Pins

Now I've got a bit of a thing about pinning. No not like these

but pinning as in Pinterest.

For those of you unaware, Pinterest is an online pinboard where you can pin images from the internet, or upload your own, to personal boards. It's a great way of collecting inspirational images or products and the bonus being the source of the photo stays with it. 

Most users seem to have house or personal style related boards although there do seem to be a lot of photographs of cup cakes. And tattoo designs. Some are just plain weird, I came across one woman who had a board called 'My future' and it had lots of photos of babies & cute toddlers. As I said, weird.

My boards are nearly all related to interiors and I have a board for each room of the house. At the moment we're focusing on the study (our next big project) so I've been keeping an eye out for ideas.

For example I ordered a sample of this wallpaper but as the suppliers website  gave a good visual I pinned.

possible study wallpaper

If you want so see more on the study/office then go here. Andrew came up with a new design style as I was trying to explain my concept for the office during a recent dog walk (so without any visual aids). He called it ' vint-o-funk'. He got it when he saw the pin  board.

Now the alert of you will have seen two little boxes in the top left of the photo. When you put an image on your board it puts 'repin' & 'like' buttons. So if you want to 'copy' the image you just repin. If you like it, but don't actually want it then hit the like button. Am I getting too complicated?

The best bit for me, and what makes it mildly addictive, is that if you get a like or a repin,an email is sent to you and you can look who has pinned what. I find it fascinating to see what really rocks peoples boats. I have a board called 'French Style' which is very popular and has it's own followers. But yesterday I had the most repins I've ever had for just one image.

Source: delightbydesign.blogspot.com

Everyone just loved the zebra wallpaper. What do you think?

Until next time

Sharon

Cook book shelves

Now lest you think we've spent the last few weeks

• listlessly draped over sofas
• cooking & eating comfort food
• playing in the snow
• being arty but unproductive

then think again.

Well we have been doing all of the above but in addition we've been finishing off a few of the little jobs and, more importantly, planning the next couple of major projects. This in particular has been very useful as we've been thinking about changing the upstairs layout.

However the next big project is the office, which is giving me a bit of a headache - how do you fit two large desks, lots of storage, three computer screens and a large dog into an average size room and still make it look good? Still pondering.

Source: Houzz.com

I love this arrangement but we just don't have a long enough wall.


Anyway one of the small projects was for the kitchen. Most of my favourite recipes I have stored on my laptop (with umpteen back ups - not that I'm paranoid!) but I still have a small, but beautiful, selection of cookbooks. A lot of them are life stories with recipes in them, like "A table in the Tarn" by Orlando Murrin. I so want to do what he did one day.

Anyway I wanted a few of my favourites within reach but didn't want to take up a lot of wall space with conventional shelves. During our last trip to Ikea we'd found some Ribba picture display shelves which we though would work, so we bought three in beech effect.

Before painting

Now I wanted them to disappear into the wall so needed to paint them. As they are a MDF-y stuff I chose to paint them first with cupboard undercoat. I have to say this wasn't overly successful as they needed three coats, and then three coats of the wall paint.

During painting

But eventually they were done and up on the wall, and I was pretty pleased with the result.

Finished

Until next time




Sharon

Thank you....

to Andrew( my husband - the graphic designer) for the new blog design. I only asked for a new headline banner but he just got carried away.

But I love it! 




Sharon

Minus thirteen degrrrrrrees

O.K. now I know that for some of you out there -13C ( 8.6F in old money) is a walk in the park, time to put the parka away. But here in the east of England that's cold and that's the temperature we woke up to on Saturday morning after the coldest night of the winter so far, and I don't even know what the RealFeel was.

After a hot & hearty breakfast we took Mortimer out by which time it had risen to a balmy -7. It was so cold that my hair froze, not just froze but was growing ice crystals. But it was beautiful.

So here's the morning in photographs.

And do you know - I still put my washing out!

Until next time





Sharon

How hard can it be......?

Now it may be the cold weather but I'm finding myself drawn to images like this:

 

Source: The Style-File Blog

Now I do have a bit of a blanket fetish. You may remember my gorgeous blanket made by my friend Carol

I have a beautiful blue & taupe alpaca one that Andrew bought me when we were sailing in the U.S. Much taken with afghan throws that I kept seeing while we were there I taught myself to crochet and soon had quite a production line, although I confess they were somewhat rustic (a.k.a. holey) in execution.

But what I'm craving at the moment is something like this:

Source: The Style-File Blog

Surely all I need is a giant pair of needles and some extra thick wool?



Suggestions welcome!



Until next time





Sharon

Snow Day

Well technically not as we woke up to snow this morning, Sunday, and so were not actually working. However as we are always busy on the house we decided that today would count as a Snow Day.

We have a labradoodle, Mortimer, who just loves the snow so we had to take him out for a long walk through the orchards this morning.

Please can I stay out?

There were lots of dogs out enjoying the snow and they seemed to be having enormous fun.

Dogs of all sizes

There are more photographs on Mortimer's blog.

As for us we just enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the peace of it all.

So peaceful

The starlings were enjoying the apples that have been left on the trees and when you got close would wheel up in a huge murmaration to descend after we'd passed.

Starlings

And then home to sit in front of the fire with a glass of mulled wine.

Could we have another Snow Day tomorrow please?


Until next time




Sharon