Tasteful Friends: The attached photo of The Princess Anne's Living Room at Gatcombe Park...

Anne's shitty living room makes me like her even more. She's The Queen's daughter.

Many of the homes of people in or around her position and of her generation are similar to that. It's the whole looking down on the nouveau riche thing - it would be tacky to have some flashy place that showed off your wealth/position.

Actually OP it looks like pretty much every drawing room of every upper class English house that I’ve ever visited.

YMMV, of course.

Agreed, R3.

[quote] Anne's shitty living room

Shitty Little Anne’s living room

Is that a new project by Reese Witherspoon, R5?

She’s not out to impress anyone.

I see Anne needs an extra cushion to help with her roids.

I'm certain that is the television room (or whatever they might call it) and that there is a formal sitting room for entertaining elsewhere in the house.

Ghastly.

[quote] Ghastly

Just ghastly.

Princess Ann just seems like the kind who would make you return any turd she dropped in your toilet because of security concerns.

Looks like the VIP Room at Restful Retreats and Crematorium. I hear that Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, and Madonna are going to play their biggest hits during the Senior Sock Hop Concert series this summer!!! That is, if Madonna’s hip heals in time.

I bet that furniture is very old and was very expensive when new.

She probably hasn’t redecorated much since she moved in the 70s, barring reupholstering the couches and replacing the TVs. That’s just not who she is, and really shows why she would never mesh with someone like Diana.

Are we shocked that it’s shabby-genteel?

Hoarder Royal may be a more appropriate styling for HRH.

That's what I'd expect an upper class living room to look like. Hiring interior designers and buying new is for arrivistes.

Honestly she should be next in succession instead of Charles.

Lovely relaxed couldn't-care-less horsey upper-class vibe. Maybe the most pleasingly natural Royal interior I've ever seen. I doubt the rest of the house departs much from this vibe, but it would be fun to see.

I'm underwhelmed. I expected more. Not state of the art interior design...but better than what we see.

Looks like she has two scatter rugs in front of the television and another one under the book-cluttered coffee table. How many rugs does one need?

This seems quite typical of horsey people know. Their homes are always a mess because they are out all day riding and shovelling manure.

You have no taste, OP.

Bookcases? Is that what they are? How clever.

Frumpy in the extreme. A nice room to judge by the door entablature, but the Regency bookcase to the left with the bronze gallery and the desk to the right with the gothic glazed shelves above, both are small scale pieces for middle class houses, middling stuff. The pile of stools and small tables, maybe, and bits of odd lumber in the left corner -- surfaces for magazines, it would seem-- are nothing special either. The joint stool with the sausage turnings looks like a cheap mid-20thC repro, but even if a period piece (photo is so grainy) it would not have a value over £500 because it's not a good form or example. The old TV cabinet holding a new TV-- sort of what I would expect. The underscaled artwork selected for sentimental association with the subject matter, the same. The piled up layers of rugs: very horsey. But I don't expect that there would not be one thing to give a milisecond's pause to saving it if there were a slow moving fire at the opposite end of the house.

It's a corner of a room but what a dumpy corner. Usually there's at least one fine thing mixed nonchalantly amidst the I-can't-for-a-moment-be-bothered-to-care things. It's almost always there, that one sign that the owner does know, even if she doesn't care. But not here.

No ashtrays and no evidence of good drinking...no wonder everything has gone to shit.

good for her

R24 Yaaas! Clap, clap. No evidence of even a demi-precious heirloom placed in throwaway style. It underwhelms to the max, and not in a good way.

It's not a living room. This is a den, snug or some might it call a tv room. It ought to look like that.

Now show the rest of her modest little pile...

Agree with R24 and I bow to his superior knowledge. But yes, in a house that size, that is clearly a den or tv room, not a formal drawing room. I still don't like it - it looks like it smells of dog and is full of dog hair. The orange upholstery is a horror. The old tv cabinet is tragic.

It's the tv room (or whatever they call it; it may not even have a name}, not the more formal drawing room. I admit I was shocked to see a matching armchair and sofa combo, but otherwise it looks exactly how I would expect an upper-class English couple's tv room to look. A kind of cluttered, shabby-genteel atmosphere that makes no pretension to being anything other than a room for watching tv.

