Beaches and hunger not sated!

You know Devon has a lot of things to offer and two of the best things about this place are the beaches and the moors.  Having been made redundant recently I have zero money, no literally no money bar paying bills.  Hay ho that’s the way life is but where would I be without the beach and the moors to cheer me up?  My man and I were at Bigbury beach this weekend and what a beach this is, really stunning especially in the fading light and the bulk of people have left…just peaceful and calming, with the haunting sound of the oyster catchers and the gorgeous ozone smell.  See what I mean!

 

In these days of austerity, simple pleasures are there to be found and some of the best are on our coastlines….lucky us who live here.

One blot on an otherwise perfect time…..fancied some chips…you know just a small cone with that salty vinergary tang to warm the cold hands, sate hunger and provide that needed rosy glow of ultimate naughtiness.  Yay…there is a beach café at Bigbury and joy of simple joys they sold chips.  Only had about £1.50 on us and thought that would be plenty for a small smattering of chips to gladden the heart….but no….£1.90 for a small portion and this obviously increased for medium and then large.  Hunger hopes dashed and couldn’t believe it was so expensive. 

Word of warning chaps, if you want chips on a beach you have to pay a pricey ransom, so dig deep into those pockets! 

Museums

Question….Museums…stuffy boring places or wonderful institutions of visual learning?   For me they are the latter but I guess that depends on the museum and perhaps the person.  Take Plymouth and Exeter museum for example where my daughter Zoe and I recently visited both.  I thought they were the antithesis of each other in terms of visual and intellectual stimulation, flow, exhibits and general pleasure to be in vibe. 

Plymouth, although the outside is quite architecturally impressive being of neo-classical design and the foyer looked ok but inside…yawn, yawn, yawn.  The actual displays are a little tired and boring with very little to visually stimulate.  However there is lots of interaction for little ones which is a plus for parents with bored children but not much for adults to keep you in there for more than 5 minutes and you may find yourself fleeing said place to save from museum narcolepsy!  This museum refers to the stuffy boring variety I think.

Exeter on the other hand is wonderful.  It’s recently been refurbished and modernised, sympathetically I may add and looks great both inside and out in its gorgeous gothic splendour (so it should really as it cost 24 million!).  They added some contemporary elements to join the old with the new and restoration of this Victorian wonder is spot on. They have even painted the foyer and hallways a vibrant pink and it looks fab against the stonework.

 

This colour combination really works…see nature made it first so it must be ok!

 

The exhibits are really engaging and there is such variety.  There were a few stand out exhibits but one piece my daughter and I loved was working on the premise of bottled memories and each bottle had a different memory from the artist engraved on the front, like the smell of freshly mown grass or her mother’s perfume.  It was really evocative and such a lovely idea.

 

We really could have spent most of the day roaming around the rooms looking and oohing and ahhing.  There were of course some silly bits but well it’s a museum and obligatory and  for the kids I think…..like a whole elephant, polar bear and a tiger…dead of course…now that would be fun and stimulating if there was a live tiger roaming around the place, get the customers moving along nicely!  The bit that’s great is it’s free.  Not much free in this world that’s really worth a look at.  Well that’s not true actually as nature is free and almost always worth a look at, perhaps it’s more a case of not much in this world that costs money that’s worth a look at!

Fat Boy Slim

Well well well….just taken our two gorgeous Jack Russell’s to the vet for their yearly MOT.  As part of the check up the vet wanted to weigh the boys, however when she weighed Taffarini she proclaimed he could do with losing a little weight….the cheek of it!  We do call him Fat Boy but that’s just an affectionate term for such a slim and beautiful boy, surely. 

That’s Taffarini (AKA Fat Boy or Taffy) on left and Mojo on the right (yes the one with the enormous ears…..hay we think he’s beautiful). So diet it is then. 

