For the birds

Now, I can't remember exactly when ornate birdcages like the one above became cool as an interiors accessory. I do, however, clearly remember predicting that they were going to be The Next Big Thing about eight months before they started cropping up all over the place and being well-impressed with my cool hunter abilities.

I still have a grá for both indoor and outdoor fancy birdcages/houses for some reason - here's the Scandi chic birdie residence in our own back garden, for example:


So I was in my element altogether when I came across no fewer than three posts on new-to-me interiors blog Style Carrot dedicated to lovely ornamental ornithological gaffs.

There's an inspirations post, featuring decorative birdcages in interior settings.

There's a "where to buy" resource post.

And there's a post choc-full of accessories, including art and birdcage necklaces and wall decals from Etsy sellers.

And yes, sadly enough, I love it all!

Deeeelicious: The Door Desk

If ever I have a home office, I'd be a pretty happy (and, of course, wildly organised and tidy and productive) bunny if my desk was as cool as this:


Yep, that's an old door on some trestle legs, topped off with glass. It belongs to photographer Meredith Perdue of & Unlimited Dogs, who takes beautiful canine snaps as well as having a seriously covetable studio space. The door was liberated from her parents' place when they were doing a spot of renovation.

Yum.



Now, if I could just get Mam and Dad to replace their front door, have some glass cut, procure some IKEA Vika Artur trestle legs - oh, and get a new, work-from-home job - I'd be all set...

Photos: Meredith Perdue
[Via Apartment Therapy Unplggd]

Save The Date: Your nearest H&M, 14/11/2009

Set your phasers to Oh. Mi. Gaw!

H&M's next designer collaboration will be with - swoon - Jimmy Choo! They'll be designing a line of shoes (of course), bags, and accessories for the girls (ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah) and the boys (ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah) and the strings as well as a womenswear clothing collection.

Now, I know people go mental for them, but personally I think that H&M's designer collaborations to date have been decidedly hit 'n' miss. Well, mostly miss as far as I'm concerned: I don't think there's been any piece that I've seen and thought "Wantsies!", regardless of how much they're raved about in the glossies. Any of the stuff I've checked out has struck me as very, well, cheap-y looking. And I know it's H&M, but I've quite a few bits from H&M's own collections and I do think that the designer designed clobber is of inferior quality compared to them. However, I've great faith in Tamara Mellon and really don't think she'll put the Jimmy Choo name to any product that's sub-par.

See you in the queue on the 14th of November...

Sure what Domestic Goddess In Training would be without one?

While having a lazy trawl around the Interweb for an Irish source for the very cool Umbra wallflowers in John & Sherry's gaff, I stumbled across a very nifty idea for a cookbook holder. The Cooknook, above, looks like it would solve nearly all the problems that confront me when I try to cook from a cookbook. Although it won't make the grub taste any better and is unlikely to prevent me cursing at the tome like the fishwife of a sailor, but then it's not magic.

What it would do:
- keep recipes at eye level;
- keep pages out of the way of spashes (and spills, in my case);
- look a bit cooler than the usual fairly gammy cookbook holders you might see about the place;
- fold back up into the fairly useless dead space under the cupboard when not in use, thusly not cluttering up the worktop or taking up room in the back of a press that could otherwise be occupied by some gone off naan breads.

Me likey.

Thank Crunchie it's lunchtime

Am in really shitty form today.

Am blaming a combination of factors, mostly hormonal and meteorological.

Am trying to think happy thoughts but to be honest I've always been predisposed to reckoning the glass is not just half empty, but is a naff design and is a bit chipped and cracked and probably harbouring TB, so it's not easy for me to go all rainbows and bluebirds.

That takes serious effort when your cartoon equivalent is Eeyore, y'know?

Don't want to let on to Himself that I'm in the throes of (another effing huge monthly) flump, so I'm going to get all self-help-ish and make a list (of course) of things that I'm happy about.

In no particular order:

1. We're going to see Oasis at Slane next Saturday. Am hoping they play lots of Old Stuff as the only new stuff of theirs that I'm familiar with are the singles that have gotten loads of radio airtime. Better organise a download this evening, just incase.

2. The material for Boris' bed re-do arrived on Friday morning. The pattern is retro fabulous ("Very Austin Powers, isn't it?" said Himself's sister yesterday which freaked me right out, so we're going with retro fabulous, 'kay?) but the colour combination of blues and zesty greens keep it fresh (I think). Kind of reminds me of those printed Pyrex dishes that every Irish household used to have.

3. Himself did loads of decorating with me over the weekend. I was thrilled silly. Don't think the telly was on at all in our house between Friday morning and 10pm last night. The dog thought we'd lost the plot altogether.

4. I'm getting a lift home with Himself this evening :)

5. The rain is good for the plants in our back garden. And hopefully will wash some of the accumulated bird poo off the bonnet of my car, because I don't fancy venturing out in the pourings of rain tonight to clean it.

6. I'll never have to sit through Terminator Salvation again. Not even the presence of Christian Bale could save that film - actually, I thought he seriously lacked charisma in the lead role, and I am a Christian Bale fan. I felt there was a palpable sense of smug entitlement between himself and his missus - who is clearly supposed to be the moral compass of the piece, because she's MARRIED. And PREGNANT. And a DOCTOR. And just incase you missed that she's PREGNANT, she wears this stupid above-the-bump, tied-not-belted, can-you-see-that-she's-PREGNANT belt in nearly every scene. Talk about laying it on with a trowel. Enough already! The only characters who evoked any sympathy in me were man-bot Marcus and Resistance rebelette Blair, and actually I wondered what the film would have been like if Sam Worthington had been in the John Connor role. (Sorry Christian.)