Your house, then, for orange juice, carrot sticks, persimmons, and cheese curls, R30!

When a dog pisses on a rug, just lay another rug onto the pile. "I don't smell it. Do you?"

The trouble with the shabby-genteel explanation that some posters have offered is that to be shabby-genteel, there has to be something genteel about it. Shabby-genteel always has something splendid or of genuine quality, hidden, maybe—under piles of blankets from the stable, coupons for 5% discount on curry combs (expiry April 2013), and a dangerous mountain of old Horse & Hound numbers—but present.

Oh fuck a doodle do! A Royal looking comfy and not spangled out in a Dior gown watching loose wimmints (sic). In the middle of a fucing pandemic, with DJT sharpening his claws for 2024, this is what occupies your concious mind?

And the other posters are correct. The really loaded individuals don't need to show the world their wealth by fancy schmancy shit. That's what Kanye an his KarTrashian in laws are for.

And shame shame shame on the Princess Royal for appearing content! Who in the bloody Hell *DOES* she think she is? WE WANT MISERABLE ROYALS!

I'm done. Time for another handlful of that lovely blue Xanax I got for my bday.... ;`].

Looks like the TV den of your average 70 year old couple.

Are they supposed to sit on Regency furniture and do needlework in the evening while listening to a Lady in Waiting play the spinet?

Who took the picture and why? There's no point. Anne and the hus couldn't even bother to look at the camera. And showing off that room is rather dreary.

R32, some of us haul out “To The Manor Born” and expect the Queen’s jewels to be laying around (“Why, yes, that is the scepter.”)

BTW, Happy Bday, Asshat!

Some people have commented, "Oh that's very horsey" as if that excuses that dump of a room.

The Queen herself has a small dumpy room in Buck Palace - there is even a cheap space heater placed in the fireplace

For some reason, that pic and that room reminded me of Onslow's lounge. (Keeping Up Appearances)

Yes, R32, and pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tangerines...but no orange décor of any kind, ever.

And as for orange apparel....!

David Ricardo died there.

[quote] The Queen herself has a small dumpy room in Buck Palace - there is even a cheap space heater placed in the fireplace

So she’s just like us, then, r38.

Because of Covid causing so many things to happen virtually and celebrities doing interviews and things from home, we've seen a lot of their homes and most of them have rooms just like we do...or worse!

The Queen bought it from R.A. Butler.

Fuck off Klan Granny whores

Butler got the place from his father-in-law.

Probably the only time The Queen bought a house from a Butler.

The only thing dumpy about that room is that TV. She should have at least a 96" 4kHD. She's got the fucking money and space. Not only for football and rugby but for horse competitions.

Is she a hoarder?

That room is ridiculously cluttered.

If her late aunt, Princess Margaret, were to fall down in that room (as she occasionally did) she would have cracked her skull.

[quote]She should have at least a 96" 4kHD. She's got the fucking money and space.

Too showy and vulgar, too 'new.' Leave that to Andrew, for watching...things...

R48, you will never see private rooms, so please stop with the tv stuff. This is a public room designed to show you they are real folks. They perfected photo spreads ages ago. Staff edited this room as well as any other the public may see.

[quote]In the middle of a fucing pandemic, with DJT sharpening his claws for 2024, this is what occupies your concious mind?

What? No one sits around and worries about the pandemic or Trump for every waking moment of their day.

I don't even understand what the point is when someone complains that people aren't worrying about more important things. It's a useless and worthless complaint, a complete waste of time.

I kinda like it, at least its not minimalist, they obviously have no time for that shit, Comfortable and not pretentious

I'd put the books in the bookcase though, and maybe get the TV up on the wall

She lives like her mother, frugally. Most of the Royals live that way. They spend big money where big money is required to be spent. If you look at the private family residence rooms in Buckingham Palace you'll see the same atmosphere. Tons of furniture pieces that have clearly been in the family for decades or centuries. Why buy a new sofa when the old threadbare one is of infinitely superior quality to the furniture made today and can simply be recovered time after time.

