A glimpse of what our house actually looks like inside

This is the second bedroom, affectionately known as The Jungle Room due to THAT carpet... am strangely attached to it now actually and I think when we decorate this room we may keep a square of it... by the way, don't the curtains go well with it!

Sorting out your house v blogging

Thank you to Kerry at The Seventy Tree for commenting on my last blog post and inspiring me to get on the case again! I will post a picture of our new kitchen diner but the only pics I have taken are rubbish so I will wait for a sunny day and take better ones.

Well our kitchen diner is finished (apart from things like painting the skirting boards) and having such a lovely room that we are so pleased with has really made me look at the rest of the house and want to sort it ALL out! But there is a lot to do and it can be quite overwhelming just thinking about it so I have decided to make short achievable lists of things to do. I have been doing a lot of SORTING recently as we don't have much storage so there are piles of stuff in rooms which does do my head in, I like everything to be in its place and it isn't at all! Next project will def be our bedroom, we have no wardrobe, just dodgy rails from Ikea that are about ready to collapse. But there is a little patch of damp we need to get sorted before we can paint - why is there always something?!

On a more productive, exciting note, we have ordered a dining table from Indigo Furniture! We decided to spend on the table and go for cheaper chairs (prob from Ikea!) that are deliberately different from the table, we could afford the table but the lovely chairs blew our budget out of the water! Anyway here it is in all it's chunky plank glory!

Sorry for the essay post, it has actually felt quite therapeutic writing all this down, maybe if I keep blogging, our house project will feel more manageable!

Excuses, excuses

I am still not blogging as much as I would like because life is a bit topsy turvy at the moment! And now we have loads of snow too! Well... this is what my kitchen looks like... getting there! We are 2 weeks in, we had a tiny kitchen before, knocking a wall down works wonders!

and this is how we are cooking dinner...

Happily I now have one of these beeeeauuutiful composters to put in the kitchen when it is done, thanks to my fabulous fella...

And this is where I work on Southampton Common, doesn't it look pretty!

Today I found...

a very talented illustrator:

Her name is Sally Elford and she also has a good blog to peruse... Again her style is reminiscent of Charley Harper...

I Heart Sanna Annukka tins

Hooray! Thanks to H Is For Home's blog, I have discovered that Sanna Annuka has designed some more beautiful tins for Marks and Spencers. Last year's tin was lovely but I only found out about it after they were long sold out. H Is For Home say they have now exchanged hands on Ebay for £15-£20 - EMPTY! So I am determined this year to get my hands on one as I love her work. All pics from her website.

Her birds are very similar to the Hornsea birds I think and her style is reminiscent of Charley Harper.

I've been away...

but I'll be back. Lots has been happening which means I have had no time to blog :o( but I'll be back on the case very soon as I miss it!

(Image courtesy of Flickr)

Jane Foster's cushions

Oooh so many that I want! I have too many cushions as it is but hope to be moving to somewhere with more space soon... so watch this space! :o)

Jane Foster Vintage Cushions

Retro ceramic loveliness

I have just seen these photos via Mrs Eliot Books on Bloesem, what a lovely house! I love retro ceramics too, this kitchen is definitely very inspirational (I think my boyfriend who I am buying a house with is doubtful as to how my retro ceramics will fit in with our new kitchen but he will soon see and understand...)

Charley Harper

Whilst on a day out to Chichester with my friend (we were ladies who lunch for the day!) we stumbled across the work of Charley Harper in a bookshop - I bought a beautiful new address book full of his artwork. I realised I had seen his work before - I had torn a page out of Elle Decoration of a house owned by a collector of his work, they had grouped together lots of the bird artworks in frames on a wall - it looked great.

Here are some of my favourites (although there are too many to choose from!) All taken from the Charley Harper art studio website.

Kitchen inspiration

I am in the process of buying a house with my boyfriend and if it all goes according to plan, we are going to put in a new kitchen straight away which is VERY exciting! So I am on the lookout for kitchen inspiration - we have seen the sort of thing we like already which is probably glossy, light cupboards and dark work surface and we'd like curves to be involved, like the curves on these buildings. No fussy detailing, fairly minimal in that respect as I will have stuff to put in the kitchen and that will be the detail... If anyone has suggestions for where I can look for kitchen pics that would be ever so helpful! I do like retro kitchens though, here are a few that caught my eye:

Image from here.

Image from here.

Image from this very nice blog here.

Cornish holiday

I've been on holiday! We had days like these:

and days like these:

and we went to the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden in St Ives which was fab.

(And I saw this cool sign in St Ives too.)

I Heart H Is For Home

There is so much stuff on their website that I wish I had the room for, they have such a great eye for vintage bits and bobs, where do they find it all? I would love to go and visit their space but it's a long way away... one day! Here are some items of loveliness you can buy on their site!

Jessie Tait

My latest 'discovery' is Jessie Tait, a fab ceramics designer who died earlier this year. Read more here. The reason I have looked into her work is because my boyfriend bought me a Jessie Tait Midwinter coffee pot for our 4 year anniversary present :o) - he had a little help from a good friend of mine and fellow ceramics enthusiast :o) It is beautiful, the pattern is like the tureen pictured below (available on Ebay). I think all of her work is beautiful so I shall be keeping my eye out for more on Ebay...

The added bonus is whilst looking for Jessie Tait images I found a new blog to follow!

Here are some more images of her designs, first one courtesy of Dee Beale's blog:

And this one from House Bible:

Saltdean

Saltdean near Brighton has some beautiful buildings, I have been there once as my friend lives there but I really must return and investigate further!

Firstly Saltdean Lido, image from the RIBA architecture.com website:

Then this old hotel, now converted to apartments:

And finally this building that caught my eye when I was there:

I Heart Jonathan Adler

I subscribe to Jonathan Adler emails and they always make me lust after his stuff. Best bit is they come from liberace@jonathanadler.com - Liberace is his dog! This is from the latest one!

See more here.

Donna Wilson

I love Donna Wilson's creatures, they are brilliant. This little fellow is one of my favourites from her website.

I also love her cushions:

and now she has introduced ceramics! And she blogs too, what a gal!

Forever is Today

This is a beautiful blog by Hilda who is Swedish - she takes the best photos. She also has a fab apartment that was featured on Design Sponge because she has made fantastic use of a small space. Hilda certainly inspires me, I can recommend following her blog. A couple of detail photos of her apartment... I find other people's 'stuff' so interesting, especially how they display it.