What A Glorious Weekend!

I hope it's been just as warm and sunny where you are as it has been here, my skin has quite a rosy glow from so much time spent in the park and in the garden this weekend. We just had a laid back weekend, with fun to be had in the park, a spot of tidying at home (got to love a clean kitchen!) and my new tshirt from Zara arrived yesterday which I got to wear out today, much to my delight! 

I hope you all had a lovely weekend too, it really feels like summer's begun :)

Hooray For The Weekend + House Update

Not only it is 'hooray for the weekend', but I'm pleased to say we've bought a house! Hurrah, at last! The pic above is of my little cherubs standing outside our current house (well, sort of, you can just see our blue door in the photo) beneath our Sold sign, but as soon as I have pictures of our place-to-be I'll post them here. As you can see a few of our neighbours have decided to sell up too!

Funnily enough our new house is literally around the corner, about a 30 second walk door to door. As with most things in life, it seems perhaps it was meant to be all along as we had already looked at the house a couple of times before and each time decided it was perhaps a bit small, or thought that it was madness to spend so much money moving just around the corner (do you still hire a van to move or just walk your belongings round in a wheelbarrow!?) but in the end it just felt right, and with a bit of remodelling and renovation it could be a great family home. It's a sort of a 60s box house, with great potential and I'm already excited about what we could do to the place. I'm thinking it's time to start a new Pinterest board!

So, fingers crossed if all goes well, soon it'll be the end of an era in this house and onto the next... exciting times!

Wishing you a lovely weekend, have fun! :)

91 Magazine

This morning I am very happy! It's a lovely sunny morning and the sky is blue (for now anyway!) and whilst sitting down to my usual breakfast of tea and toast (with a side of laptop, it's a bad habit I know but I like a little morning peruse of the internet while I eat breakfast - it's the modern day version of reading the back of the cereal packet, right?!) I've discovered 91 Magazine. So far I've flicked through 2 back issues and I can already feel my morning schedule slipping. Who wants to go to Sainsburys and do the food shopping anyway!

I can't believe I haven't stumbled across this beautiful online mag before, what with all the design blogs I read, but better late than never and I can't wait to get stuck into the other copies. I love that it's british too - so many of the blogs I read are based in the US, it's nice to see what's going on a little closer to home.

And this is just the kind of inspiration I need right now - our house search continues and I think we're about to buy a bit of an ugly duckling house but that could have lovely potential with a bit of creativity and vision. I find myself changing my mind constantly about whether to just go for it or not (we love our current house so much it's hard to leave) but I'm getting excited thinking about all the new opportunities this house could bring for changing things up a little!

A peek inside some of the back issues, it makes me want to get crafty!

House vs Home

I'm too grumpy to blog really, but then I was thought that blogging should be about talking about all the things, not just the fancy, or the new, or the cool, and anyway, isn't a problem shared a problem halved or something?! 

So in that vain, I'm posting to say I'm cross, or fed up, or something. We've been house hunting now since the end of Jan when we sold our house in a mad 5 mins and took a punt on a bigger house around the corner.  That house didn't happen, but still we thought let's try and make the move anyway, seeing as we'd been talking about looking for a 3-bed ever since Sam came along really. 

Well, we've offered on 3 houses now and we've not had much luck. We're in the process of offering a sealed bid tomorrow on a 4th house (so please cross your fingers and toes that we pull this one off!) but I have to say it's not really fun anymore. The St Albans housing market is a bit like the London market, it moves ridiculously fast, and so I feel a bit like I'm panic buying, but for a house rather than an ill-fitting dress for a friend's wedding the next day! It's madness, and I'm trying to keep my emotions in check, but it's hard spending so much money and not really knowing if that ill-fitting dress is going to look ok in the end after you've styled it up a bit in your own way (or if it's still going to look like your Grandma's curtains!)

I like to daydream that if I had a bit more gumption or adventurous spirit I could pack up the hubby and kids and we could find an opportunity elsewhere, abroad or somewhere, as I've never really lived anywhere else and often wonder what else might be out there for us.  But then I think too that I like my life here, and I have an amazing family who will make any house a home so I should probably just brush my self down and keep going!

Here's hoping on tomorrow, I'll keep you posted! 

x

Image - Home is Wherever I'm with You print in Black, from Tuesday Mourning

New Curtains

So at last we have our new curtains up - our made to measure curtains for our bay window for the house we've just sold! Ah well, such is life, I'm sure they'll find a new home in the next house, wherever that might be!

What do you think? I love the big pattern, and the bold pop of colour against the grey walls and our wooden chest of drawers. I'm so pleased with how they've turned out.  (I'm shockingly bad with a camera unfortunately and the afternoon light was doing me no favours, so excuse the photos!)

I'm not entirely sure the curtains sit all that well against my recently reupholstered chair, and I may move the chair to our bedroom in time, but I also kind of sign up to the school of thought that if your home is full of pieces you genuinely love, they'll sit together and work together somehow - that's what makes your style individual right!?

Also, on the top photo you can just see the collection of framed photos and prints I have behind the sofa - I have generally created a kids art corner in the kitchen where all their bits of art, etc are put up, but this self-portrait Tabitha did of herself was so cute that I said we could frame it and put it up on the wall. She was so excited, it was really sweet. Here's a couple of photos she took of it herself, she was really proud! 

An Exciting Project - Update

I had my chair collected this week as it's going off to a professional to be stripped back and inspected. I wish I could renovate it myself but I really don't have the skills or knowledge needed to tackle it - the chair's ok to sit in but it creaks a bit and there's definitely some springs in the seat that need attention so hopefully a bit of TLC from a professional upholsterer will sort it out. The hardest part so far has been choosing the fabric for the recovering, I've been debating my options for what feels like ages... it's so hard to make up my mind!

At first I was definitely sure about going for pattern - I love bold, scandinavian style inspired prints and wanted something striking but in neutral tones that would fit in with my house decor in years to come.  Then I started to change my mind, thinking plainer was the way to go, like perhaps a nice grey wool or felt fabric, as I could always brighten it up with an eye catching cushion (or cushions!). Tricky huh!... But in the end I have gone full circle and have decided to go with Skinny laMinx's Flower Field fabric.

If it looks as good on my chair as on this chair above then I've definitely made the right decision - fingers crossed!