Notice the little electric space heater in one of Queen Elizabeth's fireplaces in Buckingham Palace.

Yes, R54 - I already mentioned the cheap space heater.

They have lots of rooms to choose from OP

R39. It does look like Onslow’s living room. Just missing beer cans and Rose’s ciggies.

This picture was staged. It was taken in the stables in the Groom's quarters, while watching the game.

Anne loves to go out there to watch the horses fuck.

I'm betting that The Princess Royal would find the comparison to Onslow's living room hilarious.

Not to my taste (I hate orange) but it was nice to see so many books.

Odds are that that house is cold and damp and that explains why Anne is wearing what looks like a long sleeve sweater AND a heavy vest.

The only obviously posed bit to me is the pair of them sitting side by side on the sofa.

It's a good idea though to have the extra large cushion (taken from some other chair, perhaps) as extra support as given the probable age of the sofa it most likely sags there and that that is probably the space she usually sits in to TV watch.

R59 not sure about damp but yes, posh English peoples houses are always bloody freezing. Strengthens the character.

That’s what used to be called a den. Tv is in there & little kids can roll around the floor & people can eat a snack while watching the telly. It’s the informal family room.

It can be both typical of upper English class 'tv room' decor and be dated, ugly and unappealing at the same time.

Just because it's similar to other upper class English doesn't mean it's good.

I hate the pretentious groveling to these people who lucked into being the top of English class system, as if it's justifiable for them to be there and look down at everyone else.

The English class system sucks for 99% of the population and it's far worse than just income stratification in the US. Most Americans would hate it if they actually lived in a society like that.

But instead so many Americans lick it up without any understanding of how stupid, backwards and unfair of a system it is.

The best thing about it is that only Princess Anne could pull it off. If Princess Michael of Kent or Meghan Markle put a new TV on top of an old entertainment center where a TV with a picture tube once sat, they would be ripped to shreds, or they could have the finest living room on the planet and they still wouldn't be Princess Anne.

[quote] The Queen herself has a small dumpy room in Buck Palace - there is even a cheap space heater placed in the fireplace

The room in Buckingham Palace that has the electric space heater is hardly a "small dumpy room". It is a sizable room filled with antiques, many of them most likely worth tons of money.

The Princess Royal is the Patron of the Scottish Rugby Union , so she's kicking back here with Tim and watching Scotland beat England at the rugby.

I don't think Princess Anne gives a fuck. She's of royal blood and was raised amidst great wealth and privilege, so she isn't impressed by the trappings and has nothing to prove to anyone.

[quote] Yes, [R54] - I already mentioned the cheap space heater.

But, were you kind enough to provide a photo? No.

RUDE!!

I think these castles and pile of bricks country homes reek of dead mice behind the wall

Tbh it's not that cluttered.

Shabby chic would be Anne's style. Last thing you'd want to do after coming in from mucking out the horses, is to deposit horse shit on the twisted Wilton and Chippendale. Narr. Posh people live like this. Nothing to see here.

The Wessexes live in a huge pile but have said they can only afford to heat a few rooms, so that is how they live.

It is horribly cluttered between the tv and the bookless cabinet. The orangw sofas are to closed together. And it is not as if they don’t have the space. And so many knick knacks. Ugh.

It looks very lived-in and comfortable. It looks like a home, not just a house. I’m not sure what all the pearl-clutching is all about. They aren’t doing a spread for AD or dwell or something

Funny - the first thing I thought of when I saw Princess Anne's living room was her mother and how similar their tastes are.

[quote]I think these castles and pile of bricks country homes reek of dead mice behind the wall

Fucking unlikely. The walls are solid. The floors, possibly.

Not surprising; people have always been surrounded by finery take it for granted; besides, who doe she have to impress? She's a royal princess. But I imagine the place smelly musty, like most old people homes

I think the scariest part of her home must be the kitchen. Thinking Anne's kitchen might look like Jilly Cooper's place in the Cotswolds, not far from where the Princess lives.

