Friday I’m in love… with this space

I discovered love made me do it…
while I was on my wedding-planning-athon
(which I’ll start blogging about soonish).

As welovepictures, Travis and Maike, who like in Cape Town,
take some gorgeous, happy, sunshiney, pretty wedding pics.

But what made me really fall in love with them
is their apartment… For the first time in ages,
I have total and utter flat envy!

Um… that blue lamp, that chair… that boat-shaped mirror!

Oh… yeah… that globe, those signs, that chest of drawers…

Love… that prints and books mini shelves combo!

Home… this sign is what made my heart flip over.

Home is wherever I am with you
by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
was the song we signed our marriage certificate too.
(Like I said more on that later!)

I wonder if I can do a flat swap for a bit!

Check out the rest of their gorgeous place
and lovely blog here …

******

Have a lovely weekend everyone.
I’m off to two weddings.
So it’s a weekend of love!

A mini confession… and a small surprise

Here’s a confession…

Over the years, we have killed a lot of plants.

Despite our best attempts to look after then they always die.

ALWAYS.

(Yes, we did our own wedding flowers
but they didn’t have to live for that long.)

So recently we decided that we were giving up.

And we went out and bought some fake plants instead.

I can’t under water them. I can’t over water them.
Heck, I can’t water them at all.

They won’t die of a horrible disease, like Planty Number 2 did.

(Does anyone else give their plants stupid names?)

But we thought they were a bit plain…

Should we decorate the pots?

Or make some fabric flowers to brighten them up?

Maybe. Eventually.

But then we hit upon a better plan…

Yes, we now have our own sentry… watching out for us.

It cannot be underestimated how
much this makes me laugh.

*****

This might be one of the reasons
my little cousins call me
a ‘pretend grown-up’.

A bit of car boot loot…

A typical weekend conversation…

Me: How about we go car booting on Sunday morning?

Him: Ok. What time do you want to go?

Me: Super early… so we can get the best stuff.

Him (knowing my inability to get up in the mornings): Ok.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation before 9am…

Him: It’s ten to nine. Do you want to get up?

Me: Zzzzzzzzz.

Him: Zoë? Hello?

Me: Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Him: Ok, I’ll give you another 30 mins.

*

A typical Sunday morning conversation around 10.30am…

Me: Why didn’t you wake me up?

Him: Um, I did try.

*****

Some days however we manage to drag ourselves (ok, me)
out of bed and head to a car boot sale. And on these days
we very rarely come away empty-handed.

Here’s a few of my favourite recent finds…

A 60s ‘Topic’ teapot by J & G Meakin.

A bit of a departure this one for me…
usually all my china is gold-edged
delicate little vintage numbers but I just
love the colours and that pattern.

This set came with a bit of a car boot sale reminder though…
always check what you’re buying.

As well as the cups, saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug,
there were also some cute side plates. The lady that was selling them
was super nice so I didn’t bother to check them all…

And yup some of the side plates were broken.
Still a bargain but disappointing all the same.

Got ourselves some more glass jelly moulds…
one of these days we do need to try
out our posh jelly recipe book.

Some pretty measuring tape…

Though post-wedding I don’t give a flying fig
about my waist measurements etc.
(As a consequence I think I lost weight
just because that’s how my world works!)

A big cosy yellow blanket…

This one was a charity shop find rather than booting
and from the label it appears to be rather old… but in perfect nick.

It seemed rude not to buy it.

A polaroid camera for 20p.

I love this camera. I love the stripe.

I love the shape. I love that cheerful big red button.

It just makes me feel happy and that’s definitely worth 20p!

It also looks rather good on my little roll-top desk display.

(We think we hate our flip clock though. No-one warns you
that these make a god awful noise when they flip round.
Loudest, most heart-attack-inducing noise ever!)

And of course after a hard (ok not that hard) morning
car-booting, it is essential that you treat yourself to ice-cream.

Irn-bru and tablet ice-cream of course.

