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.

In an effort to streamline our finances, I stopped my subscription to LivingEtc a while ago. I miss it. Especially when they feature wonderful rooms like this one - love the chartreuse and teal combination against the white walls and little floral touches.

Image from here.

Happy weekend everybody!

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.

We made it to the end of the week! This week has gone s...l...o...w...l...y! Torin's settled in well at nursery school, but it has made him completely exhausted and as I'm sure a lot of you can appreciate, an exhausted three year old is not the most fun person to have around! When he woke up this morning he said, "Mummy, I just didn't have enough sleep!"

So, we're just going to have a relaxed, fairly quiet weekend just sorting things out around the house, and seeing a few friends. I'd love it if I had this cosy space in which to while away my time . . .

Image from here.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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.

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.

I don't know if it's due to the lovely Spring-like weather we've had recently (it's been such a joy to hang washing out on the line again!), but this week I've found myself being rather drawn to nautical style fabric, especially those featuring birds. Isn't this wonderful fabric by Vanessa Arbuthnott pretty!

Image from here.

Also, what you can't see from this photograph is that the background of the fabric has tiny white dots all over it - you can see what I mean in the picture below:

Image from here.

 I also stumbled upon this similar fabric by Clarke and Clarke which is about a third of the price:

Image from here.

I'd love to use one of these fabrics to make a Roman blind for our bathroom window - I think it would really add some much needed warmth to the room. What do you think?

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.

Our good friends Andy and Anna had their baby this morning, so it's a happy day in the Mellor household!

Inspired by the birth of Baby Bartlett (no name yet as she was 4 weeks early!) I'd like to share this picture of this dark and brooding nursery. Love those lightshades!

Image from here.

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.

I can't believe it's Friday again! At the moment it seems days are going slowly, whereas weeks are romping by!

Have you by any chance seen Bookshelf Porn before? Don't worry, it's not at all riské. It's a blog for people who like bookshelves. David pointed me in it's direction as he knows about my preference for colour-coding!

The blog describes itself as, "A photo blog collection from around the world for people who "heart" bookshelves." Here are some of my favourite pictures from the site:

What a great use of space - incorporating your bookshelves into your staircase!

Such a good idea - make your books into art!

Love these bookcases - so pretty! Although, it would be difficult to find your books if they were all turned around like these! Pretty, but not at all practical!

All images from here.

Happy weekend, people! x

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.

My grandmother bought a really sweet vest for Astrid this Christmas; it's a little too big for her at the moment, or I would have put a picture of her wearing it on here. She bought it from a shop called The Oak Room, which can be found in the grounds of Hatfield House, Herfordshire. The vest came in a wonderful bag that was made from old newspaper, and had a promotional postcard for the shop inside. I was so impressed with the bag, and the pictures on the postcard that I took a look at their website.

What I found at The Oak Room, was a collection of lovely products for the home, as well as seasonal and celebration gifts, and a lot of stationery. I naturally went to the Home and Garden section first and found some unusual objects such as this Garden Rake Hook:

and this Russian Doll Ceramic Money Box (I'd love to get one of these for Astrid!):

One area of the shop I especially liked was the Haberdashery and Craft section, where I found this Live, Laugh, Love Paper Tape:

and these super cute little Chick Buttons, that can also be used as beads:

All images from here.

The website is described as "an edited version of our beautiful shop", and certainly, there are products that feature on the promotional postcard that I couldn't find on the website, but it's well worth a look at their website, and I'll definitely be paying a visit to their shop if I ever go to Hatfield House.

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 seems it's been a while since I did one of these posts - sorry!

I've begun to turn my thoughts to Christmas presents this week. Last year I was very proud of myself because I made all of the gifts that we gave to people. I knew however, that wasn't really feasible this year though, as I'm due on Tuesday and a new baby, a two and a half year old and lots of little craft projects just wouldn't really work out very well! Even though I am going to be buying gifts, I am going to try and buy mostly handmade where possible, perhaps to ease my conscience a little - there really are some wonderful things around on sites like ETSY.

Elsewhere however, products and potential gifts that have caught my eye this week are all linked by the fact that they're spangly! I've found myself drawn to anything sparkly and vintage-looking, especially in mercury glass like these beautiful place name baubles from Cox & Cox:

Image from here.

I love the 1920s glamour of these storage jars - perfect for housing beauty essentials:

Image from here.

Admittedly, unless we won the lottery, this would probably never be given as a gift for anyone as it's quite pricey. However, I absolutely can't stop looking at this picture of this antique looking mirror. It would look amazing in my hallway. Sigh! I guess it'll have to stay on my pie in the sky gifts to myself list for now!

