It's My Birthday!

It's my birthday today. 

And I shall be mostly standing on spiral staircases in very long dresses, like so....

{I'm thinking that long trail could come in handy for a spot of cleaning. 

Those railings must get ever so dusty

...always practical, my friends, always practical.}

I LOVE birthdays!! 

I made up a family rule which says that on your birthday 

you're allowed to choose whatever you want to do. 

{An excellent idea, if I may say so!!}

I've had a wonderful morning 

opening the sweetest presents from my kiddiewinks...

And now I'm off for a special lunch with Guy...

Image  Unknown...

Children's Bedrooms: Flooring Inspiration

Flooring can make or break a room. 

It's such an easy aspect to overlook but leaving tatty old carpet down while you spruce up the rest of the room is a bit like leaving one of the walls undecorated. When we decorate a room, I always try to do the whole shabang and not leave bits and pieces of extra work trailing around for years. 

So, flooring-wise, here's what I narrowed our choices down to:

Carpet:

Unknown

Painted floorboards:

Via Marie Claire

Wooden flooring:

Via Something Hiding In There

I bypassed natural flooring like sisal and jute because although they look gorrrrrgeous initially, they stain pretty easily and don't react well to the wet. 

{If I could have a pound for each time I've had to mop up what shall be vaguely termed 'spillages' in my children's bedrooms then I'd be a very rich lady...}

Which leads me onto my main point....

When decorating children's rooms, it's so easy to be sucked in by what looks great on the page of a catalogue...BUT BUT BUT what really counts is how good it'll look in YOUR home....a year or two down the line.....

Fancy-shmancy options will look fab for a little while but I want our rooms to look great when they're well-lived in.

Is that too much too ask?

Designing Our Fitted Cupboards Part 2

With our fifth baby on the way, we're always looking for ways to improve storage, particularly in our current phase of having to store what feels like a bazillion boxes of clothes between children using them.  When I was looking at the existing fitted cupboards in this bedroom, it suddenly occurred to me that there might be extra space above the lower cupboard that wasn't being used. A secret hole!! See what I mean?....

And it turned out I was right! Yeeeah! Free space! One of the things that bothered me about the existing cupboards is the way they were so mismatched. One way up high and the other mid-height. Odd. This extra secret space gave us some leeway to be able to even the whole space out.

We altered the cupboard plans to include another double cupboard above the existing lower space, and fiddled about with heights to bring both sets of doors to the same height.

The next step was working out how to bring in period details again. 

{These were NOT the original cupboard doors so no guilt about ripping them out.}

Four words: 

architraves, 

cupboard style,

handles, 

hinges...

{Okay, that's five but read on to see what I mean...}

We changed the architrave surrounding the cupboards to match the main door to the room.

I love Shaker style cupboard doors, and chose beading to compliment the beading on the main door (more on that to come!!). 

The handles are now chunky, matt-glazed wood. 

Perfect for little dimpled hands!

Rather than using kitchen-cupboard type hinges, which ends up with doors shutting onto the existing frame, I prefer to use hinges that ensure the doors fit within a frame for a more bespoke look. I love these brass hinges with silver detailing. Yum!

See how I've lopped off the bottom of the cupboards from these photos? That's to keep the floor hidden from your all-seeing eyes...

but not for long...

Yup, next up:

 FLOORING !!

My Perfect Weekend Away...

I've just had one of the best weekends of my life.

Guy surprised me with a pre-baby trip away.

Eeeek!!

He told me we were going to visit his parents

....which we were....

but it turned out that it was for the children 

to have a special holiday...

and for us to go on to here....

As we drove up the driveway, 

I had a hunch that this was somewhere lovely...

and, wooooah....

it was!

Rushton Hall.

An Elizabethan Country Spa Hotel.

I can't even begin to tell you how special a time it was.

So romantic.

It was an incredible place to stay.

We played cards and had drinks here...

Had long, lazy breakfasts here...

Then, on Saturday, Guy suggested that we might like to visit Barnsdale Gardens,

which was the base of BBC Gardener's World for 13 years. We had a lovely gentle walk round all 39 mini-plots before having a delicious lunch. 

There were lots of quiet spots for sitting down and resting

...good for pregnant legs....

...and kissing...

Spending prolonged time together alone 

feels like such a huge luxury at the moment.

I am so grateful for the snatches of solitary gorgeousness that we do get.

Thank you, Guy.

You totally wooed me.

Images via Rushton Hall and Barnsdale Gardens

Let There Be Light

Have fun with accent lighting. Finding just the right lighting is one of the most difficult things for me as an interior designer, but when it happens it is magic. I think of the room as the perfect little black dress with the perfect cut, the one that dresses up or down according to the occasion, and the perfect lighting fixture is the jewelry that finishes off and compliments the little black dress.

I have written an article for West Coast Homes and Design, a supplement in the Vancouver Sun Newspaper,on how the right lighting is one of the most important aspects in achieving atmosphere in a home. Lighting is a discipline all to itself and often is one of the most important parts of an interior. Bad lighting can ruin a good interior: good lighting can almost salvage a bad one. For example….. (more)

In kitchens it is particularly important to get the lighting right as food preparation along with the eating and social aspects that go on in this room are a vital part of our lives and involve all of our senses. Kitchens need to be well lit with good overall ambient lighting and task lighting over islands and countertops. Add a little fun and pizazz with accent lighting as I did over this island.


Lighting in a bathroom and bedroom needs to make you feel refreshed and energetic in the morning, ready to face the challenges of the day ahead, but at night should engender a feeling of relaxation and harmony. In a bathroom, good lighting for putting on make-up should come evenly from either side of the mirror so shadows are not cast on the face. The rest of the room needs to be lit evenly from overhead, but be careful of placing recessed pot lights that are directly over your head when standing in front of a mirror or else you will have shadows under your eyes. I put the lights for the make-up lights and the overhead lights on different switches to further enhance the options to create different moods.


Left: Wall mounted LED swing-arm lamps were used in this bedroom for task light.
Right: Candles can add to the mood and ambience in a room and make a dramatic statement.
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