Now, before diet the day normally went as follows: get up feed boys, they don’t eat their breakfast as they wait for us to have our coffee and toast as this means they get some yummy toast.  Then they eat their own breakfast if they can be bothered.  Play with toys and generally run around barking and disturbing my husband as he tries to work and have conference calls about some very important computer jiggery pokery stuff.  Then lunchtime there maybe a little titbit of this or that…only something small I’m sure, then apple cores if there’s any going, then perhaps a Smackeroo (oh how they love Smackeroo’s) then hearty walk on moors….boys gotta be hungry now…then their dinner, which they may take a look at (yucky hard boring dry food) then it’s our dinner and boy there may be something that accidently fell into their mouths under the table.  Then more playing and perhaps a sniff at their dinner lying in their bowls and polish it off in a most languid fashion.

On reflection maybe it might have been a little too much extra stuff??!! 

Now, day goes like this: get up feed boys, Taffy runs around very excited and acts like he has never been fed, both gobble food up and look expectantly for more (there is no more).  We have our breakfast; coffee and toast, boys look hungrily at us with pleading eyes…nay implores us with those eyes for a little bit of toast…a crumb even, but no.  Then nothing other than playing with toys and amusing themselves till walk…yay walk, they rush around and get very very excited.  Then their dinner, yucky hard boring dry food but oh it’s so delicious now, they eat all up in 2 seconds flat, more is the cry but no.  Then more lounging around and barking at the television if a dog or animal comes on the screen, playing with toys but no more food.  Taffy’s stomach thinks his throat has been cut and is thoroughly bored of this no treats malarkey.  Much teasing of Fat Boy that he is now so skinny we see his ribs and is all skin and bone….poor little Fat Boy wasting away.  Ah the amusement of our beloved dogs, where would we be without them and my sabbatical is made even more enjoyable now I can spend so much time with them.  Silver linings everywhere to redundancy.

Eyes opened

Negative space…do you know I have been reading about this for a little while and was a tad confused by the concept.  But just read a piece on Abbey Koplovitz’s blog (www.oninteriordesign.com) and all makes sense now.  I don’t know about you guys but perhaps those of us who are not trained in such arty stuff don’t know about negative space but see it and understand it unconsciously all the time.  I now am looking around my house seeing the shapes negative space creates between pictures and objects and such.  Fascinating, my eyes are opened.  Look at this picture below and see the brilliant patterns in the negative space of this beautiful table and chairs by Riva. 

 

Oh how I love this stuff ……wish I never had to go back to work sometime and earn a crust as learning about all this stuff is such a luxury and feel a very lucky girl indeed to be able to do this for a short while.  I was saying to my husband this morning how there isn’t enough hours in the day for all I want to see, do and learn about interior design as it’s not just about that specifically, its where my searches take me.  One minute I’m looking for descriptions of negative space and the next I’m off on a merry tour of beautiful Italian furniture then onto Italian art and then…hay where did the day go….and I promised myself solemnly today I would finish module 1 of my assignment, hay ho tomorrow!

cushions cushions everywhere!

Blog 4

My husband is always complaining that I have bought yet more cushions into the house and what was wrong with the old ones?  He has no idea what updates a look of a room or cheap ways to change the look of a room if one feels bored with it.  It’s not the expense of new cushions but he just doesn’t understand why I may need to change something.

I don’t think it’s specifically a girl thing but it’s a him thing!  I’m surprised he even notices when new things appear around the house.  I love cushions and want to change them frequently but they are so darned expensive…well the plump, feather, snuggly, fabulous fabric ones are.  Redundancy does not stretch to buying anything right now, let alone new cushions, so when my friend replied and asked if I could look for readymade cushions I jumped at the chance to live vicariously through her wallet….yay I have an excuse to look at wonderful web sites and immerse myself into the land of lovely things!!   It is so nice to have a legitimate reason to avoid my assignment too…struggling with concept of line at the moment (never done art which might have been helpful).

