Adventures in Painting: Confetti, Rising

I had a few days off when we got back from Barcelona on Tuesday night (still trying to sort out pictures! my  phone is simply not cooperating) and I've thrown myself into a couple little projects which has been lovely.  As much as I love my job, I could so get used to staying home ;)

Anyway, I've made some progress in the bedroom and I'm looking forward to sharing everything with you (including the IKEA Rast hack which is very very near completion now) but I thought the first one I'd show is the new painting I did.  I really wanted something a bit larger, brighter and bolder than the framed print that was there (seen here) and I picked up the largest canvas from Dunelm Mill that would fit in my car - a whopping 1 Meter x 1 Meter (about 3 ft 4in square)  It's difficult to show the scale of it in these pictures but suffice it to say, it's big.

So some closeups first... I used a lot of Yellow Ochre in this one to tie in the colour of the yellow velvet headboard but also tried to pick up some of the other colours in the room too.

 

I actually went through three stages of thinking it was done and then going back and adding more to it.  I think the more layers it had, the more depth it had and so the better it looked.

Here's a slightly wider shot...

And here's the whole thing.  I decided to call it Confetti, Rising because to me, it looks a bit like a celebration as the confetti gets thrown into the air.

People have asked how I create my paintings but to be honest, it's such an organic process, it's kind of hard to give a step by step.  I start with a layer of white paint over the whole thing just to prime the canvas and then layer on top of that with colour in short brush strokes - adding white and black to create varying shades of colour and also mixing colours as I go, making sure there is a good contrast of light/white and dark/black.  I also used three different paint brushes on this one - one for my golds, one for my blues and one for my reds but to be fair, they all get mixed up anyway with each brushstroke so after a while, I clean the brush with a bit of paper towel and continue on my way.  That probably doesn't help does it?  Hmm.  I told you it was hard to explain.

I do rather enjoy the process though, however haphazard it may seem, so I guess that's all that counts, right? And I've discovered that I prefer working with much larger canvases than the smaller ones.

Anyway, come back soon and I'll share how it looks in the whole room along with the other bits I've changed in there! And hopefully my camera will allow me to download the bl**dy pictures so I can share those too.

If you want to see some of my other paintings, you can see them here and here.

Front of House: Front Door Gets It's Final Trimmings

I'm back from a week-long hiatus!  Goodness, how did THAT happen?  Well, Barcelona is an absolute gem of a city (the architecture alone blew my mind with it's beauty) and I'm still trying to get my %£'^&$! pictures off my %£'^&$! phone so can't share them just yet.  However, I have been really busy doing bits and bobs since I got back so I have loads to share with you!

First up, my front door has had a little more zhushing since my last post and I have to say, getting home and opening that door is so much nicer now (despite the fact that it leads into a hallway that needs desperate revamping - another project on my never-ending list).

The real star of the show is the new dragonfly knocker.  I had looked for ages for something a little bit different and The Door Knocker Company had so many lovely designs that it was a tough choice.  Rachel, the owner, was so cool and helpful in her emails so I just wanted to pass along a big thank you to her!  (No, this isn't a sponsored post, I'm just a happy customer! :))

The next thing that was added was the film for the door number.  Originally we'd had the brass number on the door (where the knocker now is) but I decided that the house would look more 'regal' with the number etched on the transom (humour me here, people).  Phoebe of So You're Getting Married recommended the company to me (thank you!) and it was super simple to order the film from Purlfrost which allows you to change all manner of options.  Here's mine...

I had to get a new hanging basket as we had a bit of a drought (in Manchester, go figure) and my previous flowers died a horrible, horrible death.  This one is still finding it's feet a bit and hasn't fully bloomed but the flowers sure are pretty when they do.

Finishing off the zhushing of the front door was a new door mat from IKEA.  I like that it added a bit of geometric pattern to the front step.

I thought it was quite nice that our window cleaner popped by the other day and commented how much he liked our new front door - and how surprised he was when I told him it wasn't new, just repainted.  "It looks amazing!  Wow, YOU did that?!"  Erm.  Yes, yes I did.  *smugface*

So shall we check out the before and after?  Oh, go on then.

