Author Archives: Design_Soda_Ruthie

About Design_Soda_Ruthie

I write Design Soda, a design blog with a focus on interiors. My blog aims to be an unpretentious, stimulating, fun and naturally curious delve into inspirational design and Londoncentric culture. I describe my style as boho-eclectic and am open to most design which doesn’t look too serious or composed. As a design geek with a love of vintage and upcycling, I am passionate about my home and love blogging ideas and looks that I find inspirational. Since the time when my teenage bedroom was an Aladdins cave of upcycled furniture, Cecil Beaton photography and Situationist slogans I have been interested in the way the home environment can make you feel and inspire your inner life. As a new mummy, trying to negotiate my passions with my lovely new baby's schedule can be difficult, but in my spare time you will often find me snapping the things that catch my eye in my wonderful home city London. Or, reading, upcycling, spending longer on Pinterest than I should, baking and watching old movies. I have a lifelong passion for French New Wave cinema.

The Edit

September 12, 2013

crystal palace

My favourite things at the moment: the ruins of Crystal Palace, Curiosity exhibition, Belle and Sebastian, up cycled vintage suitcase in Liberty Claire Aude print.Read More

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Through the Aperture (on The Promenade…) British Seaside – Part 4

September 9, 2013

whitby vintage

Whitby is a beautiful coastal village on Yorkshires East Coast filled with junk shops, gothic splendour and a trade in oddities. From the ruins of Whitby Abbey which inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula to cafes named after Lewis Carroll’s wonderland poem The Walrus & Carpenter to the waterfront bar named after Somerset Maugham’s Moon & Sixpence, Whitby has a decidedly literary & nostalgic feel. It hosts an annual Gothic weekend, boasts a boutique guesthouse with literary themed rooms and contains a plethora of vintage junk shops. This is the town responsible for us arriving in Yorkshire with one overnight bag and going back on a packed Edinburgh festival train with three. Here is my final photo diary, decidedly less pastel-y, of what the mice saw on their field-trip, starting with what we bought:

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The Edit

September 5, 2013

Processed with VSCOcam with c1 preset

My favourite things at the moment: Art Deco perpetual calenders, concrete light pendants, Francoise Hardy, Thomas Mann ‘The Magic Mountain’.

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Through the Aperture (on The Promenade…) British Seaside – Part 3

September 2, 2013

Margate

In my penultimate instalment of seaside visits I give you Margate, a town which up until a few years ago may have been best summed up by the Morrissey lyric ‘The coastal town that they forgot to close down’. It has been in decline for decades, overlooked next to its experienced swisher sisters in Whitstable & Broadstairs, it has arcades, a dilapidated pleasure beach and not much else to recommend it to the passing train passenger. But with the opening of the Turner gallery in 2010 and a trickling influx of ex-Hackney-hipsters the town is beginning to show signs of a renaissance. There are shoots of gentrification in the form of retro tea rooms, boutiques and over-priced jumble sales. However there is still something very wistful and maudlin about Margate.

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The Edit

August 29, 2013

southbank

My favourite things at the moment: vintage toy soldiers, summer on the Southbank, our new kitten and London Open house 2014. Read More

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