Now I looked at some darn right beautiful cushions and then reeled myself back into to reality.  Said friend cannot afford silly money for cushions but I know she would want something that looks expensive but is really reasonable.  I simply could show toms of fabrics or cushions but here are just a few that I really thought would be good in said friend’s room. 

 

 

M&S do a Conran range that really smacks of luxury but not too expensive but nothing in fabric discussed although there are some lovely felt cushions in this range that can add the tonal aspect especially in grey.  

www.sofa.com has some absolutely gorgeous cushions and I want them all really but the ‘Giverny’ looks simple and classy with a lush square of velvet on a linen background.

www.made.com is also another great site and has a quirky cushion with a pug print as said friend loves dogs.

 

But I think www.grahamsandersoninteriors.com might just be the best to look at as it has so many fabrics to choose from and they make them for you at very reasonable prices (from about £15.50 onwards depending on fabric of course). 

This is a William Morris Green  Willow Bough Minor fabric which picks up on the accent wall colour

Or this one which is William Morris Lily minor fabric

This fabric above Cheret Autumn would be great on leather as said friend has ordered a new leather sofa and also would pick up the wall again.

Lastly for just plain simple white or taupe cushions The White Company have a good range of styles and textures but can be pricey but Amazon do a good cheap one which the sofa could be loaded with and then just a couple more expensive cushions can add colour, contrast and rhythm to the room.

 

There….foray into cushion world very much enjoyed but its back to the assignment and getting head around ‘line’. 

 

Fabrics

Looking at fabrics today as a very dear friend of mine is re-decorating her living room and we were discussing colours.  I said I would have a scout around to give some ideas of possible fabrics for cushions.  My first thought was Liberty prints as she has a fireplace that has a distinct Art Nouveau style and this might give a little rhythm to the room.  We considered pink as an accent colour as she has Farrow and Ball Lichen on one wall and white on the rest.  The pink might just so the trick to add a little vibrancy, especially if she is bold enough to also decorate her bookcase in pink….were talking a bright pink here, not a baby pink…yuck that would be horrid.  Go to www.Liberty.co.uk for more wonderful fabrics and there is a brilliant video about how the designers came up with their creations for A/W 12.

 

This one is Mauverina A Tana Lawn from the Liberty Art Fabrics collection.

And this one is Viola B Tana Lawn from the AW12 Embellishment story. This would be a bit of a curve ball as it has a dominant blue…but just maybe????

This fabric has different dimension of being cord which might add a different layer of texture and I love that idea,  Ianthe C Rossmore Cord from the AW12 Liberty Art Fabrics collection.

I love this one and again its cord, Kitty Grace A Rossmore Cord from the AW12 Liberty Art Fabrics collection

My friend is so clever with a sewing machine so making cushions will be a doddle and she could embellish (one of the continuing big trends for A/W 12) with some fab buttons from the V&A shop online (www.vandashop.com) as they have some on the theme of the ‘arts and crafts’ movement which would tie in with the prints above quite well.

A little light learning!

Blimey who would have thought there were so many different types of vaulted ceilings?  I have been working on my interior design assignment and started to look at the space in a kitchen I’m making observations on…Ina Garten’s beautiful kitchen in her barn designed by Robert Stillen (look at www.robertstilin.com) who is a genius in simple functional beauty …and looked on Wikipedia to explore more about vaulted ceilings (as you can see from the picture below the kitchen has a vast vaulted ceiling) and found out there are dome, barrel, groin, rib, fan vaulted ceilings and then goes on to describe Byzantine vaults and domes, Romanesque , Gothic and Renaissance…..so much to look at and learn and was only seeing if Ina’s ceiling could be described as a vaulted one!



 

I do like this kitchen though and love the classic Hamptons style. If I ever achieved such heady heights as an interior designer I think I would like to create spaces that evoked a laid back functional vibe like this. Hay ho….back to learning for now eh!