(deleted). Even my jaded twenty-three-year-old son
simply nodded his head as he pronounced his verdict:
"Cool, Dad."
So, weighing in at almost 900 square feet, the gallery
remains quite an imposing space, and my challenge was
therefore two-fold: how to live up to Mr. Beckford, the
greatest aesthete of his age, while also making the room
warm and inviting. How, in other words, to blend the
elegant with the comfortable – and on a strict budget,
no less.
My first solution was to paint over the cream-colored walls
and pull the room together, adding warmth along with a
strong neutral background for the George III furniture
and my collection of etchings by Piranesi. I chose a rich
yellow with the confusing name of "Light Buff" (you can
only imagine what "Dark Buff" is like), a color that looks
almost like apricot early in the morning and then turns
almost gold as day slowly shades into evening.
HYLAND