Very few highly wealthy people could be comfortable having their private spaces set up in the same luxury as the public spaces of their homes. People need space in their homes where they can let their hair down, throw magazines around and not constantly worry about being so picture perfect.

Anne always comes off as a lezzie anyway so what would you expect?

It looks exactly like the tv room a woman of Anne's generation who lives in a country setting would have. This is what tv rooms of women that age and in a country setting look like all over the Western hemisphere. I don't know why everybody's so shocked.

This could be the tv room of my mother and all of my aunts in New England, except the tv would be on the Hallmark Channel.

Her butler wears blue jeans while on duty. That pretty much sums up Gatcombe.

[quote] She probably hasn’t redecorated much since she moved in the 70s, barring reupholstering the couches and replacing the TVs. That’s just not who she is, and really shows why she would never mesh with someone like Diana.

Why do you have to say bullshit like that? You have no idea of what you are talking about.

[quote]Very few highly wealthy people could be comfortable having their private spaces set up in the same luxury as the public spaces of their homes. People need space in their homes where they can let their hair down, throw magazines around and not constantly worry about being so picture perfect.

That's not true. "Highly wealthy people" can have people in every day to make their beds, do their laundry, arrange the thrown magazines into orderly stacks, put things where they belong, and clean. They may have some space/s that are more personal, less formal, but it's not the shit show that Anne has going on.

Most people get a lot of use from a few spaces in their house and the rest of the spaces are used less frequently, seasonally, for specific and occasional purposes: guest rooms, etc. The board game Clue, introduced in 1949, for example with its 10 rooms, roughly split between everyday spaces of everyday use and occasional spaces: "kitchen, hall, ballroom, conservatory, dining room, cellar, billiard room, library, and lounge, and study."

Whether for attentiveness to appearances or hygiene or for whatever reason, even a lot of people who are not "highly wealthy" keep their houses clean and orderly and presentable. If Architectural Digest called them for a photo shoot, they would not need to postpone the shoot a month and take a leave of absence from work to clean and put the place right. Not everyone rich has a secret room piled to the rafters with old tat, and not everyone who is not rich lives in a house full of such rooms like these pigs: Anne's level of don't-give-a-fuck is taken to a rare extreme.

I look at that photo and I think dead and living mice, dead and living squirrels and cats running around everywhere. I think of a musty "odd" smell, and leaky roofs, faulty plumbing and broken tiles. I think of loose bricks, and outdated kitchen appliances, that are coated with grease and sticky with the leavings from meals eaten and forgotten months ago. I think of undrinkable, horrid tasting water from corroding pipes and bad electrical wiring ..

It would be fine, if half of the stuff in it was cleared out. Even I don't put grandma's hutch with knicknacks right where I watch TV.

This is not a room in which to be photographed, except the express purpose of conveying for PR purposes that "We're just like you."

But they're not, except in that their personal taste and daily habits correspond to those of all British people of all classes, excluding the Hyacinth Bucket's of the world, who include the late Margaret Thatcher and any nobility and wealth that has taken London digs in the last 20 years.

Don't the English call that room The Lounge?

It looks 80s, Park Slope Brownstone Brooklyn Lesbian.

Looks fine to me if a bit cluttered. It just shows they live there and don't think it necessary to declutter for the public. Nice maybe Welsh cupboard and the same problem many of us have with these new gugantic TVs.

OP, should she have put the TV over the fireplace? Gag.

I have inspected the curio cabinet in detail and have to say that I am disappointed there is not a forgotten royal dildo wobbling among the bric-a-brac. This picture would also make an excellent hidden object game!

[quote]For some reason, that pic and that room reminded me of Onslow's lounge. (Keeping Up Appearances)

Yes, this. This is a LOUNGE, as in the ugly little cramped TV room you see in every UK TV depiction of a lower-class home.

I not whore out for that. Where's the gold commode?

With all the Help, all the clutter is unacceptable and unforgivable!

