Hatty's Home Tour: Living Room

To me a living room needs to be warm, cosy and comfortable. I inherited this amazing sofa from the lobby of a block of flats my friend lived in, it was there for months, don't worry I didn't just wander off with someone's sofa! I also found a swatch of beautiful Annie Sloan fabric in a local Annie Sloan stockist shop and thought it would be perfect to re upholster the sofa in. I then based the whole room around this beautiful piece of furniture.

Again, I painted the walls brilliant white and warmed the room up with accessories. 

I love old trunks and suitcases. So there are lots of these piled up around the house as well as lots of books! 

I created a little gallery wall above the sofa which great because I'm looking forward to constantly adding to it. 

I have wanted a cocktail cabinet for a while and looked at some amazingly cool 1970s ones but didn't have much space, I found a bit of a rubbish cabinet in a charity shop for £15, it was the perfect shape and size, I painted it Annie Sloan grey, same as the fire surround and I'm so pleased with it, it works so well, the bottles are cover up on the bottom by solid sliding doors and the glass sliding doors displays all my pretty glasses and cocktail bits really well. 

We don't watch much tv so our tv isn't much of a focal point, I prefer to huddle around the fire, unfortunately we only have a gas fire and seen as we rent I'm not planning on spending the thousands it would cost to but an open fire back in or even better a log burner, but in a dream world... 

DIY: Easy Peasy Gallery Wall

I love gallery walls! My Pinterest boards are full of them, but I do think they can be hard to get right without a lot of planning. In my living room I have cheated a little bit.

 

I used RIBBA picture shelves from IKEA. (http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50152595/)

 

Depending on your ceiling height and the look you want you can use as many as you like and a combination of small and large. I would recommend having at least two, one above the other for an effective 'gallery wall' look.

 

I did find that thick frames don't sit that well and as my wall is by the front door, I did have an 'incident' when the wind was blowing the wrong way! So I'd recommend thin frames, or only use thick frames for small pictures.

 

 

I have a combination of prints, postcards, photos, Millie's hand and foot prints and an enamel tile. I've kept the colour palette of the pieces quite limited, black and white with shots of blue, yellow and red. I've tied all the pieces together by using black frames.

 

What I love about this wall is it was so easy to put together, without putting lots of 'mistake' holes in my walls. Plus, I can change this around if I get a bit bored and really easily change the look... for instance, having an eclectic mix of frames would give a more vintage look.

 

As for arranging your pieces, a triangular-ish shape works well. What I mean is have taller pieces towards the middle and work down towards the edges, but don't be afraid to mix it up a bit. Again, the beauty of using the shelves is you can experiment to your hearts content. 

Oh... and I have battery fairy lights strewn across mine too!

 

Emily x

  



To travel is...two

After being on the go almost continuously for three and half months it was great to stand still for a little while. Both being keen snowboarders and having done seasons in the French alps we thought Wanaka in New Zealand's South Island for their winter season was a good place to stop for a while, although stopping when travelling generally means stopping long enough to get a job and top up the bank account. 

we rented a flat in Wanaka and did various bar / super market / ski shop jobs for 8 months, as well as snowboarding as regularly as possible in between working. 

Then for the good bit...

We bought a 4 wheel drive Nissan largo van with a double bed in the back and drove all over New Zealand with a crochet blanket and a picnic hamper, stopping in some of the most beautiful idyllic places in the world. 

Ever since coming home I have dreamed of buying a camper van again so we can just take off for the weekend with a crochet blanket and picnic hamper...

DIY: Patchwork throw

I'm a dabbler in sewing, I can use a machine to do basic things, mainly I like to make things for our home.

I made a patchwork throw for our bedroom. I wanted something that would tie together the grey and yellow theme and this way I got to choose lots of lovely fabrics.
 

I designed it as a bed runner so the finished size is 193cm x 82cm (ish!)

You will need:
5-8 fat quarters of your chosen fabrics (this will be more or less depending on your final quilt size)
Backing fabric 195cm x 84cm (allowing for a 1cm seam allowance)
Wadding 195cm x 84cm
Border fabric (same as
Matching thread
Fabric scissors
Air dry fabric pen
Pencil
Paper
A metal ruler (long if you have one)
Pins
Sewing machine

1) Make a plan - just a rough sketch that gives you a guide. I decided to have a patchwork middle with a border around the edge.

2) Make a cardboard template the size of your square - I did mine 15cm (so they would be 14cm with a 0.5cm seam allowance).

