Bringing the sea into my home

As the weather begins to turn and we have more autumnal weather with crisp chilly mornings and falling leaves, I begin to think more of the sunshine and warmth that I was used to in my childhood home in Bahrain.

Where I grew up

Perhaps it is the bright blue skies and the occasional day of warm sunshine we have been lucky to have in September which reminds me of the little island in the Arabian Gulf.

There are small reminders of where I grew up in every home I have lived in and when we move, I guess it is natural for me to think about how I can incorporate a little bit of Arabic culture and design into my new home.

Our lovely Bahraini floor cushions

How this inspiration plays out partly depends on the structure and layout of the home.  I have already started that fusion in our open plan living/ dining room, where we have an area of floor cushions which have a typical Bahraini embroidered design on them.  Apart from the cushions and the little Arabic coffee-pot in the window that is as far as I have got so far, but there is more to come!  We have been concentrating on changing the doors at the moment to remove the feeling of living in an institution and transforming the house into our home.  Upstairs we now have warm pine wooden doors:

7 lovely doors, now the task of varnishing begins!

Downstairs will be the next step and in the old part of the house it will be fairly straightforward with more pine doors.  However, to keep the contemporary feel in the modern part of the house we have decided to have similar doors to the front door for rooms with single doorways:

Our front door - as inspiration for internal doors

That leaves us with the double doors leading into the open plan living area.  After much deliberation over various options, Chris came up with a brilliant idea of having a traditional Arabic door made in Bahrain to be shipped over.  This may sound expensive, but the prices of crafted items in Bahrain are much more reasonable than over here and I think the end result will be worth the effort.  It will look like one of these:

Institutional soon to be ethnic & contemporary:

  Another big feature for me is the sea:

Having being brought up by the sea, it feels that it is always with me and I am always most at home on a beach come sunshine, wind or rain.  Now, if I could I suppose my ideal home would be on a beach, but as that is not practical, I still like to have some reminders of my spiritual home around me.

Pictures, colours, and water are all ways I like to depict the sea in my home.  Paintings of water scenes and shades of blue on the wall are always around us, but I have also wondered about a water feature?!  Perhaps a little later on in the garden, we could find a quiet spot for a simple water fountain similar to that found in a an Arab courtyard or Japanese garden: