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!

Make do and mend: personalised baby card.

Heard today that my really good friend and her baby have finally been allowed to come home, after a week in hospital - baby Jasmine was four weeks early! 

We'll hopefully see them before the weekend is over, so I made her a personalised card to welcome her into the world (her full name is Jasmine Ann Bartlett).

Do you like it?

It was really simple to make - I used:

• plain cream card stock
• various different patterned papers
• a craft knife
• a butterfly hole punch
• glue pen
• glue stick

I started by choosing a font that I liked the look of on the computer. I then copied the initials onto the front of the card freehand.

Using a craft knife, I cut out the letters, making sure I kept the inside of the A and B to stick back on afterwards.

I then used the butterfly hole punch to stamp out the butterfly shape in the bottom right hand corner and stuck some pink shiny card behind it using a glue pen.

Next, I chose three different patterned papers and stuck these behind the letters so each one had a different pattern behind it.

Lastly (and I apologise for not showing a picture of this), I cut out a square of paper and stuck it on the inside of the card to cover up the individual pieces of paper that were stuck on behind the letters. This made sure the inside of the card looked neat.

Can't wait to meet little Jasmine, although she's going to make Astrid look huge - Jasmine was only 3lb 12oz when she was born and Astrid weighed 11lb 6oz last week!

Beautiful square feet of the month!

I've decided that as my own square footage is still some way from being beautiful, I'm going to share with you more pictures of inspiring homes in a feature I'm calling "Beautiful square feet of the month!"

So, in the first post of this kind, here are some lovely pictures of a retro 60s family home. The house is spread over five floors and has four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

I really like the mix of old (the Ercol tables) and older (the armchair) in this picture. The pop of colour provided by the footstool and the cushion really stand out against the neutral background, but also highlights the tone of the wood in the room.

Another fairly neutral room - I guess in here the view from the window does the talking. I really like the interesting pieces in this space though - the mixture of old chairs and then the brilliant pendant and old mirror work fantastically well.

Give me wooden worktops and glossy cupboards any day! I really like the fact that the owners have gone to town with the lovely warm olive colour behind the shelves - it shows off their vintage crockery really well.

Although there is a slightly different style in this bedroom, I love the homely feel of the vintage mirrors and the mismatched floral prints on the bed - pretty!

All images from here.

Our black hole.

When I say that we need to tidy up the back room before Torin can move into it, this is what I'm talking about:

(!)

We made some more progress this weekend - I threw away two bags of recycling and one bag of general rubbish. We've got tonnes of stuff to go to charity too, so I need to find a little time to take that to a shop soon!

We're still ploughing through our piles of books - managing to give some away to friends and colleagues, and selling the rest on Ebay (which is time-consuming in itself!).

I guess we'll get there eventually - now Astrid's here I really want her to have her own space in our house, even though she'll be in our room for a while longer. Mind you, David and I noticed last night that she's only got a little bit of room left in the crib - she seems to be quite long!

Hopefully before too long I'll have a lovely "after" picture to accompany this "before" one, but we've got a lot of work to do as you can see!

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.