Eastern infatuation Part I...

On Friday morning, as I strolled past one of my favourite local second-hand shops, Granny's Attic, something in the window display caught my eye...

It couldn't be...? Surely, it couldn't be one of those lovely - I think - traditional Vietnamese or Chinese (?) bamboo rice storage jars (or perhaps copies of) that I have been admiring in some blogs and oriental-themed shops for some time. Admired their beauty and gasped at the normal £ 60- 90 price tag, that is... 

Feeling rather pleased to have finished a large assignment in the early hours of that very morning, I thought this £ 5 (!!) bargain would be a splendid reward...!

  

And so it was that this second-hand find gave birth to a whole new blog post from our front room, where my desire to surround myself with warm, spicy colours and a more gold-shimmering palette has been given free reign...

The second photo in the quartet above is of a basket (also seen in the mirror in the very first photo in this post) on the wall above the sofa, opposite the fire place .

(The original red tassel of this ceiling lamp has been exchanged for a 

window decoration from the Scandinavian oriental-inspired store Indiska.) 

From the mantelpiece hangs a chain with, among other things, a small Buddha. The very same little Buddha featured in a display I made a few years back, from which a photo was used to decorate some candles. Yes, well spotted, there is one of them, in front of the fire place, on a cast iron candle stick I found in a reclamation yard a few months ago.

My wall paper curtain panels (will be shown in their entirety in the next blog post) next to a home-made lamp   from years ago, whose only claim to qualify for this otherwise oriental-inspired room was the colour of the apples...

The wall colour does appear a very strange shade in some of these photos... It is certainly not as screamingly yellow as it looks in the image below, or as apricot as in the one above. More of a soft, warm, matt yellow, and we sometimes call it the "winter room", as this is a room which feels warm, both in colour and, obviously, because of its wood-burning stove.

In one of the photos above is a hint of another second-hand bargain I came across the other day, and which will be the focus of my next blog post from the same room...

Wishing you all a gold-shimmering Sunday!

Helena

Fa-la-la-la-la  la-la-la-...yum!

With the festive season here, it is time to stock up on sweet treats for Rudolph and his horn-clad mates. In old  chocolate and tobacco tins from local second hand shops and car boot sales, some home-made ginger bread moose and trees rub shoulders with some home-made chocolates (cinnamon/hazelnut-flavoured, see recipe here), eyeing up the colourful candy cane strangers in the taller tin. 

The home-made goodies are clearly a little thrown by the curvy shop-bought cane knock-outs, and earlier today I heard worried whispers from the sugar-stacked tray... Concerns that the humans might reject the 'boring browns' and aim straight for the 'stunning stripes'. Hushed voices talking about 'outsiders' and 'initiation rites'. Well, reassuring the gingerbread and the chocolates that I would always be faithful to my brown buddies, I managed to calm them down...

... and with the help of my yuletide-spirited mediating pine twigs, gone is now all talk about 'outsiders'. In fact, as I was leaving the room, I heard the pine twigs invite all the sweets to embrace the message of peace and love...

Not that it matters that much...

In a house full of sweet tooths, these sweet darlings will not be given much time to fret...

... they will most likely not live to see tomorrow! 

Oh dear, I am now worried that anyone using Google Translate will end up with a horribly morbid story here... Let me just clarify, I am only talking about eating the biscuits and the chocolates!!!

Wishing you all a lovely start to the new week!

Helena

Fall Transitions in the Living Room

Hey there!  Hope everyone has been having a great week!  Have any of you started your fall decorating yet?  I've been doing bits here and there.  I like to keep it simple when transitioning from season to season in decorating.  In the fall, I bring out the cozy throws, add more natural elements that remind me of nature and Thanksgiving, yummy scented candles and, of course, pumpkins.  My living room is finished and I wanted to give you a little peek.  I did a special fall mantel but I'm saving that reveal for another post.   Here's a look at the simple, inexpensive things I did to transition into fall in this room.

I brought out our cozy sherpa throw for those nights of cuddling on the couch.  I had trouble finding the perfect fall fabric for pillows, so, after seeing lots of jute or burlap wrapped pillows online, I decided to wrap some of my own linen covered pillows with jute webbing that I had from a leftover project.  I really prefer natural elements in my decorating, so I thought this was a fantastic idea and had to give it a try.

And I'm so glad I did!  I love the natural, calm and cozy feel and textures.

I wrapped another  pillow I made with part of a burlap coffee sack, attached grommets and then threaded hemp twine through it.  Love these pillows!

My hubby found this old wooden box by the side of the road and I LOVE it.   It will show up in another post coming soon.  It has perfect fall colors and I didn't have to do anything to it but clean the spider webs, grass and mud off.

We eat lots of apples around our house and they peak in the fall, so, I love to include them in decorating.  They really do add wonderful fall color.  That's about it for this side of the room.  I've decked out my mantel/ledge for fall on the cheap and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.  I'm posting about that soon, so stay tuned!  I'd love to hear what everyone else is doing to their homes for fall!  Have a great day!

