Category: Design
Love Stack..
Some natural bling to shine in the grey…that won’t break the bank.
Made by two sisters in Canada with a shared love of nature and making wearable art.
The rings are cast in a handmade mould using eco resin – a biobased product derived from pine oils from the waste streams of other manufacturing products.
They’re left to cure for a week before being sanded down smooth using over 10 grades of sandpaper and polishing tools.
So each one is unique.
Find them at their Etsy shop Rosella Resin . With prices starting at just £24.95 plus postage it’s a tastefully environmental win win.
Laters, Kate x
Shine & Shade x
Wallpapers: Can you spot the rubies in the dust, the cheerful from the chips, the diamonds in the rough? Scroll through, remember your favourites….then see at the end. So this is number one..
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Now for the reveal…..all the wallpapers were from Graham and Brown – not a company featured much in the interior design world glossies. But many of the concepts here are visually similar to their posher counterparts: Honolulu palm versus Palm by Cole and Son, Capulet teal versus Hermes jardin d’osier, tudor houses versus Fornasetti. But their price point? Nothing here was over £20..and some of them were as low as £7.50 per roll…check it out:
One = Honolulu palm green for £20 per roll.
Two = Desire gold for £8.50 (in the sale) or £17 per roll
Three = Marvel action hero for £10 per roll
Four = Juan white for £7.50 per roll
Five = Jiao pruple for £7.50 per roll
Six = Tranquil purple for £7.50 per roll
Seven = Bao white for £7.50 per roll
Eight = Desire damson for £7.50 per roll
Nine = Fresco Mai for £10 per roll
Ten = Olympus black/white for £10 per roll
Eleven = Majestic black for £15 per roll
Twelve = Petit papillon black for £20 per roll
Thirteen = Do the stretch mustard for £20 per roll
Fourteen = Capulet teal for £20 per roll
Fifteen = Botanic charcoal for £20 per roll
Sixteen = Kelly’s Ikat for £20 per roll
Seventeen = Enigma white/prussian blue for £20 per roll
Eighteen = world heritage black/white for £20 per roll
Nineteen = Honolulu black for £20 per roll
Twenty = tudor house for £20 per roll
Makes you think: Where does the beauty lie?
Laters, Kate x
Progress..
The building work is moving up a gear now, particularly in the cellar. The digging is finished, insulation and underfloor heating is laid and it was all screeded and left to dry over the festivities. Now we’re onto the first fix and finalising plans for the second fix.
It’s an interesting space in terms of design – it’s predominantly a cinema/games room that needs to swallow a lot of ugly storage. But what doesn’t help is that I have a fundamental problem with the general concept of cinema rooms: It seems that the moment the word ‘technology’ is associated with a space it becomes infused with this need for everything cold, chrome, clean and clinical – like the ‘cutting edge technology’ needs to be supported and highlighted by it’s super-duper space-ship-like surroundings..which will probably be out of date in a year. The truth is I’ve yet to find a cinema room on Pinterest I like or want to lounge, Roman-senator-style in.
So it was back to the drawing board and writing a list from all these pictures of the things that actually make a room cosy: A fire, books, rugs, lamplight, dark colours..fluffy dog.
And that’s when the inspiration struck – why not create a false chimney breast for the TV to go on, with a fireplace where the DVD player/set top box/general crap/ can be hidden in the cleverly made fireplace surround? We can’t have a proper fire..
But there are some amazing electric cast iron stoves around..and in the summer it means you can have the glow without the heat!
It’s a work in progress, but the plan is to have significant 75 cm depth mega cupboards with sliding doors across the back with the boiler and water tank under the stairs. As you come down the stairs, the first cupboard you see will be low level holding games and a vintage dollshouse. Then there will be full height open bookcases either side of the chimney breast and all the way to the end of the wall. The chimney breast will come out 40 cm and hide all the cabling from the TV. The fireplace will be slightly lower than normal to help with eyelines to the screen, and the DVD etc will be housed in the central section of the surround under a fretwork door – which should mean we can use the remote without having to have the door always open (fingers crossed) . The stove will be quietly tucked inside to add ambience, all topped off with a tiled hearth.
May the magic begin!
Laters, Kate x
The Cellar x
Sigh. This is part of the inspiration for our cellar renovation..a warm, inviting room from epic the Hotel Provinence in Paris.
