Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun

Its been a whirl wind lately, from mountains of work to be done to finding new digs. On a more relaxed note my mother and papa came to visit last weekend for mothers day. I'd planned a beautiful day out to Charlecote Park, I love visiting historically old houses to learn the stories told by the people who work there. A few shots of our trip are shown below.

Inspiration can come from anywhere and what a perfect fitting to find some linking to my Design in Context module. Lately I have been focusing my attention towards The Wind in the Willows for my book design, since visiting Charlecote Park I really want to inject that very english feel to my design as I feel it will represent the story setting beautifully and represent the era the story was written in. I found that the patterned wall coverings illustrate this very stately english house feel I was looking for. It is very similar to the work of William Morris.  

In the library I found an information pack which talked about the books, furniture and all events in the Library, unfortunately the books were being kept in storage to protect them from the rewiring and spring cleaning of the house. I came across this very interesting page which shows how they used to write the name of the books on the outside of the pages instead of on the spine, I was so surprised by this fact that it seemed wrong to not see the text in its usual place. 

I picked up a cute little penguin book for £1 in one of the second hand book shops dotted around the park, I have been wanting to start a collection for a while of penguin books for a design purpose. The popularity of colour organised shelves in interior design can be seen in all magazines and online.

I also found this amazing wood table in the kitchen of Charlecote, I openly admit to being a wood addict obsessed with the wood grain texture and tones. 

Below is the wooden surface next to the sink with these little drains, the origin of the name draining board perhaps? I would love to have this in the country kitchen I dream to have one day. 

NAP x