Well, you need a reward for getting up early on a Sunday.

(Look at the concentration!
That’s how good tablet ice-cream is!)

*****

Anyone else found any lovely booting
or charity shop finds recently?

*****

P.S. For all those asking, the ice-cream came from
the ice-cream van opposite the John Hope Gateway
at Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens. Thoroughly recommend!

Friday I’m in love… with prints (and peeved pets)

Remember my plan to try and create a display wall?

Well, one (almost) sunny Sunday in March, I started one…

A work in progress sure but it gives us something
nice to see when we open the front door.

It got this reaction from the fox-owl-cat…

To be fair, this look probably translates as ‘stop hammering, damn you’.

On a little roll, I then put up the other half’s favourite Mr Cheapskate print.

Yup, I’m attempting the bulldog clip thing again!

Remember how the fox-owl-cat used to like
to hide under the bed when we were doing diy?

Well, grey-ninja-cat seems to adopted the practice too.

It’s a hard life being a cat right?

I also finally framed my gorgeous birthday screenprint from my friend Jill.

(She based it on a phrase I once said to her… it almost like I’m famous!)

I thought it worked pretty well with our Japan print…
(which unfortunately became pretty relevant later on in March).

I absolutely adore the record detail… she has
superior screenprinting skills to me!

I also reintroduced our ‘rules are for fools’ print back into the flat.
(It had been ‘dressing’ our old flat while it was on the market.)

The chair in the shot is our future mustard velvet chair.
Can’t wait for us to finish it… when we have the time!

I also pondered where to put my lovely bear print from The Seventy Tree…

And did a bit of honeymoon planning on our future map.

Apparently these quieter activities were much more satisfactory…

Maybe I’ll get round to finishing the wall display one day!

***

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

We’re having a bit of a wedding weekend, making our invites,
testing our wines, and writing our vows. Oh yes and a bit snoozing,
chilling, relaxing and watching 30 Rock. Bring it on!

 

Tea cosy (and cupcake) love

Recipe for a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast…

1. My new Robin and Mould tea cosy. Isn’t he pretty?

2. Daffodils (my favourites) bought for me by the other half.

3. The pretty plate I found at Saturday’s flea market.
How cute is the cross-stitch detail?

4. A rather delectable lemon meringue cupcake.

5. A too good to share (but I did because I’m nice) chocolate orange cupcake.

6. Some green tea. (Even if I do love Kusmi’s packaging more than the tea.)

7. My favourite teapot… and it holds a proper amount of tea.
(I always feel cheated if a pot holds less than three cups.)

8a. A nice teacup or two.

8b. Well, a nice cup for me and a more
macho coffee cup for the other half.

Put it all together and you have a very happy Sunday morning indeed…

… especially when I discovered just how warm my new cosy keeps my tea.

I am truly a tea cosy convert!

*****

Have a lovely Monday everyone xx

You’ve been framed…

First, some good news: we sold our old flat.
Which is such a relief I can’t tell you.

But it has caused a slight problem* as…

I now have all my prints and art from both flats.

So this weekend, inspired by the following gorgeous displays,
I’m going to have a go at grouping some of our pictures.

(If you hear a loud yelp in Edinburgh,
it’ll be me hitting my thumb with the hammer.)

How gorgeous is this display? I love that isak print!

Amazing colours… in this pop-up shop.

Love the idea of using trouser hangers.

I’ve tried this with bulldog clips in the past but we obviously
have the heating on too much… as the prints started to curl up!

I also adore this clipboard idea…

Love this staircase display…

Yes, I have spotted it has maps and globes in it!

And a super cute staircase wall display by the seventy tree.

I love the blackboard speech bubble. So clever.

I was extremely lucky to recently win one of her
gorgeous bear prints – another one for the display!