R84 describes a distinct strain of upper and upper-middle-class English life, which may or may not include hard drugs, alcoholism, and high intelligence. The latter category was well-caught when Martin Amis considered the menage of Iris Murdoch and John Bayley:

'At their place even the soap is dirty. "Single shoes [and single socks] lie about the house as if deposited by a flash flood...Dried-out capless plastic pens crunch underfoot." An infestation of rats is found to be "congenial, even stimulating." Everywhere they go they have to hurdle great heaps of books, unwashed clothes, old newspapers, dusty wine bottles. The plates are stained, the glasses "smeary." The bath, so seldom used, is now unusable; the mattress is "soggy"; the sheets are never changed. And we shall draw a veil over their underwear. On one occasion a large, recently purchased meat pie "disappeared" in the kitchen. It was never found. The kitchen ate it.'

Your Royal Highness, please allow me to make your living room more enjoyable.

Given that in normal times she's out and about cutting ribbons or in London, or out and about the estate, it doesn't surprise me that her living room at Gatcombe is like that. I bet she's got a really nice reception room and formal dining room, and a cluttered office, given the amount of work she does.

R94 Brilliant that description from Amis. Also calls to mind Uncle Monty's places in London and countryside in Withnail and I.

Can’t they afford a cleaning lady?

Anne within the next decade.

I wonder how old those pictures are?

I'm sure Anne has food stains on her clothes now. Every aristo elder Brit I've met lives in clutter like this and has food stains on his ties.

Does Cunt Camilla live like this as well?

It looks like she fired the cleaning staff. why is she sharing her couch with a bunch of junk? I'll say this, they don't use that room often at all because it looks like they just pushed shit to the side of the couch for the game or likely a few minutes of the game for the photo.

I'm disappointed. I didn't expect much but I expected more than that.

Looks relaxing. When you are Princess Royal you don’t have to impress anyone. I bet her close friends have rooms just like hers.

The upholstery is so barfy. Looks like cream of tomahhhto soup with a bunch of giant rotting flowers tossed in. Surely whoever picked the fabric was sight challenged.

[quote]I am disappointed there is not a forgotten royal dildo wobbling among the bric-a-brac.

You'll find that in Edward's living room.

Good lord, you prisspot femmes are something else. You make it out like the room is like what you'd see on Hoarders with your pearl-clutching. It's not really messy or unkempt, it just looks rather plain and mismatched but that's what women in their 70s who live in the country do with their houses.

I could recreate this room in 20 mins with a bunch of krap from the thrift shop up the road. And it would also snell of must and urine, just like the original.

All that’s missing is the rattan...

They nibbled it, R109.

Is that urine I smell

What do you expect from these people? They're interested in dogs, horses, and...

Oh, yes, horses.

Talk to them about breeding horses and dogs. Polo too, then show jumping, And then Olympic show jumping.

Then hear them (esp. her) mumble a response

Have you met our neighbours Urine and Hazel Overbite? The are up the road at Sandfarlglostlebury Estate. Their hoggerels took top prize at the Pittypat shearing competition last May.

r94, I will reply to Martin Amis' quote that (a) Iris Murdoch was a genius and (b) she was Irish.

I was on one of those day tours going through the Cotswold, Bath and Windsor about 10 years ago and our Tour guide on the bus talked about the authenticity of the Cotswold cottages, and we were remarking on those quaint grass roofs all woven and thatched, and he told us how they were usually infested with mice and other vermin and this was simply accepted fact. I think in general, the Brits just have a different attitude about stuff.

As for Anne and the rest of the landed gentry, maybe we're looking at these vast historic estates and thinking possibly opulence, but the country folk look at them as working farms. They're all about the horses and the sheep in those parts and Charles has crops at Highgrove and they sell that shit. You can buy wool scarves that come from the farms around Stonehenge not far from where Charles' place is. The guide told us he had land out there and raised shit. It is a part of their heritage and their culture.

She had us fooled.

Could you stop calling it a "space heater"? Space has nothing to do with it. It's an electric fire, and I don't normally light both bars despite the photos.

Which of those two individuals seated on the sofa is Princess Anne?

They're trying to prove that they live "just like you and me." I'm sure that room was gone over with a fine-tooth comb before that photo was taken. I'd be comfortable about putting out that photo if, in reality, I had all my financial needs taken care of.

