Field of the Cloth of Gold...

Possibly not as grand as the 1520 summit between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France (shown above), known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold (as Henry had spent millions of pounds in today's equivalent of fine gold cloth for marquees and tents and clothing), but none the less this is what I was reminded of when we were unraveling our precious wall upholstery in the middle of a farm paddock to ensure the carpet we have chosen worked with the wall fabric...

Above and Below: The gold silk for the drawing room, with "Golden Buff" coloured carpet...

Alas, the previous carpet we chose is no longer in production, so we decided we would lay more marble down in the common areas instead, but we still needed carpet for the private areas such as drawing rooms and bedrooms. We wanted to choose a colour that we could use in multiple spaces. The golden buff didn't really work with the gold silk (too much brown and gold in one room)...

But it did work with the curtains for the Brideshead suite...

And surprisingly worked very well with the Berry and Gold velvet damask for the Chatsworth suite...

Much better than the originally chosen red carpets would have...

It also worked well with the two-tone gold velvet damask for the master suite...

Other choices we had entertained were Honey (top left), Delta Sunset (top right), and Casting Rod (bottom right). These are shown below on a based unpolished marble.... 

We decided we needed a lighter colour to go with the gold, but one which was not too white (it had to look warm, not cold). We settled on "Blondie" ...

Below: Blondie (centre), Pearl (left - too white) and Golden Buff (right - too dark)...

A Goldielocks moment, this colour was "just right"...

Upholstered Walls...

Not having been able to find a suitable damask wallpaper that we liked for either the dining room or the gold drawing room, (and following some encouragement from Kirk), we looked into finding some silk with which to upholster the walls of these rooms.

And we have found some. There are some lovely silk damasks made by Italian fashion house and furniture textilier Etro.

Etro is more known for its fashion...

 It has some pretty out there looks, and is particularly known for its take on paisley.

 But they also make a range of upholstery textiles.

Here are the damasks we have chosen for three rooms. First the yellow damask for the gold drawing room...

Secondly a green damask for the Billiard Room.

Finally the red damask for the formal dining room.

The colours for the red and green damask are slightly darker than shown in these photos, but are just as vibrant. The photo of the yellow damask is pretty close to actual colour.

Now we just have research which is the best way to upholster a solid masonry wall!