Early response to our blue geometric wallpaper was mixed, but mostly positive. Some people felt it was too loud or busy, but since retro so often departs from received Good Taste, you have to expect this kind of thing (these people have Victorian flats and walls painted in muted colours). MMM felt that one wall should be painted a solid blue, or we'd be overwhelmed. So that's what we did.

We had shipped all my worldly goods from Canada in a container, and one day it arrived: a whole apartment's worth of furniture and whatnot, most of it dating to the 1910s. This was the vintage of my apartment in Vancouver and the vintage I had been used to. My conversion to mid-century modern had only just happened. Now I found that (apart from my books) only ONE THING was of any use: a 1950s L-shaped couch, lightly brocaded and silvery-blue, complete with those little teak legs that are vaguely upside-down conical in shape. That sofa actually makes our living room. But now the house was even more jammed than before, and this time with heavy, dark Edwardian stuff that set us back in our quest for light, airy freshness than you can imagine. The house had an apartment sitting on top of it so to speak. The teenage movers were eager to dump it all anywhere and run away. We had furniture and boxes spilling into the garden. It was a mighty low point in the whole proceedings.