Ok, now where did I put that hammer…

****

1. nicoletter via pinterest 2. Kate Spade via life style etc
3. apartment therapy via pinterest 4. smile and wave
5. design sponge 6. seventy tree 7. seventy tree shop

 

*when I said ‘slight problem’
I may have been exaggerating!

Friday I’m in love… with pretty stairs

I have never wanted to live in a house. I like flats.
I like being up high (I think that’s my inner cat.)

But every time I see a set of beautifully painted stairs,
it really makes me wish we had some. (Yes I am strange!)

Always loved these stairs decorated by Helen from the Living Etc forum.
(I actually bought a version of this Orla Kiely wallpaper for our bedroom.)

Love the different patterns… oh yes, and they’re yellow!

Simpler than the first ‘wordy’ one… I think the steps
should also say ‘come on down’ for the way back down.

Love this… I can’t imagine how long it would take to paint!

Perhaps I should paint my building’s communal stairs instead?
Just start graduating the colour from my yellow door down!

Happy Friday everyone! xx

****

1. the cherry blossom girl 2. design sponge 3. painter girl
4. say yes to hoboken 5. the haystack needle 6. the townhouse

For a sleepy Sunday…

It’s Sunday. The alleged day of rest… and I’m blinking tired.

Right now I’m blaming the workmen who have been hammering, drilling and sawing since 9am this morning. They’re renovating a flat two below mine and the noise is unreal.

They’ve been at for 3 weeks solid. Every day. Monday to Sunday.

Some days they like to start at 8am just for kicks.

So inspired by those ‘lovely’ dusty fellows below,
here’s some things for a sleepy Sunday:

Actually a subliminal print for babies… but it’s working on me too!

I would love this cute tache jumper to snooze in…

I probably don’t need to explain this photo do I?

This embroidered money pillow would be good to snuggle into.

Isn’t this bunting perfect for a sleepy day?

Maybe it’s time for a cat nap… if I can find some ear plugs!

Our magazine interiors shoot…

A few weeks ago myself, the OH and our grey ninja cat had a rather odd morning. A lovely reporter and a very nice photographer came round to our old flat and asked us lots of questions and took lots of pictures.

(The fox-owl-cat stayed at home as she gets scared of strangers and would have just hid under the duvet the whole time!)

I’d been a bit nervous about it but the reporter Fiona was so amiable that chatting away to her about our renovations was great fun… the OH even compared it to free therapy!

Then last weekend the OH got up early to go and get the Scotland on Sunday… while I, still in my pjs, did some pacing in the flat.

But I needn’t have worried, the feature is lovely, the pictures are great (even if I am smirking in them!) and as the OH pointed out it will be a very nice thing to keep for when we’re older. He’s imagining us both in our Parker Knolls with our big adventure book I think (the film ‘UP’ might have had a lasting effect on him!).

So if you fancy reading the interview, just click here to download the pdf.

Hope you all like it x

Day 32 of kitchen building…

On the 17th of July, two bright-eyed , bushy-tailed shiny little souls started building a kitchen.

Like all adventurers setting off on a voyage of discovery, they were nervous but hopeful.

Little did they realise that a month from that fateful date they still wouldn’t be finished. This is their story…

Ok, so that’s a tad dramatic… but a month! It’s been a month already? Oh bugger!

I guess we’ve made lots of progress for people who’ve been fitting this in around work, a holiday, more work, getting another flat ready for selling and whatever else we’e been up.

First of all, we’ve made and put up all the cabinets. We’ve installed (with a bit of help from an electrician friend) the oven and induction hob. We have lights were there were none before. There’s new plugs, a new extractor fan, a new fridge and a new freezer. And a heck of a lot of dust!

(This is our new oven… I like how he looks like he’s smiling. But I like that he cooks our food even more!)

BUT… the worktop isn’t arriving until the middle of September so we can’t put the flooring down until after then. Bummer.