One last thing that comes with a bit of warning.  I'd ordered two bay trees from Garden Bargains recently.  They had a Buy One Get One Free offer on so despite never having ordered from them before, I figured I'd take the plunge with my £50.  When they came in, I couldn't have been more disappointed.  One was in great condition, the other (presumably the 'free' one) look like it'd been trampled with a tractor and then fed to slugs.  The leaves were bitten to shreds, it wasn't in a nice rounded shape and was leaning terribly.

I wrote them email after email asking first for a replacement tree and then for a refund.  I sent a total of 8 emails (!) with the only responses to send pictures AGAIN (I sent them 3 times to 3 different addresses with no response except, 'We can't find the email, can you send them to this person instead?').  Now, I'm not one to moan about companies on this blog but after weeks of this going on, I finally appealed to Paypal to see if I can't get my money back.  Happily, Paypal decided in my favour and I got a full refund.  Victory is mine! I'm still waiting for a response from the company on my emails by the way... Terrible, terrible customer service.  Seriously.  Stay away from Garden Bargains, they suck.

I have, however, taken the one that was in better condition and finally replanted it (I'd been waiting to replant it until I found out what was what).  It's not perfect but I need to let it fill in a bit to get that nice bushy rounded shape I want.  So while there's not much else going on in the front of the house in terms of window boxes, a new patio and some plant life in general (all to be done), it does give it a bit of life even at this stage.

So that's where I am in terms of front door progress.  There is still plenty to do here but Spring has been yet another let down this year with temperatures lower than average (sigh) so progress is slow.  Still, I admit, I do lock the door in the mornings on my way to work and have a little look back over my shoulder and feel pretty happy that the front of the house is starting to look more like US than it ever did before.

So what's been happening since I've been gone?  Share, people, I've missed you :)

Take Me Away: Barcelona, Spain

Just a quick note to say I'll be off for a few days!!

See ya on the flip side, Señoritas!! xxx

Operation RAST: Bedside Tables and Talking About Scale

I have wanted to get rid of my bedside tables for FOR EVER now.  I talked about it nearly a year ago and discussed what I was looking for.

Here's the criteria that my bedside tables needed to meet aside from me wanting to love the look of them:

1. They must be within reasonable distance to me so I can pick them up myself, avoiding courier costs.
2. They must be within my budget.  Budget as usual is pretty tiny.
3. I would prefer them to be a matching pair.*
4. They must contain only drawers and no shelves.  The reason for this is because I hate styling that bottom shelf because I never know what to do with it and we could use the additional storage.
5. They must be wider, slightly higher and slightly deeper than what I currently have.  Do you know how difficult it is to style a bedside table when you only have enough room for a lamp, let alone anything else? 

*I was open to purchasing two different styles for each side and that was always a possibility if I came across two individual pieces that I loved enough (meeting the above criteria) and worked well enough together to not care that they didn't match.

Had that criteria changed over the last 9 months?  No.  Have I been searching eBay endlessly for well over a year now looking for those magical two nightstands that would leap into my heart, mind and bedroom?  Yes.  Has my search through literally THOUSANDS of bedside tables resulted in anything that even remotely met that criteria?  No.

Frustration peoples.  Serious frustration.  I have looked at nearly everything that could be a nightstand too - bedside tables, bedside cabinets, side tables, small tables, small chests of drawers, African drums, old sewing tables, tree stumps, vintage, modern, mid century, Victorian, Edwardian, retro - you name it, I've considered it.  You can't say I haven't tried because by god, I've tried.  But it just wasn't to be.

