My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Torin's room

As promised on Friday, here are some pictures from Torin's room. I think his is my favourite room in our house - it feels better than the others because we were able to start almost from scratch with it - before he was born we had it completely re-plastered and painted everything properly - even the skirting boards!

There are many things that I like in his room, and we received so many lovely gifts since he was born, that it's quite difficult to choose just a few items to show you. However, I did manage to narrow it down to three things in the end:

Patchwork quilt

My parents' next door neighbour made this beautiful quilt for Torin when he was born. My parents have lived in the same house since before I was born, so we're all very close to our neighbours and I cried when I opened this gift - it must have taken her ages, as it has been made so neatly.

Peg line display

I saw this idea somewhere on flickr a few months before Torin was born and decided it would be a great way to display cards from his birth, birthdays, flashcards and other pictures, and eventually his own drawings and paintings. I used the DIGNITET curtain wire from IKEA and I use simple wooden pegs to hold the pictures in place.

I also love these vintage style flashcards that were bought for Torin by David's mum - she got them from The Natural History Museum, but I think they are out of stock at the moment.

Storage bag

I bought 2 of these lovely storage bags to contain all of Torin's old clothes. Our attic isn't yet boarded out (another job on the long long list), and we don't have anywhere else to store them, so they have to stay in his room. These bags are great - they are so roomy and I've so far managed to fit all of Torin's old clothes into 2 of them (he's 22 months old now).

I bought mine from the gift shop at Chapter Arts Centre, but I've also seen them here.

A gallery of children's rooms.

It's children city among our friends here in Cardiff at the moment - so many of our friends now have children, are pregnant or are trying for a baby. It seems like a good time then, to show you a quick round up of some of my favourite nurseries and rooms for small children.

Perhaps a room for very well behaved children? What an innovative use of space from Marian of The Bumper Crop.

Image and full feature from here.

A Danish vintage and handmade treasure trove for 3 year old Indigo Skye:

Image from here.

A calming and relaxing atmosphere created in a tiny space, for a boy or a girl:

Image from here.

This cosy space is beautiful - I love the harmony of the pinks and yellows.

Image found here.

It's back to nature in Carla's room, with a sneaky Eames rocker thrown in for good measure!

Image found here.

A lovely assortment of rooms - I hope you'll agree. I promise I'll post some pictures of Torin's room soon too - it's his room's turn to be featured in My home: an introduction, which I'll be posting on Monday.

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Bedroom

Among my many favourite items in our bedroom, there are two that really stand out for me. These are:

My Orla Kiely duvet cover

I think I may have actually squealed when I found this duvet cover set in TK Maxx several months ago. It came with 4 pillow cases, and was being sold for almost a quarter of its RRP! I snapped it up!

The tiny stem is my favourite Orla Kiely motif, and I think it looks stunning placed in brown thread onto the matt grey background of this cover.

A few weeks after I got this set, David surprised me with another. This time, it was a brown cover with the tiny stem motif in mustard yellow - yum! I love both sets - they go really well with our Mellow Mocha walls (you can see part of our wall here), and the colours help to make our bedroom feel smartly calm.

My jewellery box

This beautiful box was my 21st birthday present from my parents. It was made in the 1820s and is made from walnut with an inset and lock in mother of pearl. Apart from the way it looks, my favourite thing about it is that when you open it fully, you can press down on a metal button and a concealed tray emerges from the bottom of the box. This tray obviously once held a heavy gentleman's watch, as there is a circular indentation in the silk lining; I now use it to hold my earrings.

I love to imagine the previous owners of a piece like this - was it passed down in a line of gentlemen with important jobs and heavy watches? Or was it once the 21st birthday present of a Regency debutant? 

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Bathroom

Our bathroom is my next room to be featured in this series - I've mentioned before that our bathroom is downstairs, behind our kitchen, so it only seemed natural to focus on this room next.

