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

Planning a Dining Room makeover!

I'm off work sick today, since I've worked in an office and no longer self employed I feel like I'm sick ALL the time, it drives me nuts, offices breed germs I'm convinced of it!

Anyway that's not what I'm here to talk about.....

It's Easter holidays next weekend and I've taken a couple of extra days off as I plan to tackle my dining room at long long long last. We have lived in this house over 7 years now and we have never tackled the dining room, I may add that mostly this is because we used to use it as a store room for my business for many years, so there was little point it making it nice as it was a work room.

However now is the time!

I nearly always start with a colour theme from a key piece in the room. My key piece in the dining room is my dinette set, that is the one non-negotiable item. This is the only picture I can find of it, can't believe I've never taken a proper picture!

Then I look to see if I can find some curtains that will match, I was lucky enough to stumble across these last year and snapped them up, just the right colours and will look fab with the dinette set

So now down to colours, well now I do like colour on my walls sooooo I am going to bite the bullet and go red on one wall and great on either 2 or 3 walls, eeek I know it will be bright!!

Unfortunately I need to paper the walls first, I have never papered before and I'm slightly dreading it, I would love to just get the walls skimmed with plaster and lovely and smooth, but the quote was beyond my budget so some slightly textured wallpaper to hide the lumps and bumps, then paint!

I do have a question though, I need to buy something to hang the curtains on but I have the most awkward window set up in this room - actually all my downstairs rooms! I really want to have an wooden type pole as the blind is wood but as you can see I can't hang the curtains with curtain rings as the curtains will be lower than the top of the window. AND if that's not bad enough there are some badly placed pipes too grrrr! Ideas please, here is the top of the window!

I'm going to show you some before pictures, partly cos I want you to see how much difference it will make when I'm done and partly to show those lovely people who thought my whole house must be fantastic after my last post that this is certainly not the case, we all have dodgy rooms which need work, that are in a mess!! Oh the shame!!!

 So as you can I have a LOT to do!

I am motivated by the use of red and grey in this picture.

So everyone, what do you think about my curtain rail suggestion? Bear in mind I'm in the UK, so no fancy options from the USA please I just get jealous!!

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!

I'm back!

Hello, I'm back and I've missed being here so much!

I would like to say I've been to exotic destinations and so busy I haven't been able to post but in reality I've been watching the Olympics and Paralympics. I love it and it's so blumming inspirational but I'm glad today is the last day as I want to get my life back!

How are you all? What have you been up to?

I've been up to some other things but not much. We haven't had a lot of summer in the UK this year, in fact it's been pretty dire but a few weeks ago just before I went back to work after my knee op was a beautiful day and off we went to a local antique centre for a browse and a coffee out in the sunshine. Nice but even nicer I got to wear a blouse I've never worn and LOVE! When I made it originally I messed up and made it too big, then I gained a bunch of weight and haven't been able to wear it, now it fits beautifully - well actually now since that photo it's a little loose but hey that's all good!

I know it looks like a car park but it's not, it's very beautiful, the building the antique centre is in a 17th Century Mill Building, so it's an amazing setting!

During the summer I also scored this fantastic coffee table.

I've been after another 50s coffee table for a long time, we used to have a gorgeous one but it sadly met a sticky end. This one is ideal though, it matches our living room curtains beautifully, it's always worth waiting for that piece you're looking for, I also got it very cheap too at £15!!

Well I think that's enough for now, I'm back and hopefully posting much more again and reading and commenting on your blogs again.

I have my sewing mojo back so more on that and I have lots of decorating to do too!

oh and sadly I'm having to get password put back on my comments, apologies but I've had sooooo much spam comments lately :o(

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!

A couple of great bargain buys!

Those of you who read this blog will know that I'm always on the look out for a bargain when it comes to my vintage buying. I don't have much cash to spare but that doesn't mean I can't buy nice things!

First up is my smaller of the two bargains, but nonetheless just gorgeous. I saw this bag on ebay and it was describe as 50's 60's shabby chic kooky handbag, well I sure am glad that was it's description cos I scored it for £1.04, oh yes this lovely yellow 50s bag. Isn't it a great shape? It's also perfect inside, it was a little grubby outside but I gave it a clean and now it's perfect on the outside!

But my real great bargain find last week was a sideboard - do you call them a credenza in the US? I've been looking for one as I'm only just starting to get my dining room back after it's been the storeroom for the business for years. The room needs stripping down, repapering and painting BUT it is finally a functional if rather unfinished dining room and is now complete with a fabulous new sideboard for the amazing price of £5.50, yes you heard me £5.50!!

Here it is!

As you can see from the first picture it now contains 2 whole dinner services, plus a few extras, it's really roomy and had empty a whole cupboard up in the kitchen. I've also got more access to my dinner services, I rarely use them as it used to entail emptying cabinets to get to them and I couldn't be bothered, but now...

I decided to put my lovely Oriental lamp on it, she hasn't had a permanent home for a while, so I'm glad she now had pride of place here.

We finally have got a permanent place for our beautiful lazy susan too.

And a place for our insulated coffee pot which we use every morning.

And last but not least our diner table finally has a proper space to fit in.

The decor will be up to scratch soon and I'll be sure to post when I'm done.

Some great bargains buys eh?