Living Room tour

Check me out, another blog post already! I wanted to show you my new living room which has been almost done for a while but now is pretty much finished. I do have plans to paint one wall in a very pale, blue grey wash, but who knows how long it will take me to get around to that so I am showing you the room as it is and will post an update when I get round to painting.

I would describe my decorating style as cozy, and very 'country'. I have always put a lot of thought into colours and furniture placement, and the styling of surfaces. But somehow moving into this place for such 'grown up' reasons made those things seem somehow a little silly and insignificant. At the time my main consideration was simply to fit all the truly 'necessary' items into this tiny space. But gradually as I have relaxed and begun to enjoy this place as our home, I have just naturally begun to enjoy putting those little touches to the place that fill the house with your personality and make it feel like an extension of yourself, a place of comfort and happiness...'home'.

William Morris said that we should have nothing in our home "that we do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful", and I always try to follow that rule. I like to sit in a room and as I look around, be met with happy memories. The starting point for this living room was , as with the rest of the house, simple white walls, as the room was covered in grubby smears and marks so I just wanted it to feel clean. We chose to put oak effect laminate throughout our downstairs mainly for practicality (with two little girls being schooled at home and our little dog in and out of the garden our floors are in need of very regular mopping! ). Our sofa is actually a sofa - bed so the room doubles as a guest room. As it's bright red that more or less dictated the colours we would be using!

On the back of the sofa you can see a memory quilt I made out of the girls pram blankets they used as babies.  I did actually write a post about this quilt a while back. I love it because every time we snuggle up on the sofa together all those happy memories come flooding back. A memory quilt or blanket is such a great way to save those little baby things and use then rather than just keeping them in a bag in the attic. In this picture you can also see the wire chandelier I made and covered with fairy lights in the corner. In my opinion you can never have too many fairy lights! 

I had to get rid of a lot of my books when we moved, along with the actual bookcases. To make a home for my remaining books without intruding on the room too much we added a shelf that runs the whole length of the room above the sofa, which actually gives the illusion of extra length to the room. Being extremely nerdy I had to arrange the books according to colour which again just makes it look a lot more 'fluid' and gentle on the eye. I added a few of my favourite prints at eye level, I chose prints with a similar theme, all featuring roses as I wanted to tie them in with the prints on the soft furnishings and the colours on the sofa. 

I also used a couple of large mirrors in this room to try and bring in as much light as possible and that old trick of mirrors to try and make the illusion of size. 

In a small house storage is of paramount importance, so we have 2 good pieces of furniture from Laura Ashley which we intend to keep forever and which both provide lots of extra storage. One is a coffee table but we placed it against the wall under the tv as we wanted to keep the floorspace free. The lid lifts at the back with tons of storage inside and it has lots of tiny drawers at the front as well. The second is a large sideboard which I love as it also provides a lovely surface for styling with my precious nik naks....

I love to sit on the sofa and look at my treasures in this little corner. The square frame propped on top was found at a tip by my youngest brother,  who appreciates items because of their story, as I do. It contained a rather hideous painting which I immediately loved because at the back was the artists name and address dated 1954, along with a paper ticket from an exhibition the painting had been part of, and you could also see another painting that the artist had covered with the new hideous offering. I like to rescue things that were once loved and precious to someone but now they are gone or getting old are no longer of worth to anyone. It makes me happy that it is of value to another person again. Inside the frame I have hung some vintage lace and used little craft pegs to hang my own memories...pictures of grandparents, my children's first shoes, a rose from my husbands wedding buttonhole, a card from my mother and a label from a gift a close friend gave me after I threw her a 25th anniversary dinner. Such lovely memories. A memory frame like this is easy to make and a lovely way to decorate with things that otherwise might be tucked in a drawer somewhere. I also like the fact that you can ring in the changes and switch out the items depending on how you feel at the time.