The items I've focused on in this room are our medicine cabinet and "Jim", my metal bird sculpture:

Medicine cabinet

This little cupboard was a wedding present from my maternal grandmother. She picked it up at an auction, and it fits our needs perfectly. It's made of hard wood, and was made by soldiers who became injured in WWI. It has an inscription on the back that proves its provenance; unfortunately I can't take it off the wall to show you what it says, as I'm writing this while Torin is asleep upstairs having his afternoon nap and I'll wake him up if I go upstairs to get a screwdriver.

On the shelf are:

• a little blue and white china bowl from The Pier (now closed down)
• bath oils from The White Company (also a gift from my grandmother) - I love the simple packaging

"Jim" the metal bird

This was a birthday present from David a couple of years ago. That Spring, we had heard scratching in the chimney breast in our dining room - the chimney breast without an opening. Living in Cardiff, we often see seagulls nesting on chimney stacks, so our first thought was that a baby seagull had fallen down ours. We decided that we had to get it out, or the poor thing would certainly die (and begin to smell), so we took the grate off the wall. To our dismay, the hole in the wall behind the grate was approximately 3cm tall by 20cm long, so we had to widen the hole. David took a hammer and chisel and knocked a hole big enough for us to see what we were dealing with - a baby seagull that was by no means baby sized! Eventually we managed to widen the hole so it was big enough for David to reach in (with a gloved hand), and bring the poor bird out. He took it outside and placed it onto our patio table as we needed to see if it could fly away (we followed advice from the RSPB). Immediately, seagulls began circling our garden, screeching at the young bird. It didn't seem to be able to fly, and we were worried about our cats attacking it, so David plucked up the courage to go back into the garden (despite the now dive-bombing adults), and put the bird on the flat roof of our bathroom.

The bird stayed on our roof for about a week, and we named it Jim. Adult birds occasionally flew down to bring it food and one was always standing guard on our roof nearby. A few days into the following week, we heard a fracas in next door's garden and saw that Rufus our ginger cat had tried to have a pop at Jim, who must have tried to fly and ended up on the ground in their garden. The fracas was Rufus meowing and hastily retreating - seagulls can be vicious, and Jim certainly had back up. Over the next week or so, we would see Jim in different positions in the garden next door - he eventually managed to get up onto the roof of their shed. He then made it onto the roof of the house at the end of our garden. The day soon came when we went outside and couldn't see him anymore. This was a good thing - it meant he was fully grown up, fully healed, and free.

So, when David saw this metal sculpture in Homesense, he couldn't resist it. It always brings fond memories back every time I look at it, especially of David and our friend going out to check on Jim with umbrellas over their heads to protect them from swooping gulls!

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Kitchen

Our fridge

Our fridge is brilliant. When we moved into our house, we found that the owners had left their old fridge in the kitchen, so made do with it for a while. However, it was tiny and had a really bad stench. We coped by putting a pot of bicarbonate of soda inside it, which quelled the smell for a bit, but it soon became clear that we would need a new fridge. I had long coveted the retro design of the SMEG fridges, but knew there was no way we could afford the price tags, so I looked around for alternatives. I found our fridge, the Electra E7316 for almost a third of the price of a similar SMEG. We were so pleased when we did our first big shop after we'd bought it - there was no more sqeezing everything in, or forgetting we had something because it was squashed at the back. The new fridge had masses of space.

I love the retro look of this fridge (which also comes in alternative colours), and the cream goes well in our kitchen. There really was only one place it would fit in our kitchen (see below), as it is quite big, and luckily it slotted in perfectly next to our washing machine.

The things on top of the fridge are:

• a sweet wicker picnic hamper that David bought me for my birthday several years ago
• our digital radio
• a box in which David keeps the seeds he uses to plant vegetables in our garden
• a coffee bean grinder that was a Christmas present from my uncle this year

You can see from this picture, several of the jobs that I need to do in the kitchen:

• finish painting the walls
• fix skirting board to the wall next to the fridge / paint down to the floor if skirting won't fit down the side of the fridge (it was a snug fit)
• seal the window properly (you can't see it from this picture, but there is a small gap down the side of the kitchen window - behind the tall black vase)

More things to add to the never-ending list of things to do around the house!

