interiordesign

My ‘Door to Nowhere’..

before and after, Decorating, House Renovation, interiors, wallpaper

As mentioned in the last post, the final item left to complete was my door to nowhere.  This the odd doorway/architrave mid way up the top stairs.  A nice, but quite bizarre period feature in the house (?!).  You know that song ‘We’re on the road to nowhere’ by Talking Heads, it has now morphed into ‘There is my door to nowhere’, and I have been so obsessed with getting this area sorted that I just can’t stop singing it in my head….

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The wallpaper I put in it a few years ago had faux books, and I was quite bored.  I ordered some samples of wallpaper to see what I could replace it with.  They were all extremely expensive, and actually when they appeared I didn’t like them.  So I turned to my iPad and starting hunting with the hashtags #quirky.  And this amazing paper appeared via the excellent site Iwantwallpaper…  it is a great site and they have a really good collection of papers.

Coloured Version
Monochrome Version

It’s called Mad Dogs by Holden Décor and there is a monochrome or coloured version.  I decided to go monochrome, as I can always add colour later if I want to with my trusty pencils.  It arrived really quickly, was very reasonably priced (£15.99!  Saved me a bomb!) and took literally a few minutes to hang.  It does not stretch or sag like a lot of papers do when they are left to soak, so lining up was really easy to do.

So there are dogs & flamingoes in hats, boxing kangaroos, drunk toads and a giraffe smoking a pipe amongst other things.  I love it!

Here it is in situ, and I think it suits the grey walls much better than the previous books paper.  Due to the width of the Door to Nowhere I couldn’t help but have to cut into the frames on the vertical run, but I still love it….

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What do you think?  It could be a Marmite situation for this paper for most people – love or hate!

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Instagram Challenges

Decorating, instagram, Interior Design, interiors, Lifestyle, Photography, Ramblings

Or how the # has become second nature…

It is a fact that I love Instagram, and I am always amazed and delighted by the creativity out there that I can peruse… from nature photography to food to clothes to interiors.  It means I follow so many people that it takes ages to scroll through daily feeds, but it’s worth it!  It also seems that there is a colony out there of similar minded people who like me are obsessed with interiors, it’s like having a mini village of people right on your doorstep.  Everyone shares ideas & tips, and are incredibly friendly.

From there come the Instagram challenges, which tend to be people setting up a hashtag and the rest of us posting pictures including it, usually within a timescale.  One that I have been doing is #myhousethismonth this February.  It’s a daily shot with a title, so things like #storage, #bestbargain, #love (Valentine’s day of course) and so on.  I love doing it, but WOW! it takes some planning.  Especially when you have to photo something everyday that passes muster.

Anyhow, here are some offerings I have been posting this mont.  My teenage daughter has trained me in various editing methods for photos as she said I needed to up my ‘instigame’ – thanks daughter, that made me feel ancient!  So I sometimes use Whitagram and VSCO to tweak shots before they are posted, although I do like to use Instagram as it was intended if possible and just shoot and edit on it directly.  So here are some shots posted while I tried to keep up, and it’s only mid month!  And this is the challenge set….

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This is #favecorner

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This is #window

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#metallic – a lovely silver leaf

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#lightit up – a very un pc lamp!

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#handmade – my upcycled cupboard

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#storage – my favourite huge cupboard

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#workspace – my desk where I ponder the universe

Once I get into doing it I then start taking other photos, so they go up as well as the challenge ones:

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And so it goes on… now off to shoot today’s picture which is #can’tlivewithout…. that will be my coffee maker then…?  Or maybe my cats…. ?  Hmm, it takes ages to decide…

When you really need a proper upholsterer…

before and after, Decorating, recycling, upholstery

Picture the scene, I am at an auction and am supposed to be selling off unwanted furniture. If you have been to auctions, you know there is a lot of waiting around for your lots, and there are also a lot of chairs about that you sit in whilst waiting for the said lots.

So I realise that I am sitting in a really comfortable chair, and it is tired and sad, but it has a really pretty shape and is probably Edwardian.  So when it comes up as a lot, and no-one bids I stick up my hand.  I felt sorry for it.

And so I came home from the auction with a little tired chair for a very small price, not really what I went for.. I don’t think I really should go to auctions.

The chair sat in our house looking battered and tired for a long while.  But it was very popular, as it is just so comfy.  It’s like Goldilocks’ best baby chair in fact.  I scoured the internet for upholstery lessons to give it a revamp, but it all looked far too complicated.  And thus it lived draped in blankets for a long, long time.

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So very tired and grubby…

Cut to a year later, and I remembered that someone I know is an upholsterer.  With a quick call, the chair was delivered, and I was off on the hunt for fabric.  I really wanted some House of Hackney fabric, but it would have cost a fortune as the chair needed a few meters, so I had to be creative and scour the internet.

If you follow the blog, you will know that orange is creeping into my house a lot.  So I decided that the chair needed a massive jazz up and orange was my new black, so I found some raised velvet fabric of orange on a sort of hessian base.  It is like a psychedelic Indian curry house in the 70’s, but I sort of like it!  It also was a total bargain on eBay, and I got about 7 meters in total so I have some left over to play with.  I then found a lovely orange plain velvet to go in the inner part of the chair.

I then handed it all over to my clever upholsterer Caroline, and waited for the finished result.

Lo and behold, soon it was ready and this bonkers chair was ready for its new home:

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She looks so pretty!  And so ORANGE!  She has had her innards re-plumped as well, so is even more comfortable, and is my favourite companion as I watch far too many episodes of Stranger Things in one sitting.  As yuletide nears, I am loathe to share her when the relatives arrive.  Happy Christmas!