The Tattered Perfection of John Derian

Inspiration Wednesday with John Derian

My girlfriend Sarah and I took a ride out to the house. She had only seen it from the outside. I had not been out to the house for a couple of weeks. Dave has made a few trips moving things to storage, and to oversee the clearing of the yard of all the overgrowth (more about that later).

Every time I go inside the beautiful old house I am charmed by the light and the peeling paint and worn floors. Dave is gong to power wash the inside and outside of the house, to remove the whatever peeling paint comes off. No doubt latex paint has been applied over oil base, and a lot of it will be knocked off the walls. We've talked about leaving the walls in this distressed state, leaving the patina of time intact.

So the designer and shop keeper John Derian comes to mind. He embraces the artful tatter in both his city and country homes. His New York city store is a treasure trove and added inspiration for his particular point of view. I think our beach house could look very charming with a few Derian like touches.

I am inspired by John Derian - Tattered finishes, vintage and antique accessories, and specimens from nature

All of our walls are bead board so I can't do wallpaper, but I'm thinking of doing an all over stencil. I love the speckled spatter painted floor in this John Derian room. We are not going to strip our floors, but rather wire brush clean them and softly buff them. Maybe spatter paint might be something to do as well.

I love the floors left worn and in an original unfinished state

Note the Oriental rug - I can't wait to lay the ones down that Dave has

The distressed walls are perfection. And here's that spatter floor, that looks amazing with the Oriental rug.

I love how John Derian does bedrooms in his country house

We have lots of art to create interesting gallery walls

I have tons of shells and curiosities that I can hardly wait to use on out beach house

This dining area by John Derian is so inspiring

I'd love an old cast iron kitchen sink

There is a vintage cast iron bathtub in our beach house that I hope can be moved to my bathroom. The back of the house has to be dismantled and rebuilt. This is where the kitchen, laundry area, and second bathroom are located. When Dave puts it back together we are going to reconfigure things so that each bedroom has an en suite bathroom, and the kitchen is expanded to accommodate a nice dining table