Colour in my historic apartment

So, what do you do when you move into an apartment that is beautifully decorated in neutrals, and you are a colour person? Especially when it’s an historic apartment on loan to you that you can’t really alter much?

That was my predicament at the beginning of the year, when I moved into this amazing apartment in Guimarães back in March 2019. Here is is, in all it’s neutral glory…

The real challenge was the wooden partition consisting of the exposed structure of the original wall that divides the apartment. Interesting, and attractive as a museum artefact, but hard to live with.

Well, I found a way to introduce colour.

Here’s what I did with some scraps of fabric, cardboard (thanks, Ikea) and cold winter nights with scissors, glue, needle and thread.

I cut cardboard panels to fit the (very irregular) spaces in the partition, collected some fabric off-cuts in related colours and glued and sewed the fabric onto each triangle.

The covered card is simply wedged into place in each opening, so as not to damage the historic construction. They are reasonably solid, except in the face of vigorous vacuum-cleaning.

Some details of the different panels

I particularly like the line of purple triangles along the top. I think they echo the ramparts of the local Guimarães castle.

Here’s to a colourful time in 2020!