Room Tour: Angus's Bedroom

I have absolutely loved this decorating project for all sorts of reasons; it's a nice room with loads of storage which makes everything easier, it's bright, I love the colours, and Angus just let me get on with it. As long as I incorporated his favourite things - badgers, books, forests, nature - he was happy for me to do my thing. Questions were met with shrugs, nods or head shakes. 

One of my favourite things about the room is how the painted bed turned out. I love how with a bit of sanding and painting it looks so much better than it did before and only cost me the price of the tin of paint. The hand-stamped bedding was time consuming to make, but worth the effort and washes really well. The yellow cushion is one I've had for some time, moved from it's home in the living room.

My other favourite part is the gallery wall above the bed. I was going for a sort of monochrome nature/forest theme but added two handmade embroidery hoops to stop it all looking too boring. The garland above I made with felt balls strung on white cotton thread.

The new-to-us carpet makes a huge difference to the room. It's warmer and softer than the one we removed and the light brown colour stops the space feeling too chilly. I was also very excited when I remembered that I had my Dad's old vintage anglepoise lamp in the garage and that it still works, and it looks great on Angus's bedside table.

The blind was already there but I decorated it with black fabric paint and a potato stamp. I was unsure about this at first but it's grown on me and I love it now.

The bookcase works much better in this new position and gives Angus more floor space for playing. 

There is a little space at the side, just perfect for beanbag. I've seen a pattern for a crocheted one which I really like.

His desk also works much better in it's new position, in an alcove under a wall light. I've noticed that Angus sits here much more now than he did before.

I made this wall hanging from some wool felt and a thin baton of wood. I'd seen similar things on trendy children's websites and thought it would be pretty easy to make something of my own.



Unfortunately, the original IKEA chest of drawers - already damaged when we moved house - fell to pieces when we tried to move it so we had to buy a new one. It's only a cheap white flat-pack one but I enjoyed personalising it with new handles. And really, I don't think the children necessarily need investment, high quality furniture in their rooms. It takes such a battering, and they change their needs so frequently. I'd rather save up for a good sofa, say, or dining room table. 

The black and white basket used to live in our hallway but I think it works much better in here as toy storage.

I worked really hard to keep the costs as low as possible throughout this project, only buying: the chest of drawers, paint, prints, a couple of frames, a tree rubber stamp, craft supplies and drawer knobs. There was also the cost of fitting the carpet.

I gave the bed, blind and duvet cover a bit of a make-over, and things like the toy basket and bedside lamp I moved from other parts of the house. As much as possible I tried to use something we already had. I have included links at the bottom if anyone wants to know things like paint colours. Thanks so much for all your encouragement and interest in this project. I have promised Bella that we'll do her room over the Easter holidays and something tells me it won't be as easy as Angus's room, partly because it's so small, but mainly because Bella has very clear ideas on what she'd like and very strong opinions, and we don't always see eye to eye...

Thanks also for the advice and sympathy regarding the dog hair situation. It's really cold today so Molly might regret shedding all that fur quite so soon. Enjoy your weekends everyone. 

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Useful links:

The walls were painted in plain white emulsion and the bed in slate grey eggshell paint. 

Felt balls and felt for the wall hanging were all bought from Cloud Craft.

Bear print - Seventy Tree
Cabin in the forest print - Little Tea Wagon at Etsy
Phases of the moon print - Etsy 
The rubber tree stamp is from Etsy.
Picture frames and drawer knobs were from Wilko.

I Know It's Spring

I know that Spring has arrived. 

Shall I tell you how I know? Is it the blossom on the trees outside perhaps, or the tulips and hyacinths in my garden? Perhaps it's the jug of daffodils on the kitchen table, or the steadily increasing hours of daylight each day? Or is it the warmth of the sun and the washing drying outside on the line? No, it's none of those things. It's the dog hair. Molly knows it's spring and she is moulting and oh my goodness, it's everywhere. On the floors, sticking to any damp surface in the bathroom, on the carpets. I had smugly - and stupidly - assumed we had the brilliant luck of choosing a dog that didn't really shed a lot of hair. No, not in the spring it would appear. I sincerely hope this is just a phase as I am sweeping and vacuuming daily and wiping everything in sight down with a damp cloth and going slightly mad. Please tell me it will end! 