7. I have finally got some corkboard to make a recipe board for myself. The plan is to stick it inside the door of the boiler press and pin recipes that I clip from magazines to it in the hope that I'll then actually attempt them. At the moment, they all languish in various folders and piles of paper around the house, where there is little or no chance of me (a) ever finding them when I go looking for them on the spur of the moment or (b) ever bothering to go looking for them.

I feel better already. It's the little things, isn't it?

"What are you up to this weekend?"

Ah. That has become a loaded question for me, because invariably my weekend plans involve home improvements in some shape or form. I'd a chinwag with one of the girls in work last Friday, and when she asked the inevitable and my reply started with "Weeeell...", and she said "Oh God - are you still painting the kitchen cabinets?" I was fairly well shamed, by both the lack of progress and the fact that apparantly I talk about my DIY jobs waaaay too much.

In an attempt to deepen that sense of shame and hopefully have it spur me into action, here is a "Before" picture of the kitchen. (I'm really getting into the swing of this "Before" picture thing!)


Holy moly.

I'd forgotten how bad it was!

First thing we did was shelve the red canisters (the previous owners brought the red yokes hanging out of the window with them when they moved. I guess they really loved them. Ehem) and get rid of the breadbin. Yeh, I know, not exactly a giant leap for mankind, but you gotta start somewhere and the crappy wooden one that we inherited with a slatted, fold-up door had a gap in the top of it that elephants could have traipsed through, never mind flies. That was replaced with a ceramic duck-egg blue Nigella Lawson number with a dual purpose beech lid/breadboard, courtesy of a Debenhams gift card from Himself's aunt & uncle.

Next, we traded up to a silver 'n' black Brita kettle to tie in with the oven and the silver appliances we had in mind. You might think that this was another baby step, but we are in an area with water so hard you could trot mice on it. Seriously, the first few mugs of tea made with water boiled in that little grey kettleen (it was too small to be called a kettle) in the pic were undrinkable, and we are Big Tea Drinkers, so the matter had to be rectified stat.

The first big job (well, it was a little bit bigger than the last two) was to rip out the carcass around that big empty hole in the front left of the pic, which I always thought looked a bit like a lidless coffin standing on end. A freestanding silver Whirlpool fridge freezer lives there now. We also replaced the dark lino and then I began painting the kitchen cabinets.

That was around November of 2007, and, er, they're still not *quite* finito. Since then, the kitchen walls have been painted in Farrow & Ball's White Tie, a little white shabby chic wall-hung spice rack has been procured and hung, and the tap (which I appreciate you can't see in the photo above but it was so ugly that it actually depressed me) has been changed out for a new spring neck chrome model a bit like this one:

We've also mounted a beech paper towel holder to the underside of the press beside the microwave, and a little coffee cup tower like this one (but with pastel rather than primary coloured cups) that was a present from my good friends Steve and Deni-o has taken up residence beside the new Super Kettle:

The base cabinets got their final coat of paint a few weekends ago, and I really want to press on and get the rest of the bloody things done ASAP, but these things always move slowly in our house because I have to do them all on my tod. Himself has no interest in decorating, which would be fine if it was just because he's a bloke or didn't mind about fabric choices and whatnot, but Himself's lack of interest stems from viewing our house as a temporary living space.

We'll be there three years in August. Seriously, like, there are marriages that are more temporary.

I want to get the damn kitchen finished so that (a) I'll have a normal person's reply to the "What you doin' for the weekend?" question, and (b) I can - finally! - put up an "After" picture.

And if Himself's only contribution is to stop watching telly for a couple of hours - seriously, go to the gym, take a walk, read all those back issues of National Geographic that never so much as get leafed through - and make me the odd cup of fruit tea (I'm on a Twinings cranberry and sanguinello orange kick at the minute, yum), well, I'll be happy.

My First IKEA Pimp!

The pupster went in for a much needed grooming yesterday and is now all fragrant and silky smooth and very cuddly. He always seems to know how lovely he feels after a wash, clip 'n' brush and is cashing in his cuteness chips for lots of extra rubs.

I decided this morning to pimp his bed in honour of his newfound cleanliness. And because I needed a small, manageable project - a break from trying to decide on paint and carpet for upstairs and painting the kitchen cabinets was in order.

This is the "before" shot of his nighttime throne from IKEA:


Looks fairly Prince Of Darkness, I think. Anyway, the colour scheme of the kitchen means that the bed stuck out like a sore thumb in its original state: the kitchen is all light and airy, creams and ivorys and duck-egg blues.

While I don't have an "after" yet, I can tell you that those black legs and armrest supports today received their first coat of ivory paint. And to replace the covers, I've ordered some Michele D'Amore for Marcus Brothers fabric that I discovered on Etsy but was sold out - typical - so I had to roam the interweb looking for another stockist. Eventually I found and ordered it from Fabric For Quilts & More, the online store of a shop in West Virginia ("Take me home, country roads...") run by a really sweet lady called Barbara. It's so nice that I ordered a bit more than I strictly need for the reupholstry job with a view to using it in some other less Boris-y project:


I'm sure you can just imagine how excited the dog is about all this...