Living Room Ideas and a New Desk

My husband came home with a gorgeous chair a couple of months ago that sparked a desire in me to build a writing desk to accessorize it.  Knowing I was going to put that desk in our living room, rather than our den, I decided to give the whole space a redo. 

First, the desk.......I used table legs that I salvaged from an old table, so, no cost for those.  The top is constructed of four 1 x 6 planks that were 4 feet long.  I used inexpensive pine from Lowe's in the lower grade section.  This is good wood, you just have to look through it and make sure you don't get warped boards.  It has more knot holes than the more expensive pine, but if you are going to paint it, that isn't a concern.  The entire desk cost me just under $30 to build.  A very similar version of this desk sells at Pottery Barn for $600!!  I don't know about you but that's a little out of our budget.  :)

To build the desk, I followed the same plan as my rustic kitchen table.  However, since I wasn't going for a rustic style with the desk and instead, a more polished look, I attached the apron (sides) to the inside of the legs at the joint (instead of the outside) using L brackets, as shown in the photo below, very similar to how I built my dining room table.

For extra stability and sturdiness, I also inserted 2 large screws down through the top of the table into the top of each leg, pre-drilling the holes first.  Since this would be a painted desk, I sunk the screws, filled with spackle and sanded the entire piece, after completely dry, for softer edges.  This is how the table looked before I painted it. 

The table legs were previously stained a dark walnut, so before I painted them white, I primed them with spray primer so I wouldn't need so many coats of white paint.  I painted the entire piece with Valspar ultra white paint.  It was a pretty easy desk to build and we are so excited with the results!

It fits perfectly into the corner I visualized it in, and I love how it pairs with the vintage chair.  This bookshelf was previously black and I didn't care for it.  It made the corner feel like a big black hole.  I primed and painted it with Valspar ultra white and now it really makes our favorite books stand out, I love that, and a room full of books is a cozy one.  And the large basket I picked up at a yard sale for 3 bucks crowns the top perfectly.

The accessories on the desk came from my wonderful hubby from one of his "picking" trips.  The antique wood box is very old and a great place for note cards and stationary.  The envelope holder holds, well, envelopes and some of my vintage post cards from 1905.  The little blue green bowl is perfect for snacks.  Most of the other things in the room I already had.  The wood crate also came from hubby.  They are great for storage.

The curtains and pillows I made from canvas dropcloth.  I stenciled the G on the pillows by combining black craft paint with textile medium to create a washable paint that is also soft and doesn't harden your fabric.  The center pillow I made from an authentic burlap coffee sack that I ordered after Carla at Hammers and High Heels mentioned a great place to buy them in this post.  Thanks Carla!

About this coffee table......it used to be a dining room table!!  I picked it up at a garage sale but it was too small for us to use as a dining table, so, I cut the legs off so that we could use it as a coffee table instead.  Perfect, huh!  The set of hand carved oars were another picked item from hubby.  I like the element of fun and energy they add to the room.

Here's the other side of the room and the wall art I made for hubby for Father's Day.  What do ya think?

I am loving the retro surfboard console table so much that I didn't want to put anything on it, other than this fan cause I didn't want to cover it up.  It's so fun!

I'm so excited to finally have a desk to write and blog at instead of the dining room table.  Thanks for stopping by today!  And thank you for your kind comments, I truly do appreciate every one of them.  Have a great day!

P.S.  If anyone is wondering......the paint on the walls is Manchester Tan by Benjamin Moore. Also, linking up with The Lettered Cottage today! Come join the fun!

From all of me to all of you...

...a very, VERY Merry Christmas!

Defying gravity...?

Who says baskets need to stand on tables and floors? I like to play Mary Contrary sometimes and avoid placing everything on ground level, or table level, or any flat surface reminding us of Newton's boring law. Hanging things from the ceiling, like lanterns or levitating Buddhas on swing-like shelves, or even upside-down flowers in tune with the season, all very modest outbreaks of civil disobedience. Or perhaps more like interior decorating naughtiness. Or could I plead artistic freedom? At the very least, it makes life a little more interesting.

As for baskets, walls are definitely the way to go.

Go East...

For those of you who have just begun to relax into the tranquil white backdrop of our kitchen-diner and the CALM area, it is time to hold on to your seats and open your minds to a little taste of saffron, a whiff of baklava, a hint of the Orient.

And for those of you who may wonder what one does when one cannot find a curtain material one likes, but is head over heals in love with a particular wallpaper? Easy. You hang two strips of wallpaper from the rail and ask them to believe they are curtains. Think wallpaper. Be wallpaper. And oh yes, you also prey your baby who is just getting ready to walk does not decide to pull himself up grabbing any curtains... Success rate on last prayers? 100 %. Still hanging and baby boy will be four in March.

And by the way, wallpaper cum curtain prayers require no religion. Just some faith in interior well-being.