And we’ve had to enlist help building our kitchen island. We were pretty confident we could build this ourselves… until we realised that as a kitchen island is a non-standard thing, you don’t get any instructions for it. At all. Ikea just give you some huge lengths of end panels and that’s it. Try as we might we’ve not been able to make sense of how those end panels are meant to translate into an island. So we’ve got a joiner round to quote for it but he can’t do the work until 2 weeks from now. Drat.

There’s also a 30cm wide space on one side that we can’t decide what to do with. Ikea don’t have a wall cabinet in that size with our door. We had thought of getting a corner type shelf thing but went off the idea.

So any suggestions for what to do with the space would be gratefully received. I’ve been thinking of using it for something statementy but I’ve no idea what yet.

Other things we haven’t decided what to do with yet include our Superman splashback that we had for the sink… He’s about 120cm wide but the wall space on the sink side is now 210cm so he doesn’t quite work anymore – but we’ve got used to him moodily staring at our dirty dishes so if we can figure out a way to keep him, we will.

However there have been some rather joyful discoveries of having a proper kitchen (or at least proper kitchen cabinets) for the first time in nearly 2 years… I now have a little drawer just for my tea!

Yes, it’s a bit indulgent but by god I do love my tea! It’s also been great to put all our things on shelves again. Strange how something so simple can feel like such a huge step! The heart mugs are ones the OH made me as a present back in 2004, while the happy rainbow cup was one I found for him in a charity shop. (Yes, his real name isn’t actually OH!)

It’s also been so nice to rediscover some things that have been packed away for aaaaaaaaages… like my babycham glasses. (Can you tell I have a habit of collecting things?)

Of course our diy hasn’t been limited to just the kitchen (because we’re crazy like that)… we also put up our Mini Moderns wallpaper in the hall.

It’s now one of the first things you see when you come into our flat… and it just makes me feel ridiculously happy. (Badgers to do that to me for some reason!)

However two members of our household have not been such fans of the month-long diy-athon…

Grey ninja suit cat has been giving us this look a lot… we translate this as I command you to stop drilling, hammering, painting etc and pay attention to me!

While our owl-fox cat – who has a more nervous disposition (she freaks out and hides when anyone rings the doorbell) – has taken to her bed.

Wait, did I say her bed? I meant, our bed. (Why do cats act like they own everything and somehow convince you that they do too?)

We expect a full recovery from her sometime mid-September… around the same time we think we’ll have a finished kitchen.

If it’s not finished by then, I may take to my bed too!

When you’re tiling, the whole world tiles with you

So we’ve built the kitchen cabinets, we’ve ordered the worktop (not being delivered until September unfortunately) and now we’re thinking tiles…

Originally we (well, me) had been thinking about getting mirror splashbacks to maximise the light in the kitchen – but having decided on a white worktop with white cabinets, I’m thinking mirror might look a bit stark. So we looked at some coloured splashbacks and we just weren’t that wowed… They seem more modern than tiles, more streamlined etc but somehow less personal.

Which now means we’re on the hunt for cool tiles that would suit a white kitchen that will have a grey with dots floor and pink jelly wallpaper… um…

One of our thoughts was to buy plain white tiles and then get a few patterned/screenprinted ones to mix in among them. Kind of like Lulu Guinness’ kitchen (via here) but less full on…

Here’s what I’ve come across so far in my tile hunting so far:

This Punk Doily tile by Kiss Her is the right colour for going with the jellies… it also reminds me of my friend’s wedding!

We could spell out any word with these circus tiles by Kiss Her … though I think deciding what those words should be would be a hard task.

Which would be the same problem with these Big Tomato tiles (spotted via Home Shopping Spy). Our favourite is the Dalek… anyone who saw the ‘would you like a cup of tea?’ episode of Dr Who will understand why we think we need this in our kitchen!

We also came across these rather lovely Wellbeck cutlery tiles (also via Home Shopping Spy)…

They do a jellies one too which would either look great with our Thornback and Peel wallpaper or be jelly overkill!