But before we get to the fun bits (we’re still shovelling soil), the room layout has to be nailed (literally). It’s not the easiest room – there’s got to be lots of multi-functionality but I’ve found a brilliant site – The Make Room – which is the easiest, most practical room planner I’ve ever played with.
You can pull in furniture..and alter their sizes to represent yours..or what’s on the dream list.
Save different layouts. Add in measurements to ensure there’s enough walk space..(Top tip: As a base line the site uses feet and inches, to change – look to the right and click on ‘add all buttons’ then, look to the left, find ‘view’ click and change to centimetres)
You can choose plugs..lights..even slippers.
At the end – oh the joy! – it gives you a list of the sizes of all the furniture you’ve used..is that not heaven on a page?
Then just print off..and hand to nearest Bank Manager…
Laters, Kate x
Divine Decs…
If you don’t have the time to make your own, then Graham and Green have the best vintage-style-glass-bauble-bling for your ker-ching.
Or you could just see them as beautiful inspiration and an incentive…
Laters, Kate x
Bag Boys…
Hero designs are those that fill multiple purposes and still manage to look the dog’s wobblies each time.
Like the Model M bag, hot on my personal wish list for a top totty present.
Made from fashion-flex – a posh name for a proprietary polymer (your guess is as good as mine) it’s resilient, lightweight and equally at home in the urban jungle or on a sun-drenched beach.
Those living in the States are laughing – it’s a mere frugal designer $120 dollars for you – which somehow translates into £125 for us Brits if you buy from Liberty London.
Might be worth doing the transatlantic shipping cost maths…..or dropping a note to Santa and his sleigh….
Laters, Kate x
Hats Off!
Hats are having a moment..the humble bobble is back big time..so maybe there’s hope for the rest hitting the mainstream again.
It would be fun. Hats may not speak, but they say volumes about an outfit.
All of these tempting delights are by the talented Karen Henriksen, a milliner working in London who’s perfected the tightrope between modern and timeless.
(All pictures Karen Henriksen and Pinterest)
Oh to have a few precious hours trying them all on and pouting in a fetchingly foxed antique mirror. Such stuff dreams are made of.
Laters, Kate x
Kitchen heaven!
The kitchen light’s are coming! The kitchen light’s are coming!…and I have no real idea what they will look like or whether they will actually work, except that in my head they are totally brilliant.
I needed three pendants to hang over the new island unit but didn’t want to go down the industrial look, not because I don’t like it..I just wanted something very different.
Also, I’ve realised over the years that I have a passion for folk art..an art form we don’t take seriously enough here in the UK. All the images here are typical examples of British canal art – the traditional means of decorating canal boats and barges. I think it is stunning, ingenious and totally covetable.
So I’ve commissioned three milk churns to be painted just for me by my favourite canal art painter…and they’re finished!!
Seriously. Can’t. Wait. More details when they’re here.
Laters, Kate x
Crystal Balls….
There’s a change in the wind..can you smell it? It’s something I didn’t think I’d sense again, but it’s there and getting stronger. Like the White Witch of Narnia, the power of the White-Company-scandi-minimalist-Christmas is finally waning and being replaced with bright, retro, seventies glam. This year on my tables, all the candles will be warm…and red…
Fairy lights will be multicoloured and loud.
And the tree will be smothered in tinsel and those funny silver threads once again.
It’s time to embrace the kitsch and the vulgar..
Out with the bland and in with the true!
Laters, Kate x
Building Update x
We’re still fairly chaotic in the back sitting room with now 4 sofas, three tables, a piano, footstool, fridge, freezer and 10 chairs (including one just visible on top of the two sofas..) which lists like a modern day carol.
My kitchen is still a cunning arrangement of two bookcases salvaged from the cellar on a console table. The ‘oven’ (on the table to the left of the chairs) is a one ring hob..that only works with a le creuset pan. How middle class? The sink is in the shed..the washing up is the bathroom upstairs. Oh joy.
But no pain, no gain and the huge steels are in and walls are down.
All two storey of them..from the cellar to the ground floor..to the ceiling above.
The middle has changed from this..
To this, with the pocket sliding doors elegantly in place.
The floor has been levelled, electrics changed, gas, water all re-routed.
And secret storage added.
Extra jobs like a leak in the roof have been fixed, plasterboard is going up..it is happening..and I am LOVING the space..
Laters, Kate x
Maison Bentley Style 