Do you live in a bohemian household?

[mousiemousie]

What are its characteristics if so?

[fennel]

I'm ticking most of these boxes, except for grubby bra straps which i do not have. but we aren't smart enough to be boho. cluttered eco-wannabes rather than arty really.

[lionheart]

This is a good way to tell:

You should not have locks on any of the doors in your house, especially the toilets/bathrooms,

if you really aspire to Bohemianism because privacy and shame are bourgeois concepts.

[LadyMacbeth]

We smoke roll ups and drinks lots of red wine.

We have a big dining table made of railway sleepers.

We live in a half delapidated house with render falling all over the flagstones.

We rarely use the ch prefering instead to light log fires.

We don't have double glazing.

My children wee in the garden.

My hair is long with half grown out highlights and split ends.

We grow our own vegetables and keep chickens.

However... we're not terribly intellectual. I'm a bit of a tidy freak. And we have beige carpets. And we buy the Sunday Times. Damnit I was doing so well there!

[hatwoman]

hmmm interesting. what's most interesting is that the very word conjures up visual images. (see We all Join In and Cocatoos by Quentin Crisp) and yet its a concept where values and attitudes are surely key. For me a Bohemian -as well asthe pther stuff people have mentioned - actually has some taste - so the arrangement and choise of nick nacks and art, plus the lax attititude to cleaning, plus the happy accident of the only paint left being Farrow and Ball Dragon's Blood Red which goes beautifully with the Moroccan wall hangings actually ends up looking good.

What I'm warming up to is that DH and I are failed Bohemians. we don't like shopping - we spend as little time as possible choosing stuff for the house - the easiest route to buying furniture or other stuff for the house is John Lewis - 5 mins walk from our house - so if we need something that's what we get. the result is probably reasonably awful and very boring - but spending all our weekend trawling antique shops or art galleries for something that looks good is not really very boho is it? We have tonnes of books on a huge range of subjects and we do like drinking wine and chewing the philosophical-political phat. But we have no style or taste and can't be bothered to cultivate it.

Interesting point someone made about bankers - dh (banker) is much better at our quasi-failed qusi-boho than I am - cares much less about the trivia and trappings of life. I don;t care much about them, but he defintely cares less. and reads more.

[hatwoman]

oooh lion herat - we have locks but we never use them. in fact rarely shut the door.

[lionheart]

That's promising hatwoman. Now, do you give big parties and extend your 'open door' policy to all comers?

[hatwoman]

I've just been thinking about this some more - thinking about the relationship of things in your house to your values etc. we have 2 tables - kitchen and dining. Both are very important to us. dds eat all their meals at the kitchen table and at weekends we all est together at the kitchen table (lunch and dinner). the dining table gets used at reasonably regular dinner parties - which general involve a respectable level of wine and other stimulants and a large amount of talking bollocks. both tables were given to us - one by ageing friends of fil and one by dh's great aunt. we don;t like them but they do their job and we really can't be bothered to spend a staurday browsing round JL for new ones. so far so boho? BUT the people who generously gave these tables to us didn't have the good grace to give us battered chunky wooden victorian type tables. the dining table is 1950s teak g-plan (one careful owner) and the kitchen table is the most hideous 1980s white-tiled thing with blue flowers on. how come bohos get to inherit/happen upon tables that look good?

[joelallie]

Bohemian defines way of life not lifestyle. Am fairly sure that you can't be in a monogamous relationship and be Bohemian...and I have a feeling that financially things have to be pretty wobbly - so that's a 25 yr mortgage out then.

We have a cheerfully messy household with loads of books, rather tatty furniture (not through choice but thanks to kids) and a somewhat casual approach to routines and timetables. But that's not Bohemian just lazy I think.

I always think of the Bloomsbury group as being Bohemian in a somewhat uptight English way.

[hatwoman]

I think my sil might be bohemian. she lives on a boat. she would fill it with books if there was space, so she just hoards them at my fils when she'd read them. she's in her 30s. divorced. has just spent 2 years working in Ethiopia. teaches - at the moment on an ad hoc basis. is a qualified counsellor. but she likes Ghost clothes and I think she has a pension.

