interior design

Kerb appeal, falling in love

interior design

Day14 outside kerb appeal.

The first time I saw my house was on a viewing to see another house two roads down.

I causally said.

I could live here!

We loved the house a few roads down it was a Victorian end of terrace with room to improve. It was bigger than ours but the owners appears reluctant to sell and we couldn’t get hold of them.

That’s fate.

Then we found our house

I fell in love the first time I saw it listed.

I was trying to arrange a viewing on the Thursday but the estate agent said that it would be sold by Thursday.

He was right!

We bought it! Me and Gav were elated after we saw it. It had everything and was beautiful and liveable. He even left it in a good state.

The first time we stepped inside we knew. It had to be ours.

My four walls mean a lot to me. It’s the home that me nd Gav are building together.

Thank you house!

Nature inspired interior let’s talk about pineapples

french bulldog, interior design

Today’s blog is on nature inspired so I thought a trip down memory lane may be a good idea!

Not my memory but the Victorians in there interior architecture. Nature was inspired with every fleur de ly, every sconce and carpet runner pole.

They brought nature inside without being too obvious. And round my house is no different.

We have a ceiling Rose that is in desperate need of some TLC the paint needs to come off and a light perhaps installed.

In the hallway maybe my favourite room of the house we have a carpet runner in a plush green carpet. It feels lovely underfoot on our steep Victorian stairs.

The runners are brass. When we first looked around the house I declared look Gav they even have pineapples on them. The owner laughed at me and said if you buy the house you can call them pineapples if you like.

They are obvious not pineapples but thistles. Beautiful brass thistles that contrast beautifuly with the green carpet. They do look a wee bit like pineapples and it does remind me of the billy Connelly story where a Scottish man in Asian tattoo artist for Scotland forever and a big thistle on his back.

The man didn’t know what a thistle was so the Scotsman drew it out for him. And so the tattoo artist wrote Scotland forever and a giant pineapple on this back!

I love this story. I also love pineapples and tropical prints.

I upcycled this little chest of drawers and Becky bought me my gold pineapple! We also insulted most of Spain buy buying these sombreros on a trip to Barcelona!

Note to self sombrero are Mexican not Spanish!

As you can see I love colour, pineapples and prints and they are all Seychelles inspired!

Work it!!!

interior design

My little house really works for us. It’s cool all year round so even in the hottest summer that was last year my Victorian brick house was cool as a cucumber.

This means in winter it gets cold but it doesn’t take long with central heating to warm it up.

Plus we love a fire!

It very cold today but not too cold I can put the heating on! Nor the fire so I will have to settle for a few candles instead!

So confession time, I got confused with which day it was and wrote a whole cute little blog on pineapples and it turns out that is for tomorrow. Because I am following Instagram I noticed that the title was work it. So I am literally typing this right now.

So forgive me if this is a bit crazy!

So I had no time to think about what this title meant.

So I thought I should just write about how my little house works for us.

It does. We actually use every room. The dining room the least as we treat this more like a corridor to the kitchen which means it often becomes a dumping ground. It also has a ridiculously large amount of wedding boxes in there.

As well as all our booze ( and gin).

All the bedrooms get used I made a little art area for me to do some drawings. I am currently practicing my painting so that I can hand paint a few signs.

I made a little space for me.

There isn’t a room that doesn’t work for us! We have a lovely little house and sometimes I think it looks after me a bit better than we look after it!

Old or New in interior design?

interior design

For me it will always be old when it comes to furniture I like to hunt through antique shops and charity shops.

The things you can find are sinply marvellous. Also it suits the house. We have a Victorian terrace so older pieces suit it. This doesn’t mean that I only have old furniture in my house. Definitely not. Our bed was brand knew and so was the sofa.

When choosing them we went for the feel of them rather than the look. They are our most used items of furniture both super comfortable and suit our lifestyle.

The dining room furniture is a mixture of old and new.

Yes those are lightsabers

Our wine rack is a an old champagne holder that they used to store and turn the champagne on. Our Booze cabinet is a Victorian display cabinet by sister bought in Edinburgh for £20 and now lives pride of place in the dining room.

Poubelle diving

We have two clocks in the dining room. Both thrown out. Gav found one and I found the other. The wooden one is an old french station clock that was thrown away at a brocante because they lost the key. I search high and low for a key and then Gavs grandad kindly took on the challenge and within a few weeks found a key.

It is so loud we rarely charge it up but it works really well and is a beautiful clock.

Our dining room furniture was bought with the house and I love the table but the chairs are leather look and not my cup of tea. I dreamed of a Monica style set up with mismatch chairs and different colours.

We don’t believe in replacing something unless is broken or we don’t use it. We don’t want to waste money or fill up the land fill so these very comfortable ugly chairs will remain in my home until they fall apart!