A further look at their range revealed Wellbeck also do these gorgeous tiles… Now I’m not a very flowery girl but how awesome do these look? I love the mix of the white tiles and the patterned ones (especially the gold hearts).

Then in amongst all this tile thinking, we remembered we already own this Rob Ryan tile (ours is in red) and thought well, we could maybe just buy a few more of his tiles…

But I’m not sure I could cope with these buttony ones… they remind me of Coraline too much!

So we gave up on that theory. (One Rob Ryan tile turns out to be enough for us!) Anyway, from there, I ended up on Design Sponge where I spotted these lovely tiles by Xenia Taler…

A quick trip over to her site revealed these cute as hell tiles… I think the caterpillar is my favourite but he’s maybe a bit of an odd choice considering how much else we have going on in the kitchen. (The OH now wants owl tiles though!)

After all the searching, I remembered seeing these teacup tiles a few years ago…

They would be very handy but wouldn’t exactly break up an all white kitchen!

So basically after all that I’m no further on deciding tiles… though I did come across a clock that I now want!

Anyone any suggestions for cool tiles?

I’m half beginning to think we should make some ourselves 😉

I heart Anthropologie!

Oh my… India Knight has just posted some first look pics of Anthropologie. I just had to share my favourite of her pics – the chandelier, the narwhal, those goose measuring cups (see le petit oiseau for the very same cups that she found in a car boot sale!) and the button light shade. Ooooh… swoon!

All you Londoners will have to make me very jealous and confirm just how wonderful it is until I can make it down to London! (It might be a bit much to demand they open a second shop up in Scotland already!)

Feeling festive?

It’s August in Edinburgh which can only mean one thing… that there are not enough hours in the day. Yup, this is the time of year when it seems like the whole world descends on Edinburgh (more specifically on Princess Street and the Royal Mile) and seems to just loiter there… It can only be Festival time.

Which is half great and half annoying. You see it becomes impossible to get anything done in August when you live in this city. Bus and car journeys now take at least 20 mins longer than they should, you can’t get in to any restaurants or cafes without queueing for an inordinate amount of time, and you feel a sudden need to stay out until 5.30am just because the clubs are open until then.

Which is as I said great but also annoying… partly because every year you convince yourself that it’s not going to be like the year before. You are going to make wiser choices about what shows you see – either see someone you know you will love or see some random whose ticket price is less than £5 (everybody wins that way). You’re not going to go out, see 5 shows in one night (meaning they all blur into one… especially if you go to the one that only starts at midnight) and spend more money than you do at Christmas.

Except you do. Or I do. And I really should know better… not only because I’m saving for a kitchen (and meant to be finishing my bathroom!) but because I used to work at the Festival (both behind the scenes and as a reviewer). But hey isn’t this what life is all about… learning lessons just so you can forget them and learn them all over again?

Anyway, you’re probably wondering where on earth this random rant of sorts is going (I’m blaming Dylan Moran for this outburst as I just left his show… and he was very shouty)… Basically it’s my rather long-winded way of explaining that I’m posting on some random things below because I’m too festivaled out to finish any of the posts I’ve been meaning to post. So here is some random lovely things I’ve bookmarked recently (or recently-ish) they have no theme other than their general niceness… I suspect all my August posts might be more of the same!

1. Print via Kick Can and Conkers
Has it been raining every day where you are? It’s driving me nuts as copious amounts of rain plus riding home on a bicycle do not make a good combo. My poor bike has spent many a night at my office because the weather has been so crud lately. Don’t you just love the expression on the cloud’s face here?

2. Kid’s wallpaper via A Cup of Jo
It’s my little sis’s birthday next month so I get to do our annual mad September trip down to London… amongst other things it involves not sleeping and always walking further than you meant to. Whenever I’m in London there seems to be a lot less buses and taxis involved than there are in this cute wallpaper!

