Introduction





Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Edwin Landseer



This blog is about interior design or more specifically, the way I go about it.
Why Titania's Palace? Well it happens that as a small child I saw the famous doll's house which goes by this name, created for one Guendolen Wilkinson. Apparently as a little girl she saw fairies running under a tree root in a wood near her garden in Ireland, she felt sorry for them having to live underground and wanted somewhere nicer for them to live. Her father commissioned the dolls house and work started on it in 1907 and finished in 1922 (longer than it takes most real houses to be built and furnished!) Images of Titania's Palace on the internet


Titania was Shakespeare's queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream and her name alludes to the fact that she was a daughter of the Titans - divine beings descended from the primordial gods of Greek mythology. There are many folk stories in Britain and Ireland of fairy dwellings hidden underground - discovered by mortals who accidentally came upon them and described as amazing sights to behold. They were often full of sparkling lights, rich furnishings, beautiful colours and often filled with music, dancing and feasting.  But the stories often tell us that it was all in the eye of the beholder - an illusion created by the fairies to disguise what was really only a cold dark cave, even their piles of money turned into leaves in the mortal world.


For me interior design is a hobby, an on-going creative outlet I can indulge in at home during evenings and weekends, rooms are never really finished and I'm always tweaking something, replacing this that or the other. I don't like to spend much either, if I can help it and in fact it's all part of the challenge and fun  to see what can still be achieved with imagination, time and the odd bargain or two.


Interior design is a personal thing, and there are as many styles as there are people but it is more than just an art form because it surrounds us all of the time and effects our moods and feelings of wellbeing....

The Quarrel of Oberon & Titania by Sir Joseph Noel Paton