Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...

Oh dear, ...

... summer time blogging is perhaps...

... a little optimistic...

Particularly if...

... one is meant to stick to interior decorating or garden themes...

...when all one wants to do is dip one's toe in the gorgeous waters in Cornwall!

Well, technically, we are not on holiday yet. The boys are still in school for another two weeks, but a sunny weekend not long ago, we said goodbye to our lovely-but-oh-so-inland town and enjoyed the sweet little Cornish coastal town of Padstow, with its STUNNING beach and marine spirit. The boys loved playing on the beach, even if the first photo above reveals that the water temperature was perhaps not as Mediterranean as the "azure" colours of the water... It is no surprise painters flock to Cornwall: the colours, the views, the LIGHT!

Well, as I am very fond of the New England nautical theme, and as this is still attempting to be an interior decorating blog, here is a reprisal of some images from my older son's room, where there is a mixed theme of sea and space. The boat-shaped shelves on the wall were found in a charity shop for a few pounds, and with a lick of paint and a couple of bent plastic pipes (for "blast-off purposes"..), they were quickly turned into space rockets. 

The nautical theme is easily achieved with a few stars here and there, and rejected old jeans offer the perfect material for a denim star appliquéd onto a cushion. The marine inspired star picture below was made with some rough pieces of wood, which on purpose were allowed to "separate" a little, in order to give them a slightly weathered look. A painted star with stars and then, the final touch: a tiny piece of thin wood with a printed sign glued on (with transparent decoupage glue), indicating - rather falsely, I confess - that our little town boasts a marina...

You can find more images from this room here.

Thank you SO much for your kind words about my last blog post and 

welcome to all of you new readers! 

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful summer, wherever you are!

Helena

Up, up we go...

... even if only to the first floor, where a very young man resides in a very tiny room.

When I put up the dandelion wallpaper on the feature wall, the man in house muttered something about it not being very boy-ish.

Alright, so he might have had a point there.

Not the most macho of blokey boy rooms, but my guess is that it won't be long before the walls are covered in posters of unpronounceable music bands not yet invented, and yours truly - the only female in a house lopsided by testosterone - will be fighting for a hint of a feminine touch to the decor anywhere in the Swenglish home. I will probably have to erect a bloke-free zone, where my hearts and I can curl up together and look at pink pictures in magazines. Just to yin-and-yangify the place a little. Even out the forces. The battle of the sexes, in a small, decorative-driven way.

So for now, this little man lives with a not-so-blokey wall. And guess what, he doesn't mind one bit. And I continue to blow little puffs of pink girliness wherever I can. I know my days are counted.

5-4-3-2-1...

... blast off... into a young boy's bedroom...

Going a little overboard with the star-struck theme in my six-year-old son's room proved to be one of the easiest negotiations ever. He has been on a mental space odyssée for a few years now and a happy mum was given free rein to add as many celestial bodies as the room could hold. Being a small room, it would not welcome too many, but one particular detail was loved by son and mum in equal measure: the ceiling light. I boast very few designer items in my possession, but this fabulous moon lamp, "Moon Buzz" was designed by Buzz Aldrin himself and is supposedly an exact replica of the moon, bump by bump. Except it is a ceiling light. And its orbiting skills leave a lot to be desired.

The story about how Moon Buzz was put up would take too long to share here. For now, let's just say that I came home to a frothing, seething, sweaty and topless man, with a crowbar in one hand and some equally aggressive-looking tools in the other, a room covered in debris and dirt and a ceiling light that was very far from any ceiling. Oh, and in the attic room above my son's room was - mysteriously - a torn and ripped carpet, curled in an uncomfortable position on top of the moved guest bed, and a hole in the floor. My otherwise very handy man had apparently had a rather unhandymanny day, with a short circuit as the icing on the irritable cake.
But it is up now. And we don't talk about that day in our house. Except I believe I just did. Oups.





Is there a harbour at The Sea of Tranquility...?

Some scrap bits of wood, a little paint, a big dose of imagination - as Corsham is about 1,5 h drive from any decent water - and voilà, handmade New England in a jiffy. Inspired by www.oceanhouse.se.
Two of my charity shop finds, the boat shelves above, were swiftly turned into suitable space ships with a bit of paint and some plastic pipes. Did I mention how much I love hardware stores?