“Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all deadly sins,” declared Edith Wharton, Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of the gilded age and author of The Decoration of Houses. When it comes to mealtimes, it’s a maxim that seems easier to uphold in some seasons than others: summer cries out for spontaneous picnics, or moving a dining table and chairs from the inside to the outside, “where you can kick off your shoes and feel the grass under your feet,” details Philip Hooper, joint Managing Director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. In cooler times, it’s tempting to retreat to the dining room, kitchen, or the occasional comfort of a sitting room TV dinner. Which is all well and good – but worth knowing is that there are those who are successfully demonstrating a marked variety beyond the basics, even within the limits of contemporary life and compromised inside space.
Several designers, including Studio QD and Salvesen Graham, have reported planning for the possibility of alternative dining areas, either in the way of intimate corners, or rooms being dual purpose, whether that’s a library or a hall. Raising the bar when it comes to dual purpose, the New York-based interior designer Miles Redd has been known to host dinner parties in the mirrored bathroom of his Manhattan town house – which sounds decadently capricious in the best possible way. Encouraging us to find our own means of repelling repetitiveness is Beata Heuman’s point that “if you want to encourage imaginative thinking, you should do something a little unexpected.” So, which rooms, and when? And might this include breakfast - or even supper – in bed? (Contentious in some quarters, we know.) Read on:
Historical precedence
There’s almost always inspiration to be found in the past, and those who enjoy the history of how we live might like to know that there’s strong precedence for the moveable feast. The dining room as we know it only came into being in the 18th century. Prior to that, the nobility and their courts ate in great halls, while smaller parties could take place pretty much anywhere; a table would be set up in the picture gallery, the games room, or, wrote Edith Wharton, one of several “dining parlours, each with a different exposure, so that they might be used at different seasons.” Two things: we don’t all have such a surfeit of rooms, and you’ll have spotted that a bathroom isn’t listed – because bathrooms weren’t a feature of the 17th century.
But fast forward – past our Victorian forbears who loved a room for every occasion (and therefore could get stuck in them) – to Elsie de Wolfe, the first great decorator of the modern age, who famously threw out gloomily ornate Victoriana, and whose clients included Vanderbilts, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Henry Frick (of the Frick Museum.) In the early 1930s she took on a flat in Paris (she lived there half the year) and created a bathroom of such loveliness, “that people would drop in almost every afternoon to ask permission to ogle the room, and soon Elsie was serving tea and cocktails to diplomats, artists and social gadabouts,” who sat comfortably on “her zebra-striped couch or on the round leopard-skin upholstered hassocks she added for extra seating,” describes Jane S. Smith, in her sadly out-of-print biography of the designer. It was a ‘salon de bain’, and even King Farouk of Egypt was entertained in the room where Elsie had “stashed the less attractive bits of plumbing” in an alcove behind a mirrored screen. That last bit of information – the hiding of what Elsie described as ‘an unmentionable’ – is critical for anyone who is eyeing up their bathroom as an entertaining space.
Contemporary tales – and ideas
Elsie’s ‘bath salon’ caught on: Nina Campbell mentions a bathroom by the French decorator Christian Benais where the bathtub could, by way of a space-saving fold-down contraption above the bath, be transformed into a cushion-covered banquette for dinner parties. Charlotte and Angus Buchanan of Buchanan Studio successfully hosted a 5th birthday in one of their bathrooms: “we decorated it with loads of helium balloons that looked really pretty against the tiles and had sandwiches and snacks over the bath while children ran around,” recalls Charlotte. And then there’s Miles Redd’s previously mentioned mirrored bathroom – which he describes as "like being on the inside of a diamond.” Designed by David Adler, the bathroom was originally installed at a house just outside Chicago, and Miles has reported being relieved that he could make all the mirrors fit in his house – but then, his bathroom is one of his largest rooms.
In this observation is an important tip: don’t attempt a ‘bath salon’ in a room you can’t swing even a hamster in. Other caveats include the necessity of the bathroom being at least a bit special - an expanse of white tiles and harsh overhead lighting is only appropriate if you’re throwing an American Psycho-themed soiree – and the absolute essentialness of having an alternative loo.
So let’s look at other rooms: all and any of which can be viable. It’s worth thinking back to the idea of seasonal ‘dining parlours’, and choreographing according to evening light, moonrise – and, as we approach winter, warmth. Occasional tables can come into use – a card table, a gateleg table that might usually be flat against a wall with its hinged sections down, or a pair of demi-lune consoles that can be brought together (that last being another Elsie de Wolfe directive.) In terms of seating, if you are planning a permanent alternative eating area in a different room, know that banquettes can be pleasingly firm, and fit more people side-by-side than a sofa. And there’s no reason, if you’re giving a party, that you shouldn’t use every single room at your disposal – in the manner of a friend of Emma Burns, the other joint Managing Director of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. “Patricia would invite 60 or 70 people for dinner and set up tables not only in the capacious dining room and kitchen, but also in the drawing room and the hall and – the very best table – at the foot of her four-poster bed. The anticipation of wondering which room you would be sent to added enormously to the fun.”
Indoor picnics
This brings us on to those with less capacious living quarters – a common issue – to which end know a table and chairs are far from essential. Picnics, a French invention, originated inside, and described meals to which everybody contributed. They could be quite debauched: when, in 1801, The Pic-Nic Society launched in London, members were required to turn up with 6 bottles of wine each. It’s up to you whether you want to go full Roman orgy – but certainly the Ancient practice of providing floor cushions is worth remembering if you’re inviting more people than there are perches. The point is that lack of space does not need to preclude entertaining – indeed, “there are few things so pleasant as a picnic lunch eaten in perfect comfort,” declared the novelist W Somerset Maughan (who was briefly married to the interior designer Syrie Maugham, so by ‘comfort’, doubtlessly meant a deep sofa.)
Breakfast (and supper) in bed
In a similar vein, what is more pleasant than breakfast in bed? This too has age to the custom, at least if you’re female. Once married, breakfast came to you – presumably giving you longer to recover from the activities of the night, or something. These days it’s become more of a treat – regardless of gender – but one, perhaps, to remember to indulge in. Philip Hooper describes it as “my idea of heaven,” specifying “at least four pillows, coffee, croissants, unsalted butter, homemade jam and the Saturday puzzles. It brings out memories of Lady Diana Cooper similarly ensconced in her bedroom in Little Venice.” Improving his experience is that he’s in possession of “two vintage Lord Robert’s workshop bed trays, complete with magazine and newspaper pockets.”
We are aware that not all are as keen, and that some are decidedly averse to eating in bed. It could be that they haven’t yet aced the menu – Philip advises “not cereal or porridge slopping about, and certainly not a full English Aga breakfast” – or perhaps it’s because they quite enjoy greeting the sunrise. In which case, let us suggest supper in bed, or at least, sitting in a bedroom armchair, in a dressing gown, with perhaps just one other person (though, a word of warning, some might see it as suggestive) – a luxury which hints at five star hotel life that some designers, including Alidad, account for. Incidentally, series one and two of hit television programme The Gilded Age regularly saw supper being sent up to bedrooms on trays – might it also be an Edith Wharton-approved means of avoiding monotony?