Yes, I believe Anne is relatively frugal, but don't buy into this bullshit that she's living a lifestyle remotely similar to the average person.

[quote] don't buy into this bullshit that she's living a lifestyle remotely similar to the average person.

She is not pretending she lives the average lifestyle. She lives at Gatcombe Park FFS. The whole house SCREAMS privilege. Before R.A. Butler it belonged to the Courtaulds (Butler's parents-in-law).

Wayne & Garth & Anne’s basement

The Courtaulds were textile moguls. Gatcombe Park was probably very nouveau in the past. No nouveau now that the BRF have moved in with all their old furniture.

They appear to be avid collectors of "things". They've got to put all that crap somewhere if they want to see and enjoy it daily.

BRF = world's largest consignment store.

OP, does your house resemble hers? I'm sure not. You would never go so downmarket.

That long-arm wing b/s has to be the kitchen right, like at Mount Vernon?

Anne generally looks frumpy no matter what the occasion and she is known to wear things she has had since the 1970s. Why would you expect her home décor to be any different?

🤓 Call Tanya Memme and Roger Hazard ASAP !

That place is a dump !

Reminds me of my Gran's lounge.

You know, if it was staged for the purpose of endearing them to the public, you can just imagine two gay stylists pissing themselves laughing as they chose items and arranged the room.

There's got to be a French and Saunders sketch that applies here.

[quote] That long-arm wing b/s has to be the kitchen right

Maybe they were, but I I've never heard that summer kitchens were ever a necessity in England. In the southern US they would have a second kitchen built away from the house because it was so hot during the summer months they didn't want to make the house even hotter by firing up a wood burning stove in the main kitchen. Plus it was easier for fires to start in the kitchens during the hot summer months so having a kitchen separated from the house helped prevent the main house from catching fire.

My grandfather's ancestral home in Georgia had a summer kitchen connected to the main house by an elevated walkway with sections that could be removed quickly in case the summer kitchen caught fire. Unfortunately that didn't help matters after he died and one of my uncles bought the place from the estate and the whole place was burned to the ground by an arsonist during renovations.

Anne dresses like Miss Jane Hathaway. I call it the business lesbian look.

R126 - The long arm is a greenhouse.

Was Washington the one who grew marijuana? I remember hearing that one of the Founding Fathers grew it.

Hark at R134, as if she's a regular at the Park.

I thought the long arm of the house was a conservatory.

Sadly most of the stately homes in Britain are homages to dry rot. Thousands of them sit empty and rotting. Other than as tourist attractions they are more often than not unable to be used as private homes as the operating costs are astronomical.

My meemaw's state-funded nursing home room looked nicer than that!

I knew Prince Phillip moved full time to Sandringham when he retired from actively working for the Monarchy. I thought he was living in the big house, but I read recently that he lives in a cottage on the property. I assume when QEII comes on the weekends they may take up residence in the main house, but who knows, maybe they both like the cottage.

R140 As far as I know, the Queen and Prince Philip have lived together once again for the past year or so, due to Covid. He and the Queen would both have been in isolation (with the Queen's public engagements cancelled) in any case, due to their advanced ages and so a decision was made that they should self-isolate together. I think they have mostly been at Windsor.

Phil was living at the cottage with his latest squeeze, Countess someone or other.

R142 If, in his 100th year, he really does have a squeeze worthy of the name, then I think he is more to be praised than censured.

Onslow might as well be sitting there.

The squeeze was, I believe, his cousin-in-law Penelope Knatchbull (b. 1953). It was all discussed at length on another DL thread.

OMG, did you Photoshop that, R144?

Fantastic! - R39

R146, nah it came from the Hyacinth Bouquet Facebook account.

How funny, I have never before seen that FB account. I hope Pss Anne gets to see the pic. They all look like they're having a real visit. Onslow fits right in! - R39

Is Onslow dead?

As always, a bunch of American gay men trying to impose their American gay view of how the English upper classes should act, dress and decorate. And always getting it wrong.

