Table set for tea
Audio transcript of Dining Table & Chairs
This dining table is covered with a highly patterned cloth and place mats are set at each of the chairs. There is a sense or order and precision in the layout of furniture, the crispness of the patterns, the quality of the upholstery, the sense of space…and yet somehow at the same time it seems so overcrowded. This tablecloth looks intricate and pretty in its patterning and yet on closer inspection I can see bowls and trinkets spread untidly across a window sill.
I’ve just noticed that each of these four, wooden dining chairs are upholstered in a differently patterned fabric. The one next to me appears to centre on a metal fork and bowl, encrusted with old tomato sauce. Lovely! And this more orangey one that I’m sitting on features a cluttered ensemble including a tin of chocolates, a used lolly stick and food wrappers! I’m noticing more now. There is one covered in paneer and turmeric-stained washing-up froth and another that’s sporting empty Time Out wrappers. If you sit on it you’ll miss it!
Dining area wallpaper
Wallpaper audio transcript
A stunning turmeric-yellow, mottled with areas of orange and brown. Bands of white interspersed with silver diamond shapes run horizontally, from one side to the other. Between these bands is a repeating motif not unlike a stretched butterfly; its wings splayed open. Its body is a pale shadowy impression left on the vivid yellow of the paper, but almost jumping out at us in their dark contrast, are the edges of the wings; each wing-tip marked by three large, round, black dots. Let’s go over and take a closer look. Hmm, a glossy sheen and smooth to touch. Ah, I see the detail more closely now. Those orange and brown areas really come alive. What seemed like flecks from further back, I can now see, are very clearly, tiny bubbles. In fact, the whole wall is covered in them. It’s froth. Yellow froth! The whole wall is covered in teeny tiny yellow bubbles. And this butterfly motif, I can see now what it is; plug holes! Each side of the butterfly is a pair of plugholes, half-submerged in the froth and repeated in a mirror image. How wonderful! It’s like unlocking a puzzle! But now that I know what it is, and granted it is stunning, I am left wondering… just who would want their unwashed kitchen on such public display?
