Grand house for sale.

No, it's not ours. We're firmly staying put here - well, for the time being anyway - David's work contract runs out in December - fingers crossed it will be extended. If it's not, who knows where we'll end up . . .

Anyway. I was driving through Radyr (a suburb of Cardiff) today and I noticed that a house I always stare at is up for sale! I knew we would never be able to afford it, but as soon as I got home I looked up the details - I was intrigued to know the price and also to see inside!

Imposing isn't it!

It's on the market for £895000 - ridiculous money, I know! Never in a million years would we be able to afford that! One can dream though!

Here's what it looks like on the inside:

Oh to get my hands on those rooms! I love the fireplaces, the picture rails, cornicing, original floorboards and the beautiful sash windows! All features that have been ripped out of our poor little house.

Here's the garden:

All images from here.

Pretty decent size - brilliant for a family to run around in. Shame it won't be my family. Sad face.

The Victorians knew how to tile a hall.

I went round to my friend's house today - she lives in one of the large Victorian terraced houses in the Victoria Park area of Cardiff. It was the first time I'd been to her house and before I got there I'd wondered if I'd be able to get the buggy in easily. I needn't have worried, because as I went through the front door, I could see that she had a wonderfully big entrance hall which was completed by a beautiful original Victorian tiled floor similar to this one:

Image from here.

Jealous or what - I would love to have original tiles in our hallway!

We decided to go for these plain tiles when we changed the ones in our entrance hall - mainly because they were really reasonably priced. I also generally think that if you can't find (or afford!) original features to go in a period home, then going quite modern works pretty well.

I love this hallway too:

Image from here.

And this one!

Image from here.

What do you have in your entrance hall? Are you lucky enough to have original flooring - I'd love to see a picture!

Keeping a handle on it.

A few people contacted me yesterday asking for a close up of the handles we used on our new alcove cupboard. I realise that it's not very easy to see what they're like from the picture I posted, so I've included a zoomed in picture below.

I bought our handles from Rossiters in Cardifff, which is one of my favourite shops, but I think I've also seen them at Bombay Duck.

I really like to change handles on cupboards, especially if they are just plain wood to begin with  - it's such an easy and relatively cheap way to give a piece of furniture a new lease of life! 

I've put together a quick round up of some other lovely handles that have caught my attention recently for you - hope you like them!

Butterfly ceramic door knob from here.

Dove ceramic door knob from here.

White shell flower door knob from here.

White dragonfly wildlife knob from here.

Still no news on the baby front - guess my due date has come and gone. Hurry up little one!

Flower power in the living room.

On Saturday, Wales became the first country in the UK to introduce a mandatory charge for plastic bags in shops. From now on it's going to cost shoppers a minimum of 5p per plastic bag used. I think I'll be fine in the supermarket - I really try and make sure I have plenty of bags for life with me when I'm doing the weekly shop. It's going to be when I'm in town and in individual shops that I may quite often find myself bagless. For example, we bought Torin his winter shoes this weekend - we got him these, and realised that even though it was the first day of the new charge, we hadn't brought bags with us! Luckily his shoes fitted into our baby-change bag, so we were spared the fine! It's a change I wholeheartedly endorse, I guess it's just going to take a bit of getting used to.

Making the change easier for me is going to be this latest beauty from the Orla Kiely / Tesco / CLIC Sargent / Royal College of Art collaboration:

I was thinking about these bags the other day, because I remembered that there were meant to be several designs released throughout this year. I did an internet search and found that I'd missed out on some of them already - I only have this one - the first one. So, I was really happy when I happened to be in Tesco the other day and found myself looking at a whole end of aisle display full of this new design. I may actually have to get myself another one because mine is currently underneath the console table in our living room and I'm using it to store all of Torin's musical instruments. It looks rather good there as it is exactly the right colour - the olive green, brown and red match our room exactly - it may have to be stay there for a while!

Do any of you have one of these bags? Which is your favourite design?

An elephant, cupcakes and a picnic in the park.

