Remember me...?

(Lovely mini bird cage from a flea market in France for € 1 (!!) and a sweet 

little tea light holder from a sweet blog reader - thank you Claudia!)

Well, since I hardly remember myself... (!), or at least "whether I am coming or going" as the expression goes, I thought it would be about time I reminded myself, and those of you who might still be stopping by here, that I am still alive, even if ridiculously busy with this, that and the other...

A stroll in the rare, but oh so lovely, sunshine a few weeks ago, after a rainy week that made for some - shall we say - challenging terrain around the back of Lacock Abbey. But worry not, a stile a little further to the left (out of sight here) enabled us to not have to show off our swimming skills that day.

There is something so wonderful about skipping, strolling, or in any way moving across these great green farm fields, and to see the children take full advantage of the vast openness before them to run, run, run until they can run no longer, or until they stumble over a sleeping sheep - whichever comes first... We only use public footpaths, of course, and luckily there are a lot of them around here!

So what else have I been up to in the last few weeks, except skipping across green pastures, humming Sound of Music tunes? Well, a few very exciting things, of which two have involved my passion for styling an environment or image that is - hopefully - pleasing for the eye. In one case, it involved helping a client with some finishing touches in an already beautifully renovated and stunningly decorated old cottage. In the other case, I had the pleasure of working with some of the gorgeous and wonderfully cheeky bird personalities that characterise ceramicist Hannah Turner's decorative items and tableware.  Very soon, when Hannah's new collections are available in store  (and on her website), I will show you more of the photos from my chirpy day in the company of her funky ceramics!

Having no new vignettes to show you, I will, again, recycle some from last year. I feel these really capture well "who I am" at the moment. The colours, the materials, the shapes...

I just realised that perhaps that goes deeper than just my taste, 

perhaps it reflects quite literally who I am...? 

A little rusty, a little scruffy, a little round... ☺ 

 

But now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for... CHRISTMAS!

Drum roll.....

Norwegian interior styling, writer and photographer Franciska Munch-Johansen has just published her new book, Sanselig Jul (Christmas For All the Senses) and it a very beautiful compilation of her own photos and ideas and those of a number of bloggers. To find out where you can buy it if you are interested, click here.

To tempt you , here are some pages from the book (click to enlarge):

... a few photos from an - unusually snowy - England from yours truly...:

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Mummy's Own is a lifestyle and inspiration site for Mums - created by Mums, aiming to offer inspiration through for example blog recommendations, recipes, fashion and articles about well-being. The ladies have just relaunched the blog in English, and a couple of weeks ago The Swenglish blog was their blog recommendation - thank you so much, Camilla!

More blog love has come my way through no other than the lovely Henrick Eriksson (with the informative and inspiring blog Kråks Stuga - formerly known as "Henricks Tankegångar"), whose styling skills,  knowledge of interior design trends (and much more!) make for very pleasant reading indeed! Thank you so much, Henrick, you made my day! Yes, I know, to some of you this may sound a little like a ping-pong game of reciprocated back-scratching, but I would happily have written this completely unprompted and I believe spreading some blog love is spreading good vibes, and good vibes are great fuel for the soul, whether blog related or not!

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Phew, there we are. Are you still there? If you did not give up half way through what in the end became a very eclectic and very long blog post, then let me finish by wishing you a  lovely last few days of October!

All the best,

Helena

Older Boy Room Ideas

Our oldest son recently turned 20 and I really wanted to give his room an upgrade from boy to college age adult.  His room design hasn't been touched in 6 or more years so it was definitely time.  So, for many months, I've been planning and picking up items here and there and redoing them to put in his room. 

I finally had everything I needed, with the exception of a desk, which I'm still looking for, so we through out pretty much everything in there except the bed and then painted the walls Classic Gray by Benjamin Moore.  They were originally a very dark navy blue and it felt like a cave in there so making it lighter was the first thing on our list.

I'm going to be showing his room in stages as the other side isn't ready until I find that desk.  So, here's the side that is ready.....

While planning the room design, I needed to find a dresser, bedside table, book shelf and desk.  The dresser we found at a storage auction for around $10 and I blogged about that here.  The book shelf we actually found by the side of the road during clean up week but it wasn't for free, we paid $15 for it but I thought it was definitely worth that. 