I also have 3 amazing mirrors in my house but i will save that story for another day!

Window dressing a very dull tale

interior design

This will be a short blog sorry. I can dress it up because well we have blinds.

They came with the house and are in every room. They look like wood and suit tha house. I maybe would prefer plantation white wooden blinds but it’s not a big deal.

We have no curtains.

None

Not even in the bedroom. I did try to convince Gav that they would soften the bedroom room but he wasn’t interested and it’s been 5 years now and it doesn’t bother me.

The blinds let in a lot of light in the day and block it nicely at night.

It works for us.

I live in the suburbs so our views are t gorgeous. Our bathroom has the best view and that’s of the garden. Something I would definitely change if I had a lot of money.

At the moment my garden is a hub for dahlias all growing in their pots. This view makes me happy and every time they grow I shriek a little.

But this blog isn’t about views it’s about window dressing.

I am definitely not going to win any awards for that!

A Scented home:I’d rather not but some things are out of my hands

interior design, Personal Experience

Day 5 scented 30day blog challenge

Well this is going well. I am using my Instagram to challenge me to get writing everyday again.

So yes, the majority of these blogs are written on a red London bus and spell checked on my very short lunch. So I do apologise.

And I am loving it.

Today’s image was about scented and this is where I fall down.

Candles

I do like candles but I don’t go crazy for them. I certainly don’t melt them all year round and buy them constantly.

I get the same Yankee candle every year from a family member. I sometimes buy a few candles from homescence and I bought Aldi’s Faux Malone candle and quite liked that.

The truth is when it comes to smells I either like citrus or fresh linen. All my cleaning products are lemon scented. I am not a fan of plug ins but we have a dog now and I am paranoid about doggy smells. So we have a citrus plug in by the door.

Plants

I do love flowers but I hate how wasteful they are. I am a crazy plant lady and I don’t care. If I could my house would be filled with peonies and freesias all year round but budget and wastefulness won’t allow it! I drool over peoples images of Peonies!!

My tiny English suburban garden

my garden at the moment is in full bloom we have a crazy Rose bush that has been spliced. Last year we had dark pink roses every where and one dog rose. This year we have hundreds of dog roses and one dark pink one.The garden smells so good.

When I am at home I always open up all the windows and let the house breath!

Smells are so important and I do have a preference but I like to keep things simple and fresh.

My most amazing plant is a lemon balm that my local Fish and chip shop gave my mum as a cutting. I put it outside and it died but I didn’t give up on it!

Do neglect it sometimes but it is really hardy and when you water it or move it the whole room smells of lemons. I have made tea with it and you can add it to salads. It is the most wonderful smell in the world.

so that’s it!

I would rather my house just smell fresh and clean then of fake smells but with a little pooch I don’t really have a choice.

What does your home smell like?

I have this thing with Le Creuset

interior design, Uncategorised

Oh yes I do.

It started with a sugar bowl and it will never end!

8 years ago I moved into an upside down house in Archway. The house was awesome and completely unfurnished. I had to buy everything from scratch. This meant I slept on a gym mat for a few months before my secondhand bed arrived.

One of the first things I bought was a bright red sugar bowl from a charity shop. I think it was 50p and it is still my sugar bowl today!

TkMax and homesence have a lot to answer for. Me and Gavin went shopping one day and treated me to a bright red La Creuset butter dish. It is beautiful and my pride and joy although I don’t use it enough.

Then he found this beautiful black mug there was 6 of them and they were £5.99 each. I wasn’t sure on the colour but they were gorgeous and a french cookware brand I adore.

I bought two.

Used them, fell in love with them and went back to find out there were no more left. These mugs keep your tea warm for much longer and I loved them but I missed out.

Then it grew from there

I have two jugs

A teapot and coffee pot. Honey ares, baking trays and baking dishes. I have two pie dishes and even two pie birds to let the steam out!

They are all red except for the mugs which have also increased. I now have 6 smaller black mugs 8 different shaped mugs and 8 little espresso mugs even though we don’t have an espresso machine. Every time we go in TKMaxx we hunt for these larger mugs. When one broke we couldn’t find it even on there website so Gav bought me a purple one. It hides at the back of the cupboard.

These are hard mugs to break but it does happen and it makes me sad.

Homeward Gifts

I often get LeCreuset for christmas and birthdays and I bloody love it. I would rather get a practical gift then something I never use.

My most used dishes are the smaller bakeware ones as it’s normally just me and Gav. I grew up in a household where food was all laid out on the table so you can help yourself. So my dishes do get used a lot!

I definitely have a thing for Le Creuset. I want some of the cast iron collection next! I just added them up and I have 25 different styles of Le Creuset that’s not how many pieces I have.

This may be an addiction!