Torin's smart new blind.

The new blind for Torin's room arrived a couple of days ago and I put it up straight away - remember I mentioned he was having to make do with a blanket tied on to the window with hair ties?!

I'd ordered a blackout, spring-loaded roller blind from Keeleys Blinds. I'd never used them before, but they were a lot more reasonable than other places and as you'll know by now, we're on a very tight budget!

Anyway, the blind was delivered when they said it was going to be delivered, is very well made and was easy to install. I was also impressed with the company because I ordered the blind on my iPad and then, when I went on our desktop to write about what I'd done, there was a banner (that hadn't appeared on my iPad) on their website giving a further 11% off if you entered a code. I contacted them straightaway telling them that I'd just ordered a blind, had only just seen the offer and could they please please please give me the discount . . . and it was refunded to me the next day!

Torin is really pleased with the new blind - he likes the fact that you pull it to bring it down, and then you pull it to put it up!

As you can see, there is a huge amount of work still to do in this room (I got a bit trigger happy pulling off a tiny bit of wallpaper to see the state of the wall underneath!), but it was so important that Torin moved in here, as Astrid really needed to go into her own room - it seemed like even the turning of a page in a book was waking her up!

The light was so dingy here today as it bucketed down for most of the afternoon - so apologies for the rather drab picture. I realise that you also can't see the colour of the blind - it looks really dark, but it's actually a lovely fresh ivory. I think the blackout feature is going to work really well too - I certainly fell asleep well enough in there earlier while I was settling Torin into bed! Can you see also why I chose a sprung blind rather than a cord-operated one? Torin would have been able to reach the cord wherever we fixed it - I just felt it wasn't worth the potential danger, so although I've seen cheaper blackout cord-operated roller blinds around, I'm really pleased with my choice and feel that Torin is pretty safe in his room on his own.

Actually that leads me to the next "feature" - can you see the rather attractive (temporary!) "locks" I've put on the windows? Yep, they're elastic bands wound around the handles until I manage to find some suitable window locks - those windows open fully! Scary? I know! Anyway, they seem secure enough for now, and there's no way Torin can take the elastic bands off by himself.

Have any of you had the same issues? What solution did you come up with?

Our pretty blue shed.

We've managed to be quite busy around the house while I've been away from this little blog, so I'll be preparing some posts in the next week or so to show you what we've been up to.

Thanks to my brother, our shed has finally been painted! I decided what colour I wanted to paint the shed a while ago, and finally managed to track it down in Homebase recently. I decided on Coastal Mist by Cuprinol as I thought the pale blue shade would bring some much needed colour into our garden and liven up the drizzly view we have out of our back door for much of the year!

As I said, despite the rainy weather, my lovely brother painted the shed for me while he was staying with us a few weeks ago - he even took Torin out with him so he could "help"! Thanks Ad! Don't they look sweet together!

This is what it looks like now - a little different!

I'm so pleased with it. It's lovely and sunny here today, but even in the rain it really does brighten up the garden.

I decided to paint the hinges white, mainly because I had some paint left over from when we painted the drainpipe on the front of our house (white drainpipes look so much better than faded grey when your house is newly painted white!) and I also thought that black would look too harsh against the blue. What do you think - do you like the white?

I hope it's sunny where you are today!

Can't stop looking at . . .

Each week, I'll be sharing with you something that has caught my eye. It may be a picture, blog, product or website.

Gosh, it's been a while since I've done one of these posts! Think it's a good one this week though.

In my ongoing attempts to bring some organisation to the chaos of my house, I've been drawn this week to this simple but stunning, beautifully arranged storage in Belinda and Lewis Fulton's dining room.

Image from here.

When not in use, the shelves can be hidden behind cupboard doors, but aren't they tidy! I love the tall rectangular jars in the right hand alcove, and the monochrome colourscheme adds to the orderly feel of the room.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and that you and yours are happy.

When is a pencil sharpener not a pencil sharpener?

I didn't manage to get the pic of Astrid's curtains today - sorry. I'll really try and take one tomorrow, though it may have Torin's cheesy grin in the middle of it as I don't seem to be able to pick up the camera at the moment without him leaping in front of it! 

So, what was I doing today? We spent most of this afternoon in Chapter Arts Cinema celebrating our friend Mark's birthday, which was lovely. He's just converted his loft space into a spare room / office, so we bought him something to adorn the new desk he'll be putting in there. We have one of these on the desk in our dining room, and I think it's really cool, so we got one for Mark too. The sustainably harvested Rubberwood is lovely and smooth and it's also a great talking point. 

Image from here.

Luckily Mark really liked it.

I remember seeing this desk tidy in Living Etc a while ago, where it was described as a "design classic". We got ours from John Lewis, but it's widely available and is made by Suck UK. I'd never looked at their website until now, but they've got some really quirky products for sale. My favourite item is this ornate cork pinboard:

Image from here.

At £40, you may be better off finding an old picture frame and inserting your own piece of cork into it, but you have to admit, this one is more interesting than your average notice board.

I hate to block out the sun, but . . .

We finally moved the furniture around in the childrens' rooms this weekend, so Astrid is in her own room at last! She's sleeping pretty well in the cot, but she's definitely a babe who's aware of when it's light - a trip to Dunelm Mill to buy blackout fabric was needed. As it worked out nearly the same price, in the end I actually bought these blackout curtains - they're designed to be slotted onto the same curtain pole as a pair of eyelet curtains, and they actually work really well.

Image from here.

Hopefully I'll post a picture of Astrid's curtains tomorrow - I didn't get a chance to take one earlier and REALLY don't want to disturb her now. I've swapped the blue curtains that were in the room already (because the room belonged to Torin), for one of the pairs of curtains that we had in our room - the plan is that we'll soon be getting blinds in our bedroom.

At the moment poor Torin is making do with a blanket tied over his window as a makeshift curtain. This is actually one of the reasons we hadn't moved the children around sooner - Torin's bed was going to go underneath the window in his new bedroom and hanging over the window (and therefore within his reach) was a rather useless see-through woven roller blind with a long cord attached to it. I really didn't feel comfortable with Torin being able to reach the cord, so was really hesitant to put him in the room until we had something else to put up at the window. 

I initially thought of cutting down the curtains that were in his current room to try and avoid spending more money, but the window is quite wide and short (the recess is 120x88cm) and I thought curtains wouldn't look quite right in the room. I wanted the clean lines of a blind, but without the danger of a long cord, so I investigated spring-loaded roller blinds. After a bit of internet-trawling, I finally settled on a blackout, spring-loaded roller blind from Keeley's Blinds. They seemed pretty reasonable and say they'll deliver my made-to-measure blind within a week. Colourwise, I decided to go for a cream as I still haven't decided on what colour I want to paint Torin's room and so I needed something that would go with any colour scheme and also a colour that he wouldn't outgrow.

Image from here.

What do you think - boring or practical?