The foxgloves painting above the sideboard is one of my own. I wanted to bring some colour to this corner as with all white walls you are sometimes in danger of it looking a little bland. But bright warm colours against a white backdrop really pop and can have more impact than colour used on the walls themselves. You can also see in this picture a beautiful Tiffany lamp made from scratch by my grandad. He was a clever chap and taught himself to lead glass and I just will treasure this lamp forever until it's time to pass it to my kids. Such a special thing to have in my home. 

You will notice in the corner of the picture a largish glass box on top of the sideboard. This houses 2 fire toads which are pets given to my daughters by one of my brothers. It does niggle me that I have to have this messing up my little vignette but this is a lived in home and I have to always remind myself that it can't look like a page from a magazine...its little things like this that make it ours and make it unique. 

I managed to squeeze my little electric 'log burner' in the corner, it's honestly the most realistic looking electric fire and an open fire is something I really miss so at least this gives us that cozy feeling in winter. I picked it up for £50 on ebay. Most of my furniture is second hand, I figure it's silly to pay more when you can pick up things that have so much life left in them for so cheap or for free. In fact the white armchair you just see the arm of in the previous picture is part of a set of two that I picked up for free on www.freecycle.org and they are in immaculate condition! Much less wasteful. You would not believe the stuff people throw away.  The print in this picture is Soul of the Rose by John William Waterhouse who is my absolute favourite artist. I love the pre Raphaelite brotherhood (not that he was a member but he was closely associated with it) and the arts and crafts movement and I love what they stood for, everything handmade and beautifully crafted with utmost care. I really try to emulate that in my home.

This ornament on the windowsill was made by me, it's rather 'rustic' ahem......but it represents our little family and I love it. It's made from air dry clay which is just the best thing ever and a great little activity with the kids.

So that's it, my tiny living room. I totally love it. I can't believe I found quite so much to say about it! Hope you enjoyed having a nose and I will post another room soon.  I hope it shows that no matter what your actual house is like, with a little thought you can make a home.

Stephanie xx

Styling the seasons, August

Well yes, I realise I'm absolutely pants at this blogging lark.....I have been silent for a good couple of months without even noticing. I've just been busy as always with schooling the girls and my many and varied hobbies! But I suddenly came over all creative this week and felt the need to write everything down, so here I am.


August is a special month to me so I wanted to reflect that in my 'Styling the Seasons' post. First, it is special because it is the month I got married. Next Friday the 14th is our wedding anniversary, it will be 11 years since we tied the knot. We always try to make an effort to do something lovely as a family and as a couple to remember that day, because at the risk of sounding cheesy, it truly was the best day of my life. Joe has been the best friend anyone could ask for and it's been the happiest 11 years. I included a little wooden heart he carved for me in my styled surface to represent our special day.

 Incidentally, the surface I chose to style is a little kitchen cart that the clever chap made for me out of scraps of wood he had in the garage (to me it's thoughtful acts of kindness like this that are the most romantic thing), and it has proved invaluable in my new, very tiny, kitchen as an extra work surface and storage space. Kitchen carts are a great idea if you are short of space, I added castors to mine so it could be moved out of the way when not needed. Anyway, I digress. ...


The second reason August will always be a memorable month for me is a sad one. On Tuesday, my lovely nan passed away quite suddenly. It was a shock as she was so full of life and I just imagined her going on forever. She died peacefully in her sleep. I feel overwhelming sadness, but at the same time I just feel so blessed that I was lucky enough to have a really close relationship with her and with my grandad, and as I get older I realise more and more how my grandparents played a real part in shaping who I am. I just felt that this month's post should be about my grandparents and what amazing people they all were. The tablecloth in the picture is particularly precious to me now as my nan embroidered half of it and then gave it to me to finish.