It is a very solid bookcase, however, I'm not a fan of dark wood bookcases.  They are too, well, dark.  And I didn't want to paint it, so, I upgraded it by ripping off the back and using scrap wood that I painted black to make an X design in the back to give it a more open feel.

I LOVE the way it turned out.  Then I filled it with a few linen storage baskets and some of his favorite things.  Next up was the bedside table.  My hubby found this old rusty metal base last summer and it's been sitting in our storage building.  I worked on yet another piece of bowling alley flooring and put together this table for him. 

I was thrilled because this was our last slab of flooring and the size ended up working perfectly. 

I wanted to give him a more comfortable bed so I made a new upholstered padded headboard, blogged about here, and purchased all new bedding that was on sale at West Elm.  I also purchased new sheets there, as well.  The vintage wool US Navy blanket was found at an auction. 

Our son works part time and goes to college so I really wanted to make his room comfortable and relaxing for him.  I also wanted to design it to reflect a college age adult.  Finding design inspiration for that age group is difficult because most boys rooms inspiration pics found online are for younger boys and are theme rooms, which I'm not a fan of.  But I'm very very happy with how it turned out and more importantly, so is he.  :)

He didn't want curtains or wood shades so I left the windows with what he initially wanted which were these white wood blinds.  I might sneak some curtains in later.... ;-)

I've still got to find that perfect desk and finish up a couple more things for the wall for him and then I will blog about the other side of his room. 

What do you think?  Do you also find it hard to find inspiration for decorating older boys rooms?

Have a great day!
Diana

Dresser Redo

I've just about wrapped up our oldest son's room redo but before I blog about it, I wanted to blog about a few pieces that I worked on for the room.  The first thing was the upholstered headboard that I put together last week.  Next up is this dresser that was included in a truckload of things hubby bought at an auction.

It was a solid wood piece and in great condition, just needed a paint job and new hardware.  What I had in mind for the dresser was a very distressed, green, hand rubbed aged look.  So the first thing I did was paint it the same color that I painted our french door in the kitchen, which is called Spanish Green by Valspar.

After it dried completely, I distressed it by sanding off a lot of the paint.  Then I rubbed on some dark walnut stain and rubbed it off.  Then rubbed on some grayish blue paint that I had but not sure of the name of, and then also rubbed that off.  I wanted several colors going on, if that makes any sense.

The dresser also needed a hardware update but I didn't want to spend any money, so, I rummaged through our boxes of drawer pulls at our shop and found 3 sets that were very similar.  They didn't match completely but were the exact same shape in diameter so I grabbed them and took them home to spray paint them an oil rubbed bronze.

 
I attached them to the drawers, put the whole thing back together and this is what it looks like...

I am crazy about it!  I don't think it could have turned out better than what I envisioned. 

And I'm loving the three different sets of drawer pulls.

Here's a closeup of the different colors and stains I used to distress the dresser.

I've got a couple more pieces to share with you before I blog about the entire room so stay tuned!

Have a great day!!

Diana

Upholstered Headboard Tutorial

Howdy!  I'm currently working on redesigning our oldest son's room and have several projects in the works.  The biggest one is this upholstered headboard that I just finished up today.  His bed is a full size but it doesn't have a headboard so I spent several days drawing up what I had in my head and then got to work on it today.  It's not ready to go in his room yet but I wanted to share it with you anyway, as well as, the instructions for how I put it together in case anyone would like to make one.

It wasn't hard, just time consuming.  I started by buying a piece of 3/4 inch thick subfloor/plywood at Lowe's.  I was feeling lazy so I asked them to cut it to size for me, which they did at no extra charge.  The size of the plywood part is 53 inches x 3 feet tall.  With the legs on the bottom, the total height is 4 feet.  I bought 3 - 1 x 3's to attach to the back of the plywood as shown in the photo below.

Next, I laid high loft quilt batting on the floor that I bought at the craft store and placed the headboard on top.  I bought the largest size and then folded it over 3 times, so it would be pretty thick.

Without pulling too tightly, I pulled the batting around and began to staple it to the back of the headboard.  You don't want to pull it too tightly or it might come apart.

I continued this all the way around the frame.  Corners are a little bulky and tricky, but here's a closeup of mine.  Not perfect, but doesn't need to be.