[hatwoman]

and she's not really much of a leftie. she's a bit tired of that...

[PeachyClair]

Been thinking about this, the answer is yes. Live in a little terraced white cottage, veg box things, unkempt hair and second hand clothes mixed with violin lessons and lectures on correct grammar..... absolutely us, really. rather like it that way too.

[PeachyClair]

Joelalie, course you can be mongomaous and BoHo LOL! Well, the fake anglicised version anyhow. Of course it is preferable also to call call at least one of your kids Fennel or something herby too.

[Bucketsofburntdinosaurs]

Ah Hatwoman, I think you've put your finger on it there re furniture quality/age. Let's add the rule then that to be Bohemian you must have upper class / wealthy ancestors who have palmed off their 'junk' to the poorer hopeless arty members of the family. I think you also need an elderly spinister aunt to leave you her Victoriana.
My kitchen table is made of reclaimed floorboards ala Ladymacbeth's sleepers.

[joelallie]

peachy - that's just hippydom! Sorry, but to be Bohemian you need to be in an open marriage at least, be an actor/singer/musician/struggling artist and preferably die of TB ..Ok scratch that last bit... I don't think modern life allows true bohemianism I'm afraid. We're all too sensible. And I can't help thinking that true Bohemianism is urban not rural.

[NomDePlume]

Nope, not remotely bohemian in any sense.

[Gem13]

My mother often says that where we moved to when I was 10 was 'very bohemian'. Now if she thinks something is bohemian she says it's 'very name-of-town'.

Compared to our family, our new friends had children who called other people's parents by their first names, the women worked or studied (and didn't necessarily get the children's tea - the dads did ), didn't go to church or have sunday lunch, drove old dilapidated cars, always had various friends and/or children in the house, the women might swear, had haphazard arrangements to picking up children, allowing sleepovers, were members of political/peace organisations, had a lack of knowledge about tv but great knowledge of fiction, politics, history, etc.

As a teenager I thought it was great. Some of them I've managed to incorporate into my life! I do like CSI though...

[Gem13]

Oh, forgot to add - the parents had all gone to private/boarding school and there was (or had been) money lurking. All the children were in state school though sometimes in hand-me-down clothes or trendy new clothes bought by grandparents.

[CountessDracula]

Do you have to wear patchouli? Or is that just scummy hippies?

It makes me puke, the smell of patchouli

Well I am a raving alkie and have been know to indulge in the odd recreational narcotic. However my personal hygeine is good and my house is not a shit hole.

[hatwoman]

but bucket (in the voice of annoyed child) IT'S NOT FAIR. our house looks half-arsed trendy (just had new bathroom) half-arsed eclectic (can't even do eclectic right); half-arsed tidy (constant battle between not really liking untidiness, knowing it's not important and finding more interesting things to do) and not remotely boho. I know this thread isn't meant to be about how your house looks but it's very often the basis on which people categorise you.

[Bucketsofburntdinosaurs]

Gem13 was it Glasto or Totnes?

[joelallie]

Reading some of these descriptions I think I know one truly Bohemian household. On the monogamy front, they are married but 4th marriage on both sides. It's a lovely house to spend time in but also quite nice to come home to a bit more calm and order

[PeachyClair]

Patchouli is dirty hippies, and no, Joelalie I am NOT one of them LOL (but going to Glastonbury carnival on Saturday, so can gen up a bit LOL)

I think the key cut off between boho and dirty hippy is dog on a string, or did I spend too long working in Street?

[joelallie]

peachy !! Dog on string is crusty not hippy!!

[PeachyClair]

'Tis dirty Ippy.

That, stinking of patchouli and insisting on sitting nect to me on buses

Now Crusty- that's an old person, that is LOL!

[joelallie]

No that's a wrinklie - crusty's are the bottle of cider, sticky hair, dog on a string types.