She is the one who taught me to sew and I used to love going to her little bungalow and sewing and knitting and crafting together. Everything in her and my grandad's bungalow was handmade by the two of them, from the furniture to the ornaments to the tools in grandad's shed. I try to take the same approach to my own home and fill it with things that have meaning because of the love and effort that went into them, or for the memories that are attached to them. The painting that you see in the corner of the photograph is actually one that grandad painted, it's a painting of the road to the Garth mountain in South Wales where I grew up, and I have many happy memories of walking to the top and flying my kite with my grandparents and my mum and dad and brothers as a child.

Grandad's ashes were scattered there and nan's will be too.

I added the little red teapot as it belonged to my other grandmother and she absolutely loved it. She got it in when living in Germany as a young woman and it was always a focal point in her kitchen. She and I had very similar taste and it's from her I get my love of nature and all things floral. The posy of flowers in the teapot are all from my garden, and i'm so thrilled that after only six months of work out there I have so many flowers for cutting already. None of my grandparents got to see this garden but I know if they had they would have loved it and been proud of my hard work. My knowledge of plants comes from my grandmother too, she loved her garden and a frothy, cottagey style of planting, which is what I always gravitate to.


So that's it. I hope my post this month has not seemed depressing to you but rather, as I intended, full of happy memories. I will be posting some pics of my new living room on Monday so be sure to come back then for a nose.


Stephanie xx

Our new bedroom

Hello! I've been wanting to show you around our new home for a while now so I thought I would start with our bedroom as it's really the only room that's 100% finished. Moving to this house has been such an experience for us and has actually really taught us a lot about what we actually need for our family happiness. I thought moving here that I would 'tolerate' it and make the best of it until things improved, but the biggest surprise for me has been how much I really love it. The house is very small, and storage could be a problem, but I'm actually really enjoying finding ways to make the space work for us. And I have come to realise that a room is just a room;whether it has sash windows or deep skirting or real wood floors, or whether it has artex ceilings, cheap hollow doors and plasticky windows, it feels like a lovely home if it's filled with the people you love and treasures that have meaning to you. So....I do have some 'before' pictures of the house, but the pictures of our bedroom are pretty pointless to show you as you can't see much in them except me looking despondent ;-) . I expect you know the sort of room it was; just a featureless box, with dirty board floors that appeared to have been carpet less for the time the previous occupant lived here, and grubby magnolia walls covered in stains from goodness knows what.  There was also a strong aroma of cat accompanied by large quantities of cat hair stuck to the radiators and floors.  But on a plus side, the room has really great light from two decent sized windows and looks out at a beautiful cherry tree at the front of the house, and distant views of the mountains. And there was a largish built in wardrobe which was brilliant as it's a small room so it was great not to have to find a space for wardrobes. When we moved in we decided to paint the whole place white as it makes it look lovely and clean and fresh and makes every room look bigger and brighter. I also love the way white can look completely different depending on the time of day and the light in the room,or the accent colours that you choose.

A good tip if you have a very small room to try and fit lots of stuff into is to plot the room to scale  on graph paper and do the same with your furniture, then cut out the furniture and try different arrangements on paper....yes I know it's totally nerdy and over the top but it really helps you to decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and how to make the best use of the space. I wanted our bedroom to be calm and serene, so we stuck with white bedding and mostly white furniture, which also helps to add to the feeling of space.

I added a yellow bedspread to our bed which just makes the whole room glow when the evening light streams in. I got it from a friend who was throwing it out....I feel really strongly about up cycling and recycling whenever possible.  Not only do pre loved items have more character in my opinion but it minimises your carbon footprint as a consumer when you do not subscribe to the throwaway attitude people have today. Plus it's easier on your bank account which can't be bad!!!  Here are a few of my favourite items in our bedroom: all are either pre loved or have special significance to me.

This mirror is one of the first items I ever upcycled.  I found it in the back room of a small fabric shop and haggled with the owner to buy it for £3.  It lived in my bathroom in my first ever flat when I left home.  I painted it off white (it was long before chalk paint became popular and my boyfriend, who is now my husband, thought I was nuts 'ruining' a perfectly good mirror!).  I love the shabby chic style and it sort of helped define my taste for the future.

