A huge renovation

A friend of mine has just bought an ENORMOUS house, around the corner from us in North London. He's going to be renovating it over the next few months (estimates from builders suggest it'll take about 5 months, but I can't see how it'll be that quick) and I'm going to try and keep track of his progress on this blog. The house really is in quite a state, and it smells very badly of damp and other nasty things. It will however, be amazing when it's done. It's 3 stories, plus basement, and is going to have 3 bedrooms, a study, 2 large bathrooms, 2 reception rooms and a kitchen (which he's going to extend slightly to the side of the house).

The first thing I'm going to tell him he should buy is this -



I can just see it hanging in the front reception looking very elegant!

A bedroom reorganisation

Sooooooo, it struck me yesterday, whilst at work and taking a mini break from hammering the phones and nagging journos, that maybe the solution to the big bedroom dilemma (I'm forever whittering on about hating the decor but not knowing what to do) was to switch our rooms around. My slightly mad proposal is to move the boy's music studio into the large bedroom, and move the guest bed and our clothes into what is currently the studio (the medium sized room in our three bed pad).

The benefits are:
it's at the front of the house so get more sun than the back;
it's cosier and would suit some fantastic wallpaper I've seen (Osborne & Little Foxglove!);
we could fit a double bed, a double or quadruple wardrobe and maybe even a little mini dressing table area;
the boy would feel so guilty about snagging the biggest room that he has agreed another wardrobe could remain in the new studio space;
the boy would have space for music stuff and another desk for freelance design and marketing work (the perfect live/work solution).

The wallpaper I like -


Anyway - the change won't happen before Chritmas I wouldn't have thought - when we can take some time off and switch things around. I also think if we're doing that we might as well get wooden floors downstairs (maybe in January sales...) Pictures and more dull musings on this issue to follow, I'm sure! ;-)

Shopping in Bruges

We went to Bruges recently, which is the prettiest, prettiest place in the world. We also found a brilliant shop there called Maisons Dumonde. As it was my birthday the boy let me browse for as long as I liked! It's a little bit like Zara Home, and was really reasonable. I bought some great distressed looking silver tea light holders and a couple of presents for a friend for Christmas (yes, Em, that's you!).

Here are a few of the other delights I liked -






http://www.maisonsdumonde.com/

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Pretty things on stones

I'm often talking about how I like to snap things I notice as I'm walking about the place, so thought I'd share these two additions to my file of 'pictures-I-must-print-and-do-something-with'! The first we noticed whilst on a brilliant clifftop walk in the south of France, and the second was on the side of one of the buildings we saw this weekend, in Bruges.




A reminder of these two great images as well, taken near my home in North London.




As I've probably said before, I really like using this sort of thing to make a great, cheap picture for the wall!

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More bedroom inspiration

No posts for weeks, and then two in one evening! Who'd have thought?!

My mind has been turning yet again to our large bedroom, which I still haven't re-decorated. I realise that there's a problem with these pictures - my eye is often drawn to bright and white, and sadly the east facing bedroom can't carry this sort of look off. I don't think. However, you can never compile too many inspiring pictures! What do you reckon?










Images from Living Etc

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