Not such a relaxing weekend!

Well it's been a long weekend here in the UK and today is the last day, but I've had more time off that most, but I haven't been relaxing, far from it!!!!

I had transformed the tip and junk room that was my dining room into exactly what I want a beautiful, fully useful dining room and even though I swore and injured myself, and ached like hell, I wallpapered for the first time, hated every minute of that, I sawed and mitred corners for the edge of the floor, I painted, and did I mention I ached?

Here's the big reveal, just like on all those DIY shows....

See a previous post for what this room looked like before it's quite a transformation!

As you can see it's red and grey to fit in with my dinette set, but I was so nervous about the grey, which actually I picked up from the curtains cos the curtains matched the dinette and it's hard to take a dinette into the DIY shop to colour match ;o) However I'm really really happy with the grey I think it really works but I was aware it could have gone horribly wrong, it's a funny old colour grey....

Here are some of the close up details, below is my sideboard, with some of my favourite bits on, a coffee set which we were given for our wedding (20 years ago this year eeek!), a painting by my lovely husband, and a lamp given to us by friends in San Diego.

I had been looking for curtains to go in this room for ages, something that matched the colours and design of our dinette and I was super lucky some months ago when I found these, I think they match pretty much perfectly!

The only thing which isn't done yet is the light fitting, see below, given to us by some lovely friends, sadly it needs rewiring so that will have to wait for another day, but it's going to look amazing once that is up and it's all finished!

As if that's not enough I had another super lucky find this week! I have been looking for a cabinet to put my record player on and stereo in FOREVER, well ok maybe a year or so, I just couldn't find something that would fit in with our other stuff but be just right for what I need and be small enough to fit in the corner, but big enough to do the job, you can see why it's been a problem, oh and affordable too!!!!

Well I went out to lunch on Tuesday, and spotted a second hand furniture store down a side street not far from my work which I have never seen before but apparently has been there for about 5 months. I thought oh well I'll have a look, and there it was the ideal bit of furniture, it's not terribly exciting as a piece of furniture but I can't tell you how excited I was! So last night, I set it all up and after all the work I've done, I got drunk and danced around the living room for most of the evening!!

The first picture is of it is next to my record cabinet, fab eh?

And there she is, I need to tidy the cables, but I was slightly intoxicated when I set it all up and though it best to do that when sober ha ha!

I could now do with a loooooong weekend to recover, instead today I will rest, relax, sleep, eat, not get dressed and generally recover, who needs a gym, just decorate!!!

Hope you like it and hope you all has a fabulous break over Easter

Appreciate what you have!

As a vintage collector/user of all manner of things, clothes, shoes, furniture, you name it, if it's my era and I love it, I'll be coveting it! But the problem with being a lover of these things is that despite the fact that I do try to sell things on I no longer use, I have a lot of stuff I have, live with every day but just don't appreciate.

I'm sure many of you recognise this situation, I'm sure most people who love vintage stuff suffer from this particular malady! So I was just thinking this morning, after spending the morning trawling ebay and 'watching' a load more stuff, that I really should appreciate what I have too.

Here are just a small selection of my particular favourites!

My beloved cocktail bar which has seen lots of moves, lots of different locations but I'll never part with it!

A new addition to our family, I actually got 2 of these, non-matching sadly, but super cheap for the price they normally go for and both gorgeous!

 These is my most favourite lamp, we bought it in a store in LA, we saw it, loved it but it was a little out of our normal spending range, we left it drove away and then turned round, went back and bought it. But then we had to ship it, we packed it really well to ship home to ourselves, it arrived and it was broken in two, we were so sad, but had it restored - more money! - and now it sits pride of place!

I love these little book ends!

 ooooh I really love this, my bargain of the century I think! A gold glitter bar stool, really comfy really heavy duty, just gorgeous, how much did I buy it for? £15, yep lucky eh? And that was only last year!

Another bargainous find and gorgeous, my lovely 50s coffee table.

This little lady has been with me for years, she sits on my bedside cabinet and makes me smile a lot.

I was lucky enough to buy this as a whole set many many moons ago and really do appreciate having it.

I LOVE my g plan sideboard, converted to TV cabinet! It was in very worn condition when I bought it, but again I got it at an amazing price and just treated it with love. A more stylish TV/entertainment cabinet you couldn't wish for!

 So why am I constantly searching for new things when I have so much to appreciate!

I guess it's the nature of collecting and loving these items.

So I challenge you to look around you today and appreciate the things you already have!

Turned on

Now that made you look didn't it? I'm talking about the book Turned On which is in fact about Decorative Lamps of the 50s.

In my little season of books I love, I had to feature this, it's not as glamorous as the last 2 but I do love lamps, I have talked about this before, lamps are my thing and if I could afford loads I'd have loads whether I had the space or not!

This is a nice little book, it does give you a bit of background to the electric lamp and in fact electricity in the home but for me it's all about the pictures. Sadly some of them are pretty small and haven't come out well through my scanner, but I've included a couple here.

It would be an exaggeration to say my life would be complete if I had these lamps below but boy it would make me happy for a very long time!

I adore the colours in this one and the overall styling, I also love the concertina shades, I don't have a lamp with this shade, they're usually only from the US and I haven't found one within my budget with the shipping within my budget also, shipping is really expensive when it comes to lamps like this!

Sorry about the scanning quality I suspect it's my fault, must mess about with the settings at some point.

Anyway my point is, if you love lamps from the 50s you'll love this book, it's a nice little one to flick through.

Talking of lamps, I spotted this beauty on ebay the other day.

I've never seen this design before, I prayed that no one else had spotted it but I started to see the bids build, I was even prepared to go over my usually stingy budget, however she started to go waaaay past even my top price. How much did she eventually go for? £282!! She is lovely though, but wow!