A New Living Room Rug

The yellow Ikea Stockholm rug that began its stay with me on the floor of my bedroom on Camberwell Grove, took up residence for a little while in our Grand Hall... until the crumbs and spills from our dinner table made me re-consider its location.  After a trip to the dry cleaners, I moved it into our living room. (I’m afraid I don’t seem to have any photos of it here even though it looked really nice!)

However, since our little one was born, we’ve been eating more meals and spending more time in the living room, and as a result the yellow rug was again looking a bit worse for wear. Although the Ikea rug has a geometric pattern on it, because it is a large scale pattern, and is predominantly a solid yellow, it really shows the dirt. What I needed was a darker, (but not too dark given the dark blue walls), finer patterned rug.

When we went to Margate earlier this year, the little interior’s shop that I always like to pop into for inspiration Papillon Interiors was having a spring clearance sale.  Solving this rug problem wasn’t high on my list of priorities as we already had a rug in the room, however this salmon coloured herringbone pattern Varjo Rug from Muuto caught my eye. As it was the show room model, and they were having a sale, I got it for more than 50% off – about the same price as our Ikea rug. Sold!

I wanted to wait a little while before writing this post to see how the rug fared in this now high-traffic room, (in case I needed to move it into our master bedroom), and I’m pleased to report it is working out well.  The darker colour and herringbone texture does help to hide crumbs a bit longer, and spills have been easy to hand rub off.  Plus I love the salmon peach colour next to the dark blue. Now I’ll just be keeping my eyes peeled for a coral toned cushion to tie it all together. (…and probably a new coffee table as our teak one now clashes a bit)

And on the other side…

… there may not be grass, but the wall is certainly greener!

Our master bedroom really is a bit of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde at the moment. As we had to finish painting the window wall so the radiators could be installed, we carried on with it while I flip-flopped back and forth on what colour to do the rest.

Back in December I was hatched a plan for a dark green master bedroom colour scheme in this post.  Once May rolled around, I still felt the urge to experiment with a rich forest green in the room, (turns out it wasn’t a passing fad influenced by our Christmas tree), but I didn’t quite have the same confidence I had in the living room to paint all four walls. I am somewhat torn between a dark cosy room, and a light breezy airy one, and so have decided to split the difference and paint the wall behind the bed dark green, while keeping the window wall white (Realising of course that now the room will be neither, and instead some sort of potentially odd hybrid).

I know that ‘feature walls’ in a bold colour or wallpaper are perhaps somewhat dated now, but I’ve decided to go for it anyway – but with a slight twist. I’m going to paint one (not both) of the fireplace niches (not the projecting chimney breast as is typical) a dark green too.  Yes, I realise this is a very loose justification to ‘modernise’ the look – but I’m rolling with it.  Our bed has a very low head board – and so the colour on the back wall will give it something strong to sit against. The green will also provide a nice backdrop to our new pendant lights  – one of which sits in the niche I am painting green (sketch here).

So, having decided on the walls, it was down to the colour. I took advantage of Dulux’s fantastic and inexpensive sample pot system (£1 per sample) and ordered a handful of greens to test. Note: Pick up the paint chips from a hardware store first and search online for the name as the colours viewed on screen are NOTHING like what you get. (I learnt that by throwing a few other dark greens into my online basket that looked like they may be appropriate when in fact they were a Kermit the frog green instead!). I then ordered a few posh paint samples too for comparison.

From left to right, and top to bottom:

1. Hunter Dunn – Paint and Paper Library
2. Jasmine Leaf – Sanderson
3. Laurel Leaf – Sanderson
4. Woodland Fern – Dulux
5. Highland Green – Dulux
6. Heathland – Dulux
7. Tuscan Glade 1 – Dulux
8. Japanese Maze 1 – Dulux
9. Buckingham Green – Dulux

Tune in after the weekend when Alex has painted the walls and I’ll tell you the winner!

A game of hide and seek

My rule number three of souvenir shopping was ‘It must be beautiful or make me laugh‘… Well, today I quietly introduce you to the silly trinkets that we procured while on holiday which made us laugh.

You’ll have to look closely as they are shy and like hiding.

• Our white polka dotted Moroccan Giraffe from our most recent trip (There are no Giraffes that live in Morocco so this made us laugh)
• Our white polka dotted elephants from Thailand (one yellow, one blue, both with wonky painted eyes)
• Two yellow lego people from the Lego store in New York (guess which one represents me)
• My red fabric scraps Moroccan camel from the last time I was in Morocco (£1)

I played a game on Alex a little while ago and hid the camel and elephants up on our coloured book shelf, asking him to keep his eye open for them around the house.   After about 2 weeks he called me excitedly from the living room having finally found them!

Since then I’ve decided it is a good spot to keep them so they are there as a little surprise for anyone who takes the time to really look.

 

 

Autumn In Camberwell

Autumn arrived in Camberwell while we were away on holiday, but we just got back in time to catch some of the colour. Here are a few photos to start your weekend.

The photo on the left is the view from our study, while the other two are of a ‘secret’ door to someone’s garden that I have always loved on the other side of the street to us.

Autumn Colours

Here are some autumn coloured flowers for your weekend… Gerber daisies from the supermarket (£2), and lavender from our garden.

Postcards on a picture rail

For something bright and sunny for a friday afternoon I give you the latest addition to our living room – some brightly coloured postcards on our picture rail.