I had a lovely birthday yesterday - David took the day off and we spent a relaxing day in the park with Torin. After a lovely lie-in (a massive treat in itself), I opened my cards and presents over breakfast. David bought my present back with him from his recent trip to Denmark. It's a 15cm unique elephant from the Elephant Parade project. Mine is number 82 out of only 250 made, so it's a really special gift. It's currently sitting on the shelf above our television, and I love the pop of colour it gives to the alcove:

My mum had told me that she had arranged a surprise to be delivered to our house during the morning, so we waited for the delivery to be made before we packed up our picnic and headed for the park. When the doorbell rang, I was met by a lovely lady from a bakery in Cardiff, who gave me a box containing these delicious looking (and tasting!) cupcakes:

We split one of these between the 3 of us straight away, added some of the others to our picnic hamper and then set off for Bute park in the city centre. The park was really quiet, and they'd just cut the grass, so we had a really lovely time just by ourselves - messing around taking photos, playing football and pointing at aeroplanes (Torin mainly!):

Now a whole year to wait until it's my birthday again, and it's a big one next time - gosh, that's going to be strange!

Design classics and other old things.

You may have seen from my tweets that I managed to get to Jacobs Antiques Centre in Cardiff (I wrote about it here) on Friday. I'm so glad that I finally got to go there - it is a really great place!

There was a huge array of treasures on display there - it is made up of 50 or so separate "stalls". Some are set out neatly and only had a few things to sell, whereas other stalls required a real rummage! There was a lovely mix of furniture, accessories, vintage clothes and jewellery - when we got there it was really difficult to choose where to begin!

The first thing that caught my eye, apart from piles and piles of old suitcases, was an old black Barcelona chair and ottoman similar to these ones (though admittedly a little more worn):

Image from here.

Image from here.

I then could have taken advantage of a massive bargain - I found a 4 tier Kartell Componibili storage unit for £100 and the vendor said I could have it for £70! It was similar to these but taller:

Image from here.

I told the woman that I would go away and think about it as I thought that it could provide a solution to my bathroom storage problem (mentioned here). But, I think I really want a glazed wooden cabinet and although the Kartell unit is very cool, it wasn't really what I wanted. It is amazing how tempted I was though, to buy it without anywhere to put it, just because it was a design classic - familiar feeling anyone?

There was a lot of much older dark wood furniture in the place, and out of this range, an Edwardian "potty" cabinet that would be great as a bedside table, caught my eye at £35. It actually looked a lot like the EDLAND bedside table from IKEA:

Image from here.

It just shows doesn't it if you like old furniture, it is so much more economical than buying flat packed!

I also saw a wooden glazed cabinet that would be great in our bathroom, but stupidly I had forgotten to bring my measurements with me, so I couldn't make them an offer on Friday (this may be my excuse to go back soon). The cabinet was £40 and looked similar to this one:

Image from here.

If I do decide to go back and buy this (if it's still there) I'll probably paint it so it's more in-keeping with our bathroom, and so the wood is protected by the paint.

I'll definitely be going back to Jacobs, and if you live nearby and haven't yet been, I'd definitely recommend taking a visit! Next time I go I'll also try and remember to take my camera as I realise actual pictures of the place would give a better illustration than my description!

Have you bought anything from an antiques / second hand place recently? 

A fruitless hunt for antiques.

Yesterday, my plan was to go to Jacobs Antiques Centre in Cardiff. So, I trundled there with David and Torin after Torin and I had met with one of my heavily pregnant (less than 2 weeks to go!) friends for a lovely cream tea, only to find that it only opens Thursday to Saturday!

Image from here.

It's somewhere I've been meaning go to for a while but haven't really found the right time (plus, I've never really known where the entrance was). Oh well, I guess yesterday wasn't the right time either!

The place is apparently 3 floors crammed full of antique and vintage finds, and is described by one customer as, "a Narnia made for the bargain hunters among us" - sounds great! There's meant to be a real mix of stuff there, including furniture - so I may even find my cupboard for the bathroom! Hopefully with over 50 stalls to browse through, I'll be able to come away with something interesting - will let you know how I get on, once I finally get there!

Butterflies and landscapes.

On Saturday, I managed to tick two things off my to-do lists. I cracked open our drill and put up a picture in the little area outside our bathroom, and some ceramic butterfly wall art up in our bedroom.