The English higher orders practically invented shabby chic. Shiny and new is very nouveau riche, in their eyes. They have no need to decorate to impress - the public rooms in their houses were set up for that, a couple of centuries ago.

And for an American reference - Jackie Onassis’s Park Avenue apartment never changed - when fabrics, upholstery or paint wore out she would have them recovered, reupholstered or repainted in exactly the same as the original. Because to do otherwise would be incredibly vulgar, in her world. And I know that she was the ultimate courtesan, but this was the world to which she aspired, being not quite born into it as the penniless stepdaughter of a very wealthy man.

[quote]Because to do otherwise would be incredibly vulgar, in her world.

That world is pretty much gone now. Wealthy people who are the descendants of the Old Money crowd regularly redecorate and use modern tastes in furnishings. Downtown Manhattan is full of people from blue blood families whose apartments are indistinguishable from other wealthy people these days.

Jackie on Assistance is back, thank God. I still subscribe the the Shabby Chic (Hermes).

R150 has it right. In America, Britain, and most anywhere else there's a difference between old money and new money. Old money still has their money because they know the value of a dollar. They know how to make it, but more importantly they know how to keep it. They take comfort in having things that have been passed down through the family. The newest and shiniest of most things does not interest them. Renovating pieces (when possible) is preferred because in many cases those pieces are of far superior quality than the same type of things made these days. A threadbare piece of furniture is kept in use because every worn spot has a history that gives them comfort. They know the day will come when it will be time to renovate that piece, but they will hold off as long as possible. They buy something new when buying something new is the best solution.

New money, on the other hand, too often believes they must spend spend spend to show the world (and themselves) how rich they are. If it isn't shiny and expensive, it can't be the best. They measure their self worth by "stuff" they own. Everything they have must be bigger and flashier than what everyone else has. And in far too many cases they spend themselves right into the poor house trying to put on airs.

The "Shabby Chic" that posters refer to is not living balls deep in dog hair and a half century of Horse & Hound magazines and trinkets awarded from show shows. That's just shabby, or worse. The chic part has to be something other than insouciance.

Shabby chic is a splendid house with impressive architecture and beautiful spaces that somehow retains its quality even as it rots away in places. The horsehair is coming out of much of the upholstery. Don't even think of touching that impossibly tattered silk curtains with passementerie, they will crumble to dust just by a harsh glance and that stuff is worse than asbestos. "Those old things? They're fine. One of my mother's people bought those on a trip to Paris in the 1830s, and paid very good money for them. We used to keep a drawer full of the big pieces of silk that fell off but the drawer filled up and now I can't remember which piece of furniture it was where I assume they still are."

Shabby chic is having too many drawing rooms and closing one off for 50 weeks of the year and then opening it up as The Christmas Room with its Miss Havisham tree, pre-decorated and never changed, not even the dust, since 1931. Shabby chic is closing off the room where mother died and leaving it closed for 130 years because the family didn't need it and, well, it was where mother died. Most of the wallpaper fell off in the 19th Century but the furniture is under dust covers and "still good," more or less. Shabby chic is having a spectacular house that everyone wants to see, and it doesn't disappoint because the main rooms are filled with amazing furniture and art moved into the the house when it was new, and that one upstairs bathroom with the dime store "tooth cup" and shelves full of ancient medicinals and bandage kits and a rubber tub used as a foot bath. Shabby chic is every room in the house painted the same turquoise blue, walls and ceilings, bought cheaply a hundred years ago and now peeling to reveal layers of salmon and hideous floral wallpapers from centuries past, and a horrible little excuse for a kitchen, but hung on the walls are paintings reproduced in surveys of art, paintings that have traveled the world for loan exhibits. Shabby chic is a eccentric who has superb things or great value next to silly plastic shit brought home as amusement, a singular, weird vision made respectable by the quality of the better things.

In any case there some element of style or elegant setting or something more that that one entablature over Anne's door - the absolute only thing good that's visible in the room.

[quote]blue blood families whose apartments are indistinguishable from other wealthy people these days.