My red Newgate clock

This clock was a gift from David a few years ago. He'd seen it in a shop in Monmouth, and bought it for me as a surprise. Unbeknown to him, I had seen it in a magazine and had been lusting after it for weeks! The clock used to sit on a cupboard in one of the alcoves in our living room, not because we needed a clock in there (as I mentioned here), but because I didn't really know where to put it, and I wanted to pick a space that showed it off properly. I had thought it would go really well in our kitchen, but there isn't much wall space in there (it's all taken up with cupboards and our fridge), so I tried to think of alternatives. 

Then it dawned on me - the area inbetween our kitchen and bathroom (a downstairs bathroom is common to the old terraced houses in our area) would be the perfect place to house the clock. We never close the door from the kitchen, so the wall that can be viewed through the kitchen door, could almost be treated as an extension of the wall in the kitchen (as seen below).

I think the clock looks great here - we have red accessories in our living room, so having the clock here, carries this theme through into the kitchen, and helps the downstairs of the house to flow well.

What are your favourite things in your house?

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Dining room

Our living room and dining room are really one room. They would originally have been two rooms, but have since been opened up by knocking through and installing a square archway. The result is a large room, but with two very separate areas. 

This week, I've chosen to show you a few of my most loved things from our dining room. They are:

Our large clock

The clock is on the wall that faces the living room, and is therefore visible from both rooms. The sheer size of this clock (50cm diameter) means that we can see it from the other end of the living room, and therefore don't need a clock in that room. We bought it a few years ago - it was a bargain from TK Maxx and I carried it all the way home from town to our house!

Torin's footprints

I made this print of Torin's feet for David for Fathers' Day 2009, when Torin was 5 weeks old. His feet were so tiny! I bought the frame and mount and then printed his feet onto plain card using a large ink pad like this, from Hobbycraft. I did several prints of his right foot on different pieces of card, printed his left foot onto each one, and then picked the best one. Looking at him now (he's 20 months), I can't believe he was ever that small!

Torin's highchair

There are so many high-tec and expensive highchairs to choose from when you have a small child. We managed to escape that hassle because we were given this highchair from my parents:

My grandfather (the same one who drew these) made it for me when I was a baby 28 years ago! It was also used for my brother and sister, plus numerous other visiting cousins, and still looks great today. Using nothing but a staple gun, I recovered the seat in the same fabric as I used for the table cloth - a much cheaper version of this by Cath Kidston from here.

He was a clever man, my grandfather.

My home: an introduction.

In this mini-series, I'm going to share a selection of my favourite things from each room in our house. Hopefully these posts will provide you with a little insight into my style, and give you a peek into what our house is like.

Living room

Among the many things in our living room (which I dare say you will get to see in future posts), I've decided to show you my collection of old pencil drawings.

I have a great sentimental attachment to these drawings (the 5 pencil drawings of 1940s women), as they were drawn by my late grandfather during WWII. He loved drawing and practised sketching by copying pictures from magazines, as these pictures show. 

My grandfather died when I was 13, and soon afterwards my grandmother gave me these pictures. I wanted to frame them, so put them into clip frames and hung them on the wall of my bedroom in my parents' house.

When David and I bought our first house together in 2004, I wanted the pictures to be presented in better frames and displayed in a place where everyone who visited our house would see them, so I mounted them in a selection of frames from IKEA, and hung them on the wall going up our stairs.

In our current house, the pictures are given pride of place in our living room above our sofa. We hung picture shelves from IKEA, and the drawings sit on them alongside other pictures, framed greetings cards and maps. 

I've included some close-ups of the drawings so you can see them more easily.