Here's the picture:

The clock has been here for a while now, and when I put it on the wall I positioned it with this picture going underneath in mind. The picture is by local artist Nick Comerford, who is also an art teacher in the school where I used to teach. I was so touched when he gave me this picture as a leaving gift, as I had previously been to see and admired his paintings when he showed them in a local gallery.

I think adding this picture to this wall has really made this strange little space into more of a room in its own right.

These are the ceramic butterflies I put up in our bedroom:

David bought me these a few years ago and I'm not sure why they didn't made it onto the wall for so long, apart from that I wasn't quite sure where to put them in order to show them off well. I decided to just go for it, and I'm really pleased with how they look above my bedside cabinet. They look pretty against the paint colour during the day, and the bedside light glows pleasingly through them in the evening.

Even though these were tiny jobs, I feel like I achieved something this weekend, and it feels good!

Spring tulips and lovely sunshine.

What a glorious weekend! Hope you had the sun where you are.

My parents came to stay and we were able to spend most of our time outside because of the lovely lovely weather. When they arrived on Friday, they gave me two bunches of pretty tulips:

The windowsill behind the sink in the kitchen is one of my favourite places to display flowers - you can perhaps see from this picture that we can't see our garden from this window, as it is at the side of the house, so I love to have flowers here to bring a bit of the outside indoors.

On Saturday, my brother and his girlfriend, and David's brother came over and we all went to Bute park in the centre of Cardiff, for a picnic. We sat in dappled sunshine underneath blossoming trees, and drank in the beautiful spring day. A lazy walk back to our house via a sunny beer garden completed a relaxing day. 

A Chapter full of art.

While my parents are visiting this weekend, we'll no doubt go to one of our favourite bars, which is near our house in Cardiff. The bar at Chapter Arts Centre was been described as, "the best place to drink in Wales" by the Observer Food Magazine. It has a great atmosphere, serves delicious food (a lot of it vegetarian and vegan), and is child friendly. We often go there when my parents visit, as my father is partial to their wide selection of wheat beers.

Chapter has recently undergone a £3.8 million refurbishment, and now has less of the feel of an school hall, and more of a contemporary, comfortable place where you can go to eat, drink and meet friends.

One of the things I like the most about the Centre, (apart from the black copycat Eames DSX chairs), is the fact that there is a wall running the length of the bar area, where artists can display their work.

The display at the moment, is by Gemma Correll, an illustrator who specialises in hand-drawn comics, characters, typography and pattern. To produce the huge piece of work for Chapter, Correll drew directly onto the wall, and, in her quirky style, produced illustrations in the form of a mural, depicting the history of the Arts Centre. I was lucky enough to be in Chapter while she was working on the piece, and I was in awe - she seemed so confident, drawing in red and black onto a huge white wall.

Below is a picture of the completed mural, followed by a shot of Correll working on the mural, and a close-up so you can see the detail.

Image from here.

Image from here.

Image from here.

Shopping in Cardiff.

Sorry for my absence yesterday - we spent the day in Cardiff with David's mother, as it was her birthday. After having yummy Mexican food for lunch, we went for a browse around the shops. Here's what I found:

I remember seeing pictures of the Lock kids' interlocking table and chair set from Habitat a while ago, but I'd never seen one in a shop before. Walking past Habitat yesterday however, I saw this beautiful piece in the window, and in the sale for half price!

Image from here.

Not only does this table and chair set look great, it is so practical too, as it slots together to form a neat cube  -such a good idea for families with limited space:

Image from here.

We gave Torin a table and chair for Christmas this year - it sits in our living room, here:

He loves it - as soon as he unwrapped it, he knew it was for him, and promptly sat on the chair, dangling his legs. It's the LACK side table, and the SVALA children's chair from IKEA - a budget option, but we're quite happy with it. It looks very sweet, goes well enough with the decor in our room, and at such a low price, it really doesn't matter if it gets felt pen (or Weetabix!) all over it.

I have to admit though, if I'd seen the Habitat set at the sale price before we bought the IKEA set, I may have succumbed!

I can't go without showing you the other thing I found while in Monsoon:

- this gorgeous red chiffon dress - so pretty!

And no, I didn't buy that either!