There are always pieces of better quality in the former, having been crafted decades or centuries earlier and handed down with stories.

R149, the actor, Geoffrey Hughes, died a few years ago.

And there I thought Shabby Chic was chalk painting old furniture you bought at the flea market.

Wow.

First: I absolutely love the word "horsey" for an adjective.

Second: The BRF seems to have a penchant for ghastly sofas.

[quote]In America, Britain, and most anywhere else there's a difference between old money and new money.

Calls to mind Gore Vidal's remark: "There's something to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all." On which basis, I'd give a lot to hear Vidal on Trump.

Perhaps Gore grudgingly admired the grand way Jackie On Assistance finessed her way to an impressive version of old-money style. Gore's place in Italy always seemed to convey shabby-grand, intellectual branch.

Whatever the decor, sounds like Harry and Meghan won't be invited back.

[quote]R157 And there I thought Shabby Chic was chalk painting old furniture you bought at the flea market. Wow.

Shabby Chic is my unwaxed mussy... [italic]now on sale!

WHAT is that fuckin’ atrocity stashed under the end table?

Is it a face sculpture? Is it a replica of that aged clay bust of spree killer John List from [italic]America’s Most Wanted[/italic] ? ! ?

Looks great to me! I like Royal style myself!

Some of the comments here are hilarious. She isn’t pretending to be anyone she is not. She is a privileged aristocrat who does have to care what anyone thinks of her home. The truth is, 99% of people living in mansions, castles and palaces across the globe would consider it a compliment to be invited into that sitting room, whereas Anne would receive their invitations much less enthusiastically.

[italic]BUT WHAT IS THAT GODAWFUL SCULPTURE UNDER THE TABLE ? ! ?[/italic]

Or is it (hopefully) a jug of industrial strength disinfectant ? !

Looks lived in, unpretentious, and comfortable.

Clear, defined spaces...i.e. what used to be referred to as rooms. You certainly would never find "open concept" at Gatcombe Park, while in Santa Barbara...

It's Montecito!

It looks homey and comfortable, exactly what somebody in their 70s who lives in the country would have.

[bold]what’s with the fucking head under the table?

People who live flashy are people who more often than not feel they have something to prove. Anne and her husband have absolutely nothing to prove to anyone. They're rich beyond belief and they don't give a rat's ass about looking like nouveau riche trash.

So they have to look like tackyass hoarders?

Okay.

That's not a hoarder room at all. Have you ever seen an actual hoarder?

That's a room occupied by people who are avid readers. They like to keep their reading materials close by. I imagine that TV is only turned on if there is a particular program they wish to watch. Otherwise they're in there reading.

In Britain only the middle class clean their homes.

Old people usually like old things. It gives us comfort to see & use things we've had for decades. Those who can, usually make sure furniture pieces are maintained especially if it's a well built piece from many years ago when they actually made furniture to last. We don't like the cheaply built crap they make today, even if it looks good at first sight. Personally, if a sofa is light enough for me to move it around in a room on my own, I don't want it. The sofas (a huge sectional separated into two sofas) in my den are almost 40 years old and will be on their 4th cover sometime in 2022.

That said, that side chair looks quite threadbare. Look at those arms. It looks like the color on the fabric has been almost worn away. And it may be my eyes, but it appears to be missing a seat cushion. They should have arm covers made for all their furniture pieces with fabric covered arms. Much cheaper to replace arm covers than have a whole chair recovered.

The recycled TV cabinet is hideous and needs to be dumped.

I trust there's one decent room in the house. That's beyond aristocratic crammed... it's just dumpy.

The photoshopped insertion of Onslow is hilarious. I hope Pss Anne has seen it.

R144 is right: Onslow would fit right in. They're watching soccer on a flat screen sitting on top of their old TV cabinet (the doors have been taken off) which is still used to house their VCR.

The thing everyone keeps calling a "head" under the table looks like a bag that's holding something. There's a pair of scissors nearby, maybe it's a tote to hold knitting or something.

[quote] There's a pair of scissors nearby, maybe it's a tote to hold knitting or something.

It contains Tim's crochet, an old nautical tradition.