3. 50s kitchen cabinet via My Black Book
So we’ve painted the bathroom (one coat so far) and still have some tiling and wallpapering to do but we’re not far off being finished, so naturally our thoughts have turned to our next project: gettting a kitchen. I can honestly say that if I managed to acquire this 50s cabinet I would happily design my whole kitchen around it. Why is it just so darn oooh? (The other half even likes it as he thinks it looks like a kitchen transformer!)

4. Christine Martinez of Lama design‘s home via Milk Tooth’s Rain
Talking of oooh, how gorgeous is this lamp? I mean seriously it’s so beautiful. And so yellow.

In fact, a lot of Christine Martinez’s home is pretty yellow…

And of course only the coolest people have a yellow bed…

Anyway, that’s enough randomness from me for one day. I’m off to my yellow bed. Only 4 more working day until I’m on holiday, which means I’ll be doing even more festivally stuff! Yup, no lessons learned here!

One way to banish the Monday blues…

… buy these little guys by Camila Prada. They’re apparently the “Bonnie and Clyde” of oil and vinegar decanters. (Don’t you just love the word ‘decanter’?)

And if oil and vinegar ain’t your thing, how about her espresso cups and saucers instead?

As you may well know I’m not really a big fan of coffee but they’d make great dessert cups wouldn’t they? (Ickle desserts I know!)

Friday I’m in love… with tea towels

Image via Swiss Miss

Can you be in love with a tea towel? I’ve certainly coveted enough of them in my time. I think they’re the kitchen equivalent of buying prints (or shoes or cushions) – they add a little personality for not much money – reason enough to love them.

The only downside is the differing opinions on what you use them for… the other half uses them to mop up coffee spills (which stains them) and I like to use them only to take things out of the oven (they stay nice and clean that way) or to just have hanging around looking pretty (yes I know that’s not practical!)

Anyway, I thought for this Friday (yay! it’s Friday and the bathroom work starts on Monday… ekkk!) I would share some of the loveliest tea towels I’ve come across lately while looking for lights and all other manner of other flat things…

1. Tea Party by Glue + Glitter
Bought this about a month ago – it’s so pretty and makes me long for the day we can have a little tea party at our flat. I’m thinking long island iced teas in our vintage cups and some of the other half’s famous brownies would be perfect!

2.Holga Camera by Girls Can Tell
I’ve been tempted to invest in a Holga even though my photography skills aren’t that great… maybe a tea towel with a Holga on it would satisfy that craving?

3. Ring Towel by Art Goodies
Think this tea towel might follow the same rationale as the one above – it would be nice to have a diamond ring but maybe one on a tea towel will do!

4. Puppy Love by Leanne Graeff
Love the dogs in this one – even though I’m much more a cat person.

5. Right On from To Dry For
Love the detail in this tea towel – there’s so much to see from the woman, owl and cat in the tree to the bird perched on the word ‘right’. I also love its 70s colours.

6. Pear from To Dry For
Have you seen the pear money bank in Tales of a Junkaholic‘s shop? This reminds of that – except you can’t put your money in it.

7. Give Me Sunshine from To Dry For
As I type this it is once again peeing down (and thundering slightly) so wouldn’t it be nice to have some sunshine again… This tea towel makes me feel summery even if the weather sucks!

8. A Meal Without Wine by Keep Calm Gallery
Love the sentiment of this… if you can’t have real sunshine then a glass of wine will make you feel a bit brighter in no time. (Mine’s a glass of Prosecco please!)

9. Cake Time by Mr PS
The ‘ooh’ is my favourite bit…

P.S. I wasn’t going to mention Mr PS, Show Pony or The Daniel Craig Tea Towel as I’ve blogged about them all before but they’re worth checking out again! (Personally I think Daniel Craig is always worth another look at!!)