Whenever I visit a gallery I tend to buy one or two postcards, but never really seem to know what to do with them when I get home and so they just sit quietly in a shoebox. I hung a few green coloured cards on a ribbon in our new study, but that only made a small dent in my collection.

Last month I saw an image in Elle Decoration magazine of a living room with a series of beautiful old sepia photos on top of a picture rail.  I modified that idea to make a home for a few more colourful postcards in our living room.  They create a nice balance to our rainbow of books on the opposite wall.

Study complete!

I am pleased to report that I am actually, at long last, officially writing this blog post from our brand new study.  From here, I can look out over our sunny back garden and keep an eye on the various neighbourhood cats that wander across the rear garden fences. I have space to spread out on the full room width desk, and its warm and cosy.

The frosted privacy glass window panes was replaced with clear glass recently, and we finally finished up the remaining bits and pieces of sanding and painting. I haven’t made my trip to IKEA yet to buy the drawer bases for our desktop, but have improvised with some airline lockers that were, until now, in the living room holding up a book shelf (now replaced with other books until I get around to designing some joinery!).

I moved the green chair from our guest room into the study, as I am leaning towards the green accented colour scheme here, given the proximity of this room to the garden (and the fact that I have a lot of sunshine yellow in the house already!).  So ‘bedroom chair’ has just been added to my ‘things to look out for’ list.

I used a vintage letter punch that my friend Claire gave me for my 40th to label the Muji binders. A scattering of plants inspired by my friend Heather’s flat in Chicago finishes off the study for the time being.

 

 

 

Study Material Board – Blue Option

And finally, the Blue Option!   I show you this material board as I already prepared it, but I am leaning towards the Yellow or Green at the moment. We already have this inky blue hue in our living room, so feel it would be nice to go with something different.

We’ve also decided on a pair of drawer units (one for Alex, one for me!), rather than the storage cupboard shown in this option.  I’ve opted for drawers here as the contents are easier to access (no need to bend down to see what is at the back of your cupboard), and they will hold many more things than a single shelf in a storage unit. The ‘Alex’ range at IKEA actually has quite a few other nice cabinet configurations – I quite like the wider unit on casters – but its bigger than we need.

That means the binders will need to go on the desk, rather than stored away, and hence my reason for investigating a more attractive option for this than the mismatched somewhat dog-eared files we have currently! Even in today’s digital world alas there are still bits of paper we need to keep and store (pay slips for 10 years apparently, tax forms, latest utility bill etc).

So, in this material board I show you:

1. Muji binders in Charcoal – £4.95
2. Alex Storage Unit – £50
3. White Muji toolbox – £7.95
4. Kvissle Desk Organiser from IKEA – £7.99
5. Furniture Linoleum from Marmoleum in Jeans- £25/ m2
6. Flos Tab Desk Lamp – £205
7. White painted rafters
8. HAY About a Chair AAC22 – Price depends on Upholstery

 

 

Study Material Board – Green Option

Today I give you the ‘Green Option’. As with the Yellow Option, I have kept the existing floorboards lightly white-washed (my eventual plan), and the timber trusses exposed rather than painted white. At the moment I like how they contrast with the white walls and ceiling.

Items in this material board include:

1. Muji craft paper binders – £4.95 each
2. Alex Drawer Unit from IKEA – £50 each
3. Furniture Linoleum from Forbo Marmoleum in Conifer Green – £25/ m2
4. Grey Concrete Pot from Conpot – £20
5. Wrong for Hay Lens Cork Box – £24 for the small box. Also available in other materials like ash and marble.
6. Anglepoise Desk Lamp – I have a restored one that I bought in Camden Market ages ago. But you can buy a new one from Heals for £130 in brushed stainless.
7. Copenhagen Chair by Hay – £140-£250 depending on finish
8. Photo of fruit delivery truck from our travels in Sicily last year

Study Material Board – Yellow Option

So to distract myself from the delays to the bathroom, I’ve decided to focus on the study.

But first, the plan for our desk:

I opted for 2300mm tall doors in both the bathroom and study not only because Alex is tall, but to accentuate the sense of height. The tall doors also provide a bit of generosity in the vertical direction to make up for the narrowness of the corridor. The reason I am telling you this is because 2400 tall door blanks are 1200mm wide as standard. So, this meant that I had a 55cm wide offcut which was headed for the skip until I had the bright idea that I could use it as an economical desk top! My builder kindly cut it to the right length so it fits perfectly wall to wall in the space.

My plan is to eventually cover the top in Furniture Linoleum from Marmoleum to give it a nicer surface for writing on. It comes in many colours but my favourites are a deep forest green, a dusty dark blue, and of course a soft warm grey – so to help decide I’ve made three material boards for each.

As the linoleum roles come in 1.8m widths, (and I need 2m) to avoid buying 2m of length, I am going to just buy 1m, and add a band of cork at one end, which appears in all options. You may remember that I lined my shelves with cork and still have some left over which would work perfectly.

Todays material board includes:

1. Jielde Floor Lamp
2. Alex Drawer Units from IKEA
3. 365+ Cork Coasters from IKEA
4. Brown Craft paper lever binders from Muji
5. White concrete plant pot from Conpot – Made in nearby South London
6. Kvissle Desk Organiser from IKEA
7. Yellow Utility Chair from Very Good and Proper
8. Mushroom Grey Furniture Linoleum