3) Cut out your squares - I ended up with 65

 

3) Now for the fun bit - lay them out in the pattern you want - this is the point your can also assess size and add more if you want it bigger. Mine was 13 squares across and 5 down - this then fits across the foot of a king size bed.

 



 
4) Take a column at a time and take the first two squares. With right sides together sew along one edge with a 0.5cm seam allowance (make sure your squares will end up the right way up if it matters for the pattern, i.e. my birds!) Repeat down the column so you have a strip of squares - repeat for all the other columns.

 

5) Iron all the seams open at the back - this will make it easier to sew them together. 

 

6) Take the first two columns and with right sides together sew down one edge (0.5cm seam allowance) - repeat with all columns until your patchwork is complete.

 

7) Add your long side borders first and trim them so they are the same length as the patchwork, add the side borders (0.5cm seam allowance throughout)

 

8) Trim all the threads on the patchwork

 

9) Take the patchwork, wadding and backing fabric. Lay the patchwork first, right side up, put the wadding on top and then the backing fabric, right side down on top.

 

10) Sew all the way around, leaving a gap approx. 10-15cm wide

 

11) Turn the patchwork the right way and sew up the gap by hand.

 

12) Iron on a cool setting so as not to melt the wadding.

 

13) You can at this point 'quilt' by sewing along the lines between the patches - I didn't but because I just wanted it on my bed!

 

14) Display and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Emily x

 

 

Mid Season Picnic

It’s that time of year where glimmers of summer are starting to appear. A slight smell in the air, the sound of the birds singing or a slight warm breeze on your skin and all of a sudden you have a sudden urge to go on a picnic, but as quickly as that the weather turns again, the temperatures drop and you feel like it’s never going to be summer. A mid season picnic is the perfect pick me up for those longing for summer blues.

Simply wrap up warm but with lots of layers, so if the sun does happen to make an appearance, you can shed your big winter coat and soak it up, pack up a scrumptious picnic of home made bread, a Thermos of warming soup, and a fiery ginger beer or two and off you go. Take blankets to lie across the ground and a ground sheet in case the ground is damp, spread your picnic and enjoy an afternoon dreaming of summer days to come... 

Hatty's Home Tour: Dining Room

Basically Mike and I love to cook... and eat! I would love a huge kitchen/dining room, however they are few and far between in two bedroom cottages in the UK, but I have made the space work for us. The kitchen and dining room flow nicely into each other and taking the door into the kitchen off helps make it feel more like one room. I decorated the kitchen (see Hatty's home tour: kitchen) and dinning room to match also helping to make the two rooms feel like one. 

Like the rest of the house and especially the kitchen, the floor, walls and main pieces of furniture were all painted a clean, bright, fresh white. 

I'm a big fan of the illustrator Emily Sutton and invested in one of her prints from her alphabet series. 'G for greenhouse' is a beautiful piece of art and I love having a print of it hanging in a place I can look at it all the time. I picked out some of the colours in the print and used these as highlights in the room, turquoise, orange and yellow. 

We also inherited Mikes parents wedding dinner set, the old 1970s Hornsea set which we use daily.

For Christmas I decided to hang a big branch above the dinning table with little birds sitting on it as a quirky decoration, it's now April and I still haven't taken them down, I don't find them to Christmassy (that's not a real word, I know) and love how they bring a little of the outside in.  

I pretty happy with this room, it's great to be able to cook and still chat to people at the table, it's bright and cheerful yet warm and cosy too, my only plans for it are more plants! 

Vintage Shopping

I love nothing more than an afternoon rummaging through vintage shops for that perfect star buy. For some reason I find vintage shopping so much more exhilarating  than normal high street shopping. Don't get me wrong I do like to top my wardrobe up with some high street staples, but there is something about thrill of finding that one dress that would look great and knowing that practically no one else will be wearing one the same, you just don't get that with the high street.

Obviously before any good vintage shop you need to be well fuelled. So we thought it would be appropriate to have lunch at this great little vintage tea room called 'the old young tea shop'. If your ever in the area you should check it out, they have millions of teas on offer and the décor is quirky. 

Middlesbrough is hardly known as the Mecca of vintage shops, however with recent input from Mary Portas schemes Baker St. has had a make over with the intention of making it like a mini Brick Lane like in London, although they have a long way to go they did have a few good vintage shops and we didn't leave empty handed.