To get rid of the excess batting at the legs of the headboard....

I simply cut about an inch off the batting, tucked it under and stapled it behind the headboard.

When the batting is all attached, it will look like this.

Next up, is the fabric.  Because I was keeping cost down, I used canvas painters drop cloth that I already had.  I basically repeated what I just did with the batting.

Take extra care when working on the corners so you don't have a wrinkly mess since the corners will show.  I found that folding it over like you would wrap a Christmas present worked well.  And I also worked on the corners last.  I then cut off all the extra batting and fabric.

And here's the front...

I really wanted nailhead trim, however, I couldn't find that where I live so I used bronze upholstery tacks that I picked up at Lowes.  Very time consuming but I definitely got the look I wanted.  I was actually happy I couldn't find the trim because I really preferred the nail heads being spaced a bit instead of touching. 

To perfectly line them up, I measured inside the corner 4 inches on both sides and marked with a pen, then gently tapped in one tack, but I did not hammer it in all the way in.  I looped a piece of twine around the tack, then did the same thing on the other end and tied the other end of the twine to that tack.  This created a perfectly straight guideline for me to line up the tacks.  When you're finished, remove the twine and hammer in the end tacks the rest of the way.

It took all afternoon, but I am soooo happy with it!  I can't wait to put it in his room. 

I've got a couple more projects to do for the space and then I will put the whole room together and blog about it next week.  I can't wait to get this finished up for him!

Have a great weekend!

The Grand Opening

Hello!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Our Grand Opening was a huge success and I wanted to share a few photos with you of the big day.   I was so glad to have friends and family there to take photos for me.  We couldn't have asked for a better day, except that I wish our oldest son would have been there to enjoy it with us.  Unfortunately, he had to work.  But I know he really wanted to be there.

I really wanted to make our customers feel special so I thought refreshments would be nice.  Here I am getting the table ready before we opened the door.

I have a friend who has a daughter who loves to bake cupcakes so I hired her to bake 100 mini cupcakes for our customers.  They were completely gone in a couple of hours.  I served apple cider, as well.

We were completely shocked by the number of customers we had.  We were truly blessed.

While my hubby is a genuine people person and very outgoing, I have somewhat of a social phobia and was quite nervous.  But I truly enjoyed meeting the customers that took some time out of their day to come by.  It meant so much to us.

I feel blessed that I get to work along side my hubby.  It was a rough few months but we finally got it all done and are open for business.  Starting this new adventure is something we have been talking about and planning for several years.  It is such a rewarding feeling to see our hard work pay off. 

I want to say thank you to all of you for your encouraging comments and emails.  This truly couldn't have happened without your encouragement and support along the way.  :)  Even with the struggles...what an amazing journey this is.....


Up next.....I'm finally finishing up my oldest son's room redo!  And I have some exciting things to share...soon!

Have a great day!

Diana

Shop Sneak Peek

Hello!  Happy Friday!  

We've been working practically round the clock to get our shop ready for it's Grand Opening Saturday morning and boy are we exhausted.....but it's a good exhausted, you know?  

Anyway, I wanted to give you a little sneak peek.....

 

I love this night time shot because of the lights we have inside the store.  

Speaking of lights.  

When we first rented this place, we weren't allowed to do all that much, which was fine because it really is a fantastic building, however, the ceiling light fixtures were very outdated ceiling fans with those tulip shaped light covers on the light kits, which I hate.  

Replacing the fixtures was not really a good option so I decided to remove the ugly light covers and add Edison bulbs to give them an industrial vintage feel. 

 We absolutely love it.  It was certainly a fun, easy update.

And the glow they provide is really nice and vintage.  Love that.....

Here are a just a few of the things you can find here....

Lots of vintage door knobs and hardware....

Vintage suitcases and steamer trunks....

Vintage castors....

Italian vintage drinkware.....

Every kind of number and sign you can imagine....

Industrial salvage....

And the cutest set of copper keys, plus tons more.  There is pretty much a little bit of everything here.  :)  Which is the way we like it.  :)

Stay tuned for photos of the Grand Opening!  

And hopefully I'll be back to home projects soon!  :)

Have a great day!

P.S.  I'm having trouble posting the link but the Edison bulbs can be found at 1000bulbs.com.  :)

Diana