We’ve seen the trend for up-cycling and repurposing furniture develop into a phenomenon that brings the concept of sustainability right into your living room. For many years creative home owners have been producing one-off pieces with style. I remember writing a post about a piece of furniture that had been ‘pimped up’. It was originally a black console table but after remodelling it had furry legs and zebra stripes and neon pink splashes – it was very exciting but probably not the easiest piece to live with.
Now there are some people in High Wycombe who have got the balance right. Read More
See Part 5 of a nine part series, which is now published on MumsNet Cambs.
“Decorate with colours for you as well as for baby… “
You can download the whole series in .pdf format: Join my mailing list for this and more interiors ideas for you and your family.
Image courtesy John Lewis.
Joanna Thornhill is an interiors stylist and writer. Author of ‘Home for Now’, she has rented many properties and experienced the frustration of living in a space you cannot easily change to make your own. When a new house buyer views a property one of the first things they think about is putting their own stamp on it. No matter how small or humble it is a basic human need to want to make the place we call home comfortable and special. Read More
To win this chair from Out of the Dark, just say why you would like to take this baby home; post your comment in the box below!
Be generous! If you use social media share the news and invite your friends to enter as well. Read More
I wonder if kitchens are becoming sterile and characterless? Have we gone a step too far and designed all the love out of them? See my article on Best Home Ideas Australia where I discuss the trend in kitchen design towards a streamlined look with high gloss cabinetry and granite work tops.
I’d love to know what you think: share your family’s experience with kitchen design in the comment box below.
“We received an outstanding number of nominations for this year’s #Decorex100, from esteemed designers to renowned industry bloggers, to well loved luxury design brands. After much thoughtful deliberation by our panel of Decorex experts, we are excited to announce the official #Decorex100 2014 list of the most influential tweeters in the luxury interior design world!”
Yasmin Chopin : @YasminChopin
This has made my day and it’s an honour. It means a lot to me as I’ve been tweeting messages about interior design since 2009 and have met so many lovely people as a result! I enjoy using social media in my business and find Twitter particularly useful for making contacts and researching furniture, furnishings and accessories for my clients so this is not hard work at all, it’s simply a ball. I regularly participate in a weekly international tweetchat, #IntDesignerchat, which helps me keep abreast of international activity in my area of the industry.
With this accolade I am now noted as one of the top 100 design influencers on Twitter by Decorex International, which is utterly amazing. I’m excited to be rubbing shoulders on this list with House & Garden magazine, TV star Sophie Robinson (judge of the BBC2 Great Interior Design Challenge), Vanessa Brady OBE, blogger Bright.Bazaar and design writer Barbara Chandler, to name but a few.
Image: courtesy Decorex International, Haute Deco Luxury Handles.
The Nordic House Summer Sale is on till midnight 13 July 2014 and I find these knitted poufs intriguing. Pop over and have a look.
Sharing interior design ideas and tips for you to use in your own home is the main purpose of this blog and I hope you enjoy browsing through it. Whether your property requires a full scale renovation or a fresh makeover there are many opportunities to impress your personality through your design choices.
A blogging tip I learned is that you should always try to be yourself when you write, to give something of the private ‘you’ so your audience can relate to a real person. I hope I make that connection with you but when I came across this photo diary project recently, #1day12pics, I thought it a nice opportunity to take part, share my day with you and practise my photography skills. Why not join in next month and link up with Michelle and Emma who organise the project? Read More
Please see my introduction to this post which contains an explanation of how I came to be in this fascinating property. I promised to give you a note of some of the design features I noticed in the dairy:-
1. A stainless steel worksurface covers kitchen units that span the whole width of the kitchen and this looks extremely impressive. Besides offering a generous working area, the steel softly reflects light that bounces around the kitchen. Since this is the part of the first floor that is situated beneath the mezzanine, the additional light play contributes nicely. Read More
I am delighted to have been invited by Mumsnet to write a series of posts on the subject of child friendly design. Having had two of my own, and now a grandmother (ooh, I hate that word), I’ve learned from the experience. The series of nine posts are being published weekly and the first four ‘episodes’ can be seen here:
Decorating for babies: It’s easy to plump for pastels yet many new mums and dads want to buck the trend and do something different for their baby. Pink for girls and blue for boys seems just too obvious, but before you dismiss them give a few moments thought to the benefits… Read More
I had never before been invited to have a nose around a stranger’s house so this was indeed a privilege. My excitement to see inside the property grew as I walked around the block a few times in an effort to find it. Tucked away in a quiet London cul de sac, the building at 13a Hewer Street, Notting Hill, sits back giving little away from the outside. I was informed that in Victorian times this was a dairy but there is nothing obvious to suggest its history. Read More
‘Georgian’ is a term used to describe a particular style of architecture and strictly speaking it relates to the period 1714 – 1837, which immediately preceeded the Victorian era. During this period many developments in science and society took place:-
- Architecture was influenced by travellers who enjoyed the ‘Grand Tour’ to Greece and Italy
- The perception of beauty was in the manufactured landscape, typical of Capabilty Brown
- The follies of human nature were sketched by Hogarth with artisitic sarcasm as visual political commentary
It is hard to pin down exactly what epitomises the style, ‘Georgian’, but we all seem to recognise it and the property pictured below is a superb example. Read More