I decorate everywhere with memories of my children and these little shoes belonged to my youngest daughter, I couldn't bring myself to give these away so I keep them in my room and every night and see them and smile thinking of the tiny toes that once filled them.  I love to fill the corners of our home with things that evoke happy memories...I've never been one to go out and buy an ornament just because it matches my room, and to me it's the memories that make it feel like home. 

I absolutely LOVE my dressing table. A lovely friend gave it to me years ago; she bought it at auction for £3.00 as nobody wanted it so they had to get rid, and she painted it.  It's chipped and battered and the mirror is foxed but I love to imagine who might have sat at it in times past when it was new and looked at their reflection in the mirror.  It's also a great bit of extra storage!  Auctions are a great place to pick up a bargain, and seeing the potential in something nobody else wants is so exciting.

I hang this little walnut baby on one of the barley twists, it was a gift from my uncle to my nan when he was a child in Germany and she kept it always. My girls are fascinated by it.  

I use an old chipped teacup and a glass cake plate to store my jewelry, I like to use things for a purpose other than their intended one, I think it's much more interesting and beautiful than an ordinary jewelry box.

And finally, my beloved camphor wood chest.  My grandmother brought it back from Hong Kong where my grandad was stationed in the army and the receipt is still inside. Nan used to keep all her ballgowns in it from her time as a forces wife, and I loved rifling through and trying them on as a child. It still smells of camphor inside.  Above it hangs two prints that belonged to my great grandmother which she got from Germany.  I just love the style of them.  I like to own something that was valued by a loved one in the past, it makes me feel connected to my history. I have loads of precious things that were loved by my my nan and I love to be reminded of her. I'm very fortunate in that.

So that's our bedroom.  It's a real haven and I love it. Hope you like it too! Will post another room soon xxx

Vegan Lasagne recipe

Hiya folks, just a quick post tonight to give you a new vegan recipe.... We love lasagne in this house and I have tried numerous vegan lasagne recipes involving sauces made from cashews or coconut milk or pureed squash, but nothing ever compares to the real thing. It seems to me that the problem is mainly the substitute 'cheese ' sauce. It occurred to me that there is no need to faff around with all sorts of weird and wonderful vegetables when there are lots of lovely milk substitutes out there that could be used to make a bechamel type sauce. So I gave it a shot and....

Voila! A seriously delicious lasagne which we thought was every bit as good as the real thing.  So here's the recipe...I will definitely be making this again!

For the bolognais sauce:

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped into small cubes

1 courgette, chopped into small cubes

1/2 a small aubergine, chopped into small cubes

5 sweet bite peppers, chopped

Handful of chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped

2 dozen cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 Tablespoons vegan sun dried tomato paste

Good glug of balsamic vinegar

1 tsp oregano

handful of red lentils

1 tsp coconut oil for frying

For the bechamel sauce:

3 Tablespoons plain flour (use rice flour if you're gluten free)

Good glug of olive oil

800 ml unsweetened almond milk

2 large tsp dijon mustard

3 large tablespoons nutritional yeast

Scant tsp apple cider vinegar

1 packet of lasagne sheets (use rice lasagne if gluten free)

Method: in a heavy based pan, heat the coconut oil and sauté the onion, garlic and carrot gently till softening. Add the remainder of the chopped veg apart from the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. After 10 mins or so sautéing the veg add the mushrooms and tomatoes and cook the lot till the tomatoes are nice and soft and the juices begin to come out. Add your tomato paste, sauté for a few minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, oregano and lentils. Cover and simmer till the lentils are soft, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, make the bechamel sauce. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the flour and remove from the heat, stirring constantly. Begin adding the almond milk a drop at a time, stirring constantly to make a smooth paste. Once all the milk is added, return to a gentle heat and stir until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the mustard, nutritional yeast and vinegar and stir to combine. 