I'm forever blowing bubbles…

I’m not really but it does feel like I’ve been posting a lot of bubble-related items recently (ok, there’s only been the glass bubble necklace but it does feel like a lot I swear!) Anyway, my ongoing quest to find a ‘conversation piece’ of a kitchen light has grown into a quest to find one for the bedroom too. I really like this one from Jean Pelle – but the cost of shipping from the US, not to mention its chances of surviving the journey definitely rule it out. Anyone seen anything similar? (She asked hopefully…)

A girl can never have too many cushions

Is that true? I’m sure there might be a limit to how many you can have – perhaps when you can’t get onto your sofa as it’s got too many cushions on it? Regardless I’m having a bit of ‘I need new cushions’ moment (too much time spent on the sofa playing PS3 has led me to doubt the cushiness of some of our cushions). So I was thinking of trading our old Ikea cushions for some nicer, better quality ones. These are my current favourites… they might be too good for leaning on while playing Big Little Planet though!

1. Vintage Union Jack Cushion from CushLab

2. Love Cushion from CushLab

3. Love Tattoo Cushion from Rockett St George

4. British Isles Cushion from Plumo

5. Bulldog Cushion from Graham and Green

6. Donna Wilson Fox Cushion from Thorsten Van Elten

Friday I’m in love… with bathrooms

For what feels like months now I’ve been pouring over design mags trying to figure out how to turn our not-so-pretty blue bathroom (see the previous post) into something that’s a little more us. We had tons of ideas so it’s been hard to whittle them down to what we’ve finally chosen (work starts in around 2 weeks!). So here are some of references for the ideas we had (we have loads more cut out of the mags but our scanner died some time ago)…

1. Green
Something about having bought a Japanese-style tub made me want to put green in the bathroom. We looked at loads of green tiles but in the end decided they were a bit too full-on for the space we have. We’re still planning to put some green in… just not using tiles!

2. Mosaics

I love love the World’s End Tiles you see in magazines – but they are very much beyond our budget. And most of the mosaics we saw in the tile warehouses really weren’t our style to put it politely…

3. Glass splashback
After going to too many tile places, we decided we’d developed a loathing of tiles and wanted to get a glass splashback instead. But in the end the practicalities got us on this one… Maybe next time!

4. Wood
This idea stayed in the running for quite a while… mainly because it felt in keeping with the bath but in the end neither of us were sure we would like it long term.

5. Wallpaper
Due to our budget (and growing dislike of most tiles) I started thinking about putting some statement wallpaper in the bathroom – which allow us to buy plainer (and therefore more budget-friendly) tiles but still feel impactful. The wallpaper we want is a lot more subtle than these though…

Anyway think that’s more than enough bathroom stuff for one day. Hope you all have a lovely weekend – and get to enjoy the sunshine. See you Monday – we’re meant to be doing flat stuff as you might have guessed but if the weather stays like this I think a picnic might be in order! x

Photos via Iff Cool, House to Home and Living Etc.

Ikea… it's a love hate thing

So the time has come to go to Ikea again… I’m sure I used to love going (probably back when I got my very first flat) but nowadays it just seems like a chore. I don’t want to think about how many hours I’ve spent in that place (5 Ikea minutes is equal to an hour in real time). This all perhaps influenced by the fact that other half greatly dislikes the trip to Ikea – and has to be bribed with ice-cream and veggie hot dogs to go.

That said… I’m a big fan of their PS range, love their range of extremely affordable fabrics and you can’t knock their bright coloured washing up brushes! And there’s nothing better than a revamped bit of Ikea… So despite my unwillingness to go, I’m appreciating Skinny laMinx’s I Wish we had IKEA cushion and tea towel.

Based in Cape Town, she designed her ‘wish list’ after someone sent her an Ikea catalogue (she’d mentioned on her blog how deprived she felt for not having IKEA stores in South Africa.)

Which reminds me that it is better to have Ikea than to not! Though I may need to be reminded of this sentiment when we’re still in Ikea debating bathroom taps at 8.30pm!

Chicken pillow

As a veggie I really shouldn’t like this Chicken Meat Pillow by Go Buggy Go but it makes me laugh. It’s the egg that cracks me up. (Terrible pun I know!)