What it came down to is this.  I'm so sick of my existing nightstands and there was always one option that I knew would work.   It felt like cheating though because I really wanted something fabulous and vintage.  But those elusive fabulous and vintage bedside tables were not to be found after a year and a half of endless searching and these - well, here's how these stacked up:

 1.  They must be within reasonable distance to me so I can pick them up myself, avoiding courier costs.  There is an IKEA store 15 minutes away from me.  Check.
2.  They must be within my budget.  Budget as usual is pretty tiny.  £20 each.  Check.
3.  I would prefer them to be a matching pair.  Easily done as they manufacture them by the thousands.  Check.
4.  They must contain only drawers and no shelves.   3 Drawers so plenty of storage.  Check.
5.  They must be wider, slightly higher and slightly deeper than what I currently have.  Check. Check. Check.

All signs pointed to IKEA.

And so, on a Bank Holiday weekend, I decided that Operation: RAST would begin.  I would go into IKEA, fighting off the crowds on a Sunday afternoon and I would emerge with my 2 RAST dressers, victorious.  Oh yes, I would.

I am pleased to say that I lived to tell of my ordeal.

Oh dear god, the SCALE of these is so much better.  So So So much better.  I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am with the size of these things and the difference it makes - even completely unfinished.

Here's something I need to say right here, right now before you think it (cuz I know you already have).

Those lamps look like something Liberace would like.  I know.  I know this.  I just don't have another set of lampshades and I didn't get the chance to get to the shops this weekend to find another set that would work.

In fact, I knew they wouldn't work.  But I wanted to demonstrate something.  That the scale of everything in this space is WORKING.  FINALLY WORKING.

The chests of drawers work perfectly against the scale of the bed.  They are a little bit higher than the bed itself which is fine as they aren't uncomfortably high and work with the height of the headboard.  The width finally takes advantage of the width of the wall in it's entirety.  The lamps are not so large as to overpower everything else on the tables but large enough to make a bit of a statement.  The bedside tables look a bit symmetrical but the small differences in the contents on the dressers keep things fairly interesting.  Success.

Here's the story about the lamps.  I love my golden clear lamps - I really do.  But against the black wall, they were getting lost.  I needed something with a bit more PRESENCE.  So when I saw these puppies on eBay for a mere £8 for the pair that were less than 10 miles away, I decided to jump.  Well, not so much jump as bid, win and drive over to pick them up.

The original eBay listing.  Mismatched bulbs included.

They weren't horrible but they weren't working for me in their current colour.  But I liked their shape.  And so I took some gold spray paint to these babies in today's sunshine.

So yes, the lamp shades are getting changed out.  But I do love my new lamp bases.

And I love the fact that I have bedside tables I can actually STYLE now.  What's there now is entirely subject to change but of course, I had to have a play as soon as they were built - I'm impatient, what can I say.

The finishing of the bedside tables is of course, inevitable now so stay tuned for how they come out.  More to come on this one!

What do you think of my 'in progress' bedside tables?  Have you ever given up on a vintage dream and purchased new?  Want to have a guess with how I'm going to finish the chests of drawers?  I'd love to hear your thoughts ;)

In Print: I'm in 25 Beautiful Homes this month! Eeek!

So this week, the new issue of 25 Beautiful Homes is out and my little humble abode is featured.

The behind-the-scenes photoshoot and my feelings about appearing in a magazine is all in this post.

IT'S STILL WEIRD.  I don't really know what to think.  It hasn't sunk in.  Still.

What I do know is that Kathy Hurst, the journalist and Haydn Rydings, the photographer worked some magic and I couldn't be more pleased.

(Although the article says I live in Stockport which I don't but that's neither here nor there - I live in Cheadle Heath.)

But other than that tiny little minor nothing detail, the interview is wonderful and I don't sound like a total moron by some miracle and the pictures are amazing.  I so wish my scanned version was better so you can see it clearly but Haydn really gave the whole place such a cool moody vibe - I'm IN LOVE with his photographs.  If you are in the UK and you fancy picking up the magazine, you can see how nice the images really are.

Plus, they called the article 'DRAMA QUEEN'.  Oh my god, I love that too.

Here's the whole article.  Right click and either 'Open in New Tab' or 'Open in New Window' to view it at full size.

WEIRD, PEOPLE. WEIRD.