Image from here.

Hope you all have sparkly weekends - are you up to much? We're going to be painting the cupboard that my brother-in-law built in the alcove in our dining room. I think it's going to look great when it's finished as he's done such a good job on it already. I'll be sure to post some pictures of the finished article on Monday. 

Apart from that, it's the waiting game for us . . .

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.

Is it just me, or has this week gone really slowly? Anyway, it's Friday and therefore time for me to share something that has caught my eye recently.

I don't have a wedding to plan (in fact David and I have just celebrated our fourth anniversary), but if I did, I would really consider using something as pretty as these as my place settings:

Image from here.

Beautiful, don't you think?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. This weekend I'll be mostly watching rugby (Wales v Argentina), going mattress shopping for Torin's bed, and catching up with friends. 

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.

This fabric from VillaNova would be perfect for the new curtains I really want in our living room and dining room.

The Garland fabric from their High Society collection, would go so well in my room in the Cherry colourway (take a look here for a reminder of my chosen paint colours). Wisteria and Olive would be another option - both are lovely and would complement the olive paint and red accessories that are already in the room. It's a shame that it's so expensive because I'm going to need a lot of fabric to replace the curtains we already have - we have high ceilings plus one large window and a back door that need curtains.

Here's a zoomed in version of the fabric so you can see the pattern repeat more easily:

Here's a version that's zoomed in even further so you can see the print in greater detail:

All images from here.

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.

I went into my local Next home shop yesterday to look for a gift for my great aunt's birthday, and was really pleasantly surprised with their new range of accessories. As usual, everything was available in several colourways, but what really impressed me was the range of 100% recycled glass vases that were on display. My favourite was this red one - I really love the shape:

Image from here.

This green vase also caught my eye:

I really like how the recycled aspect of the glass makes the vases look older they are. Also, at only £5, they're complete bargains!

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.

As I sit here looking out of the window in our back door at the rain hammering down into our garden, I feel I'm really in need of something to remind me that it is in fact July and not October! This beautiful plate from Pedlars has done the trick.

Image from here.

At £65, it's not cheap, but the Italian design and pretty colour are a great way to brighten up a table on a day like 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.

While I was at my parents' house last week, my mum tole me that she wanted to re-decorate their downstairs cloakroom. Currently, the room has a pale blue suite, pale blue and white tiles and blue walls and my mum wants to change it to a white suite with dark wooden accessories and dark tiles. 

An image of a bathroom that I had cut out of Ideal Home magazine a few years ago sprung into my mind, and I tried to describe it to my mum, although I don't really think I managed to do it justice. It was this picture of Nicola Gill and John Ces' bathroom from their 1840s terraced house in Hastings, Sussex:

Images from here.

I think that the couple are very brave to use a dark colour so completely in this room, but those tiles work beautifully with the white suite and lime accents. So incredibly opulent!

As a lovely coincidence, when I got back to Cardiff, the August issue of Ideal Home was waiting for me, and inside was a complete feature of Nicola and John's house, along with this more recent picture of their bathroom:

Sorry for the quite poor quality of the picture - it was the only one I could find. I really like the fact that the couple still have the same bathroom, but that it now looks a little more relaxed (something I imagine that has happened as the result of their two children being born).

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.

I've just seen this picture of this fantastic cubby hole while looking at Odeedoh:

Image found here.

It looks like the perfect fun den for teenagers (or fun loving adults!) to hang out. 

It made me smile as I remember trying to get my dad to cut a big hole in one of the eves of my childhood bedroom so I could put cushions in there. My bedroom had a big dormer window in it, and therefore had two sloping ceilings in it. I remember conjuring up the idea with one of my friends and then badgering my dad to chop a hole in the wall of my bedroom so I could sit in there. I must have been a complete pain!

Just a quick one . . .

Firstly I just want to say thank you to all of you for reading Beautiful Square Feet! Its just reached over 2500 page views and I'm really pleased that you seem to be enjoying what I'm writing! Thanks for stopping by!

This week Torin and I are going to be spending a relaxing time with my parents in Kent - very much looking forward to my mum's cooking and it'll be lovely to catch up with other family members and friends! While we're away I'll still be blogging, but I'm not going to have as much time as I usually do to do  varied posts, so I'll be having an extended week of Can't stop looking at . . . which I usually do on Fridays.

First up, is the new attic bedroom that Benita of Chez Larsson has created for her son Wille in their new house:

Image from here.

It's a lovely, clean den that's perfect for a teenage boy don't you think? I really like the fact that the room is so simply decorated, but that there are a few really funky touches such as the map lampshade and the Kartell storage unit.

