Category Archives: Home Design

Peep Around Our Kitchen and Kitchenalia…

August 5, 2013

Rustic-Vintage-Industrial-Kitchen-Metro-Tiles-french-lemon-Porte-savon-Roger-La-Borde-Liberty-Cups_bunny_dishrack

When we moved into this flat last year we knew that the kitchen would be one of the priority spaces for redecoration. There is something a bit depressing about cooking and trying to impersonate a domestic goddess with artex ceilings, yellow walls and orange & red tiles! And there is almost nothing I dislike more in the home than something false pretending to be something else, melamine cupboards and mdf worktops are essentially the trompe l’oeil of the kitchen world and our kitchen sang its impersonation boldly! However, the word kitchen is, like the word wedding, a touchstone for throwing money down a wishing well. Looking at the cost of a completely new kitchen is  dream shattering, everything is amazingly expensive when the word kitchen is attached. In lieu of many thousands of pounds we have spent the last six months slowly transforming the space into something that we could be happy with for under a grand.

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Curiouser and Curiouser

July 15, 2013

Architectural Follies & Curiosities

Landmark Trust The Pineapple House in Dunmore, Scotland

On this gloriously sunny day when I have a date with a book in the garden I am writing a very quick post in homage to grand follies, which I like to think of as the Alice in Wonderland’s of building design. Nothing delights me more than Victorian and Georgian architectural follies and I think one of my favourite British organisations is The Landmark Trust. The Landmark Trust takes on dilapidated old buildings of special note and restores them sympathetically to their original condition. It then rents them out as holiday lets which funds the restoration of future buildings, we have stayed in one before and it was an amazing experience. Landmark has taken on a truly formidable array of buildings from castles to cottages, follies to railway stations and much in between including The Pineapple House (above) in Dunmore, Scotland.

Here are some of my favourites from their portfolio:Read More

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Lipstick for Walls – Favourite Wallpapers

June 24, 2013

CUSTHOM-_COLUMBIA-ROAD-WALLPAPER-BRONZE MetallicSo, I see wallpaper as the lipstick of home cosmetics. You can be as bold as you like, but I think wallpaper is most effective when used sparingly.  The old mothers truism about make-up transfers rather well to home design I think- paint your eyes or your lips, cleavage or legs, overkill leaves no room to think and nothing to the imagination. With this in mind, having filled downstairs with a bric-a-brac of objects and pictures, we have not ventured into wall lipstick. I am now tentatively turning my attention to the upstairs hallway and  bedroomsRead More

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House Tour – Living Room

May 27, 2013

When we bought this flat over a year ago it was this room that sold it to us, it had wood-chip walls and ceiling (ok most of the flat had that) hideous blue carpet (ditto), plastic air vents, bright orange polyurethane doors, mahogany shelving and a particularly hideous mock Victorian fireplace. Past all the hellish design choices made by the previous owner (& the fact that he was either a dangerous D.I.Y enthusiast or the employer of the original cowboy builder) this room had the most potential.Read More

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The Taxonomy of Design

May 20, 2013

Entomology Convex Mirror Vintage Butterflies Framed Collection

Of all the things I love spending time looking at for the home, entomology, curios and Victorian natural history are amongst the most regular. One of my favourite things in the flat is my collection of butterflies below.

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