Assemble your lasagne. In a lasagne dish, add a layer of the bolognais,  then a layer of lasagne (check the pack first to see if it needs to be precooked...The stuff I use can go straight in), then a layer of bechamel sauce. Continue till all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of bechamel sauce.  Cook on 160° till golden brown on top.

Easy! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did xxx

April

Hello everyone

I have left it till the very last minute to do my April styling the seasons post, the reason being that I wanted to include some corners of my home that are completely finished and looking beautiful. The problem is, I have tons of craft projects lined up, but I get very easily distracted, and end up with every room almost, but not quite, finished! So I have resolved to now concentrate on one room at a time and get things completely done so that I can share my home with you. 

In the end I just chose to use some items that are meaningful to me.  I have wanted to use this chair in a styling the seasons picture for a while; I am the world's worst hoarder and this chair comes from a set of four that my parents had when I was a child, so it evokes all sorts of happy memories of sitting around the dinner table with my noisy rabble of 3 younger brothers. My parents got rid of the other chairs and table that went with them but even as a youngster I was terribly sentimental and had a love for all things aged and shabby, so I managed to rescue this one and used it as a bedside table in my room for many years. It has stayed with me through 7 house moves, leaving home, getting married and having babies,  so I think it's here to stay!  The cloth draped over the back of the chair belonged to my nan and was hand embroidered in a leper colony in Asia where she lived many years ago...she and I had very similar taste and I love to have these little items around my home that remind me of her and make me feel connected with her still.  The heartshaped box was hand carved for me by my gorgeous husband on our 7th anniversary, we always give eachother a handmade card and mine can never compare to his incredible creations. He never gives me a card really but usually it is something wonderful that I can use in the home and the amount of time and effort he put into this box makes it so very precious to me. The blossom in the box is what makes this picture representative of what this April means to me. All of this month we have been making the most of the sunshine and working hard trying to make the garden look more loved and not just a wasteland full of rubbish. We are lucky enough to have a number of trees around the property and at the front of the house there is a particularly large and beautiful tree that can be seen through our bedroom window when I lie in bed. This week the tree revealed itself to be an ornamental cherry when it broke out in the most beautiful fluffy white blossom.  I was thrilled to say the least as I'm romantic in my style of garden and I have always loved cherry trees for their blossom, but on top of that, our previous home had a small orchard and at this time of year it was such a delight to look out and see the boughs laden with frothy little pom poms of pink and white; I miss it very much, so it was such a treat to discover that we have a little slice of that here in our new home. It felt like a blessing for all the hard work we have put in to this garden so far.

So that's my styling the seasons post for April. I can't believe we are heading into May already! I have been super busy these past few months but I'm hoping I have time now to blog a little more. In fact, I intend to share one of my more  finished rooms with you in the next couple of days. Our home is full of handmade, upcycled and recycled items so I hope there will be something of interest to share from every room. 

Hope you have all had a lovely April and have lots to look forward to in the month ahead