If you haven't already, you should really go to her blog and see what this room looked like before this transformation - it was just a little different to say the least!

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.

Very good friends of ours are expecting their first baby in September (very exciting!), and yesterday the mum-to-be told me they are planning on painting the nursery in Farrow and Ball's Teresa's Green. I wasn't familiar with the shade so took a look at a colour card that I had in the house. It's the perfect calming shade of pale greeny blue and will look great in a neutral nursery - they don't know what they're having:

Paint chip from here.

I then had a quick look around for rooms that were painted in this colour, and was very pleased with the relaxing havens I found.

The perfect bathroom mix - period colour with a plain tub and antique accessories:

Image from here.

Setting off plain glass bottles and white accessories perfectly in this very lovely TV room:

Image from here.

Adding to the beauty of this jug (the middle colour):

Image found here.

Helping this Swedish style kitchen to feel light and airy:

Image from here.

Hope you all have a wonderfully calming weekend!

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.

So I guess soon I'll need to turn my attention to the back room of our house, as we'll be turning it into Torin's room. The new baby will have the room that Torin is currently in as it is next to our bedroom, and most things in it will probably remain the same. I think we'll move the wardrobe and chest of drawers into Torin's new room, so we will need a few new bits, but even if we were keeping everything the same, I'd like to change a few things just to ring the changes! Still don't know what we're having by the way, (we should find out in early July) and I guess this may have some influence on what we do in the nursery, but most of the room is neutral anyway, so we shouldn't need to do too much.

However, I'll still be enjoying looking around for inspiration for both the nursery for the new baby, and for Torin's room. When I was planning Torin's nursery, Odeedoh was such a useful resource, especially the nursery tours - I'll definitely be going back there for ideas! Speaking of Odeedoh, I saw Lula's nursery on there the other day, and I love it! Just the right mix of old and new combined with a sophisticated colour scheme.

Images from here - make sure you take a look at the other pictures of the room - lovely!

One of my favourite things about the room, apart from the fantastic mirror(!) are the letters making up Lula's name on the wall above the nursing chair. It has become quite commonplace to see children's names on their bedroom walls, but the way that Lula's mum Sophie has chosen letters in different styles is a really fresh take on the idea, and something that I'd love to replicate for both of my children.

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.

I saw this image in the July edition of Living etc magazine, and every time I open the magazine I'm drawn to it.

Image found here.

I don't know if it's the mixture of patterns, the mustard tone of the yellow, or the fact that the colour of the wood goes so well with the yellow and the grey hue of the walls (I think they are actually white, but the lighting makes them look grey to me), but I just think this picture zings!

I would love to give this type of stencilling a go in a plain hallway (as mine is at the moment), but we are about to lay carpet on our stairs. At the moment they are painted white - we chose to do this as the old carpet was badly stained and I do like the way they look, but they are so impractical when you have a toddler! I settle Torin in his cot, and then the moment I walk out of his room onto the landing and the floorboards creak, he wakes up as he knows I'm no longer in his room! If I make it across the landing, I've taken to going down the stairs 5 at a time which involves using my hands and feet in an almost crab-like movement - not something I'm going to be able to do for much longer! So, we've decided that a new carpet is the answer, as it will hopefully muffle the sound of our feet and Torin will be none the wiser!

So, this picture is firmly in an "appreciation from afar" box, rather than something I'm going to do in my home, but I hope it has brought your Friday a little bit of sunshine (something we've certainly lacked in rainy Wales 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.

Last week Marie Nichols of Whole Lotta Lovely, married her partner Simon. Marie has written a full post about her day here and has included many lovely pictures, but the wedding looked so beautiful that I wanted to show you some of her pictures here too. 

Marie calls the day her "DIY wedding" as she made all of the decorations herself with help from her family and friends.

I'm sure you'll agree, it all looks fantastic!

Images from here.

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.

This cabinet from Graham and Green, featured on the front of this month's Ideal Home magazine, is beautiful and would be absolutely perfect for my bathroom as it can be hung up on the wall. Unfortunately it's quite expensive at £295, and therefore beyond my price range (which at the moment is pretty much £0), but it is lovely.

Image from here.

I'll have to keep my eye out in second hand shops (and HomeSense!) for something similar. Actually, that may be better, because although this cabinet is gorgeous, it is new and therefore the distressed paint is a deliberate effect, albeit, "carefully considered" as it says on the website. A genuinely battered cabinet may in fact look better. We'll see though - I don't usually have much luck with finding pieces I like in second hand shops.