little more than 5 seconds to correct yourself. ‘Piri-piri’ has already been bastardised. I won’t allow any more.
So without further ado; my bedroom inspiration;
For the bed, the queen of the room, your bedding pulls the room together, so you have to make sure the colours are just right. I chose this white and blue patterned double duvet set.
The pattern isn’t 100% azulejo style strictly, but the mixing of shapes blends in nicely to be part of the azulejo family. To partner with the bedding, I thought about adding these gorgeous pillows as decoration.
I was thinking of having two of the rectangles and one square so I can place them symmetrically on the bed to fluff on top of my uglier, comfier pillows.
In the corner of my room, I have a medium sized black wooden table from IKEA that I use as my makeup table/desk. It was marketed as a dining table, but for £29 and it was a lot sturdier than some of the office desks that IKEA was offering.
I also got a black chair from IKEA for £30. (It was this brand, but all black). I like to cover it with a black fleece blanket I got from Primark for £11. Primark Home in itself is a goldmine.
I would buy more from there but I can’t brave the savage recesses of Oxford Street, especially not in the winter. There is a Primark in my local area, but I realised that you’ll have a greater chance of getting more usable stuff in central London, especially more high fashion items.
Anyway, so I was imagining for my desk, to cover the top of it with this Moroccan tile wallpaper to give it a little bit more texture and add more colour. I do buy a lot of black items, especially in my wardrobe. The black furniture is to offset the white wallpaper I have in my room.
Carrying on with that spirit of trying to compliment the colours with each other, I definitely wanted something else within the azulejo family for the curtains. These are the same brand as the bedding and have a similar style, so hopefully these two will pair quite nicely together.
I always see potted plants and wooden trays of nothing on Insta-worthy desk porn, but I’m thinking to keep on with my theme of white, black and blue and to go with white tulips in a white and blue Chinese flower vase.
To bypass the awkward view of the fake stems, I’m definitely using a solid vase.
Maybe I’ll stick them in the corner with a couple of these mosaic tealights. Growing up, we always went to this seaside town in Algarve that had a little market that sold similar looking things.
I wanted to continue this theme of ‘lazy Portuguese seaside town’ so the tealights I’ve selected are sea salt scented with a muted sea green.
I’m a big fan of minimalism and I don’t want too much on my desk apart from my laptop, my transparent acrylic makeup holder, a notebook, the plant and tealights. So underneath the table, there is quite a lot of empty space.
I also do like to change the entire format of my room from time to time, so I like my furniture to be moveable by just little ol’ me. Independent Woman and all that.
I chose this fabric four drawer ‘cabinet’ to stick all my junk in; makeup and hair care products, documents, etc. I was thinking to get two of them for symmetry and then having a footrest in between them under the table.
For extra bits and pieces, I thought about these gorgeous tile hooks for the walls or the back of the door, which is white. I also found these ‘Mediterranean’ photo frames which would sit well either on the desk (but if I’m trying to minimalise clutter, this would be a bad idea) or on the white walls for additional colour.
And that’s it! Of course, this is a fantasy, so I don’t have any pictures of the finished product and I suspect that it’ll take me over the course of the year to have it all put together, but hopefully I can come back and show you guys!