Stephanie xxx

New Beginnings

Hello lovelies, so much has happened since I last blogged I hardly know where to begin. Shortly after my last blog post we found a small house in the nearby town that seemed to fit our criteria. When I say small, I mean SMALL. It has two ok sized bedrooms, but every other room is so tiny I had to wonder if I would be able to keep any of my existing furniture, and if schooling the children at home would turn into a hideous nightmare with us all in such close quarters. But our goal in moving has always been to minimise our expenses sufficiently that the hubby could reduce the amount he has to work and we could have more time as a family, so keeping that goal in mind we decided the positives still outweighed the negatives, and decided to go for it. As it is a housing association property, it is somewhat lacking in 'character' and for me that presented a big challenge as I feel at home in places with history and a little quirkiness; I really struggle to warm to a place that is built with only ease of maintenance and economy in mind. So all round I was feeling pretty underwhelmed by our new home. Before we could move in there was a LOT of work to be done.  The previous tenant was elderly and although a very lovely chap he appeared to have struggled with any sort of cleaning in the time he had lived there, and additionally it seems that the house was a meeting place for every cat in a ten mile radius, so you can imagine the state the place was in. I won't give you the grim details but suffice it to say that cleaning the bathroom was a low point for me. So far I realise I am painting it all rather black....but here is where the positives begin. We did not have to struggle on alone to get the place in shape (we had a deadline to move in on 1st Feb), we were completely overwhelmed by offers of help from friends, some that we hadn't seen or spoken to in a good while. We didn't have to ask, they just came and worked their socks off. This in itself made the whole process feel so worthwhile, we suddenly felt so wrapped up in love it just turned the whole thing into a really positive experience. As the walls gradually emerged clean and white, and the new wood floors went down, I began to see a potentially lovely cozy little house with a surprisingly 'cottagey' feel that I love.  I had gotten rid of 80% of my furniture and nik naks on freecycle ( which is a resource I adore....more about that another time) keeping only things truly meaningful to me, and just styling the surfaces in our new home with these precious items made it feel like ours. On Feb 1st we moved in, and guess what...I LOVE IT! It feels like home. And I have had so much fun making it pretty. I think over the coming weeks I will share with you a room at a time; look out for lots of tutorials for easy craft projects to make your house a home!

I can't say I don't miss our beautiful orchard and walled garden, and our massive vaulted loft, and all the space at our old home, but I don't miss the endless cleaning, the drafty sash windows, the damp and the sky high heating bills. I will always have fond memories of the old place, but I'm looking forward to making lots of happy memories here. And we are finding that having a clear purpose for each area of each room in the home means the space can be used efficiently and it doesn't feel cramped at all. Here are a couple of pics for you of my new home.

This place has been a blessing in another respect: a couple of weeks after we moved in my lovely hubby collapsed and was hospitalised. I won't go into details but he has an easily fixed health issue and has been on a waiting list for so long that it became life threatening. I was so angry with the nhs that this has happened. Anyway, finally things are moving ahead and he is scheduled for an op next week. It's a relief that being here means he doesn't have to worry about getting back to work but can take time to relax and recover. In the meantime I have put him on a super healthy veg based diet and I myself took the opportunity to go back to being vegan, and I feel so much better for it.

So I told you lots has changed! New home, new work situation, new diet! There are such good times just ahead of us. I'm looking forward to sharing my ideas with you, as there is still a lot to be done, and would welcome your ideas for maximising a small space. This month i'm going to focus on planning my garden, with an emphasis on making it productive in terms of healthy eating. Can't wait to show you what we have done.  For now, here is my favourite recipe for vegan chocolate and beetroot cake...its delicious and fairly healthy! Enjoy xxx

Vegan chocolate and beetroot cake.

Preheat oven to 170°

Use a measuring jug to measure your dry ingredients:

375 ml Self raising flour.
1 tsp  Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice
3 Tablespoons Green and Blacks Organic cocoa powder.
125 ml raw grated beetroot.
1 Tbsp Soft brown sugar.

Wet ingredients:
85 ml melted coconut oil.
85 ml Black strap molasses.
170 ml Water.
1 Tbsp vanilla extract.

Combine your dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients separately. Fold the two together. Pour into a lined 20 cm cake tin and bake for approx 35 mins till risen and a skewer comes out clean from the centre.

Make your frosting: put a can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight, the cream will separate off to the top of the can. Skim this off to leave the watery milk in the bottom of the can. Add approx. 4 Tbsp of Green and Blacks Organic cocoa powder or as much as suits your taste. I usually add icing sugar gradually until I get the consistency I desire, usually around 250 ml will do. Refrigerate while your cake cools and when it's completely cold spread your frosting over the cake.

I usually find this cake tastes better after a day in an airtight tin...lovely and moist!  Enjoy xxx