January 25, 2014
My design crushes are usually way beyond the realms of my budget and are items that I admire from afar. However, sometimes the artistry of the design in an everyday item can turn it into an object of great pleasure for the home aesthete. The packaging of this Portuguese toothpaste from the 1930’s is unsurpassable. Like an object from a Victorian apothecary the design of this paste, which has remained unchanged since 1932 is perfect.Read More
January 23, 2014
We are just over the halfway point of our bathrooms makeover with only the flooring left to do so I thought I would share some of my thoughts along the way. Bathrooms are one of the hardest spaces to style, they have a very particular, expected and often pedestrian finished look. From luxury to boutique hotel, stark and modern via rustic and Manhattan loft, no overall bathroom look captured my imagination. Read More
January 20, 2014
I wasn’t sure that this trip was entirely feasible, I mean 48 hours in a place as beautiful and magical as Venice, how was it going to feel anything other than having your candy floss snatched at the fair just as you go to take your first bite? But it’s January, and we have plugged all our money into the house for so long that we’ve forgotten to take a holiday for a few years, so we decided to beat the January blues and impetuously booked a short city break to Venice. We packed the Wallpaper guide and not much else, letting our noses guide us down the winding roads. I had some vague plans, things I’d seen on the recent Nigella series, narrow passageways so beautifully evoked in classic novels and ghost stories, even the Brideshead trip to the Lido, but nothing prepared me for just how utterly seductive this city is. I should say that we married in Italy and have been on many holidays here but somehow never quite got to Venice, I’m so glad we finally did.In fact it turns out 48 hours is perfectly feasible, don’t get me wrong I could have stayed for months, but when you go out of season you have the city virtually to yourselves and I suspect you get a better feel of the place and it’s inhabitants now than you would over a week in the summer.
January 16, 2014
My favourite things at the moment: Rifle Paper Co, Surveyors rule architectural salvage, Facing the Modern at the National Gallery, follies and architectural curios.Read More
January 12, 2014
This simple but highly covetable piece of modern design, The Fonteyn Desk, is a bestselling staple at Made.com. It is frequently used in their advertising campaigns and on flyers in home design mags and with good reason, it is an all time contender for the top spot on my lust lens. Slightly reminiscent of the Bauhaus instinct for design, this desk is the last word in simple, understated beauty.Read More