Dog hair aside, it's all feeling rather lovely and springish out there at the moment. The weather today was glorious and I thoroughly enjoyed my morning walk in the woods with Molly. I came home and hung the washing on the line and sat and drank my coffee with the kitchen door open. I've been buying primulas for the pots on the front door step and have kept a few for the house. They are so pretty. No matter that the rest of the garden is a muddy, disgraceful mess, my front step looks good and so I feel like I'm winning at gardening. 

Our weekend was nice. We took it easy and pottered around at home a lot, cooked nice food, watched films in the evening when the kids were in bed. I finally finished Angus's room and took some photos of it yesterday, when it was looking particularly tidy. Thank you all so much for your comments and enthusiasm for this decorating project - I've really enjoyed it and it's been lovely sharing it with you.

I'll leave you with some photos of Molly joyfully tearing around our back garden with her favourite toy hedgehog. It's wonderful to see the playful side of her personality emerge, to see her behaving more like a family pet and less like a confused wild animal. 

Also - the state of our grass. I know, I know. Between the greyhound and the football it can no longer be called a lawn, just a patch of savaged earth. But I've got a happy dog and kids that love to be outside in the garden whatever the weather so I don't really care. 

Black and White and Trees

Oh dear, I had a feeling this would happen. Depsite the head of steam I built up with decorating over half term, now that I am back at work it's all slowed down. I keep wanting to get Angus's room finished so that I can share a "ta da!" post with you, but that's a way off yet. 

All the furniture is in place and books and toys back in their homes, but there are pictures to hang and things to make. Details, really, but I won't think of the room as finished until they are done. And I don't know about you, but it's the details I love the most, the tinkering and arranging that happens when the hard work is done.

So, here's a quick update with where I am:

The bed is painted and looking smart. I am very happy with how this turned out. 

The hand-stamped bedding is finished. It took a lot longer than I thought it would but saved me about £60. Also, it really does wash well.

I removed the small metal handles on Angus's chest of drawers and swapped them for some of my own.

They are plain wooden drawer pulls, bought from Wilko, and painted with leftover paint from our dining room wall.

I am gathering together pictures to frame. I did buy two new prints but I'm trying to make do with other things we already have and just refresh them with a new border or frame, most of which have been bought very cheaply from Wilko and IKEA. The temptation to just go and buy brand new everything is there, but I am resisting. Also, I have realised that  - especially with a black and white print - it's so much cheaper to buy a downloadable PDF than order a print! I only just realised this. But for lots of prints on Etsy, say, you can buy a gorgeous image for around £5 and just print it off on your home printer onto some card. Brilliant.

A friend of mine spent half term skiing in Lake Tahoe and took loads of photos on her phone of the incredible, snow covered scenery. 

I've been playing around with the idea of using some of these photos to create some more images for Angus's wall. I cropped this one of the skiiers coming down the hill, changed it to black and white then increased the contrast. I printed it as a 5 x 7 inch picture onto a piece of white card then popped it in a 8 x 10 inch frame. 

Felt balls are waiting for a needle and thread so that they can be strung together into a garland.

And I plan to make a wall hanging using all these gorgeous monochrome felts on a large white background, hung from a wooden pole.

There's definitely a forest-y vibe going on here.

Winter Project: Darning In Those Pesky Ends

Hello! I hope you all had a good weekend? The weather here has been so crazy today, blustery winds with rain, then sun, then rain again, then hailstones, just to mix it up a bit. Lights have been switched on and off so many times it looks like I'm sending out a code. 

It's been a quiet weekend and yet I don't seem to have achieved a lot, beyond dog walking, feeding people, going to the tip, the library and buying Angus some new school shoes. Ok, maybe I have done something. Evenings have been spent in a frenzy of darning in of ends because - and I can barely believe it - Angus's blanket is very nearly finished. The main bulk of the crochet is done and now I am dealing with those ends before starting the border. I am on the home stretch.

There is no denying that there is a lot of yarn to sew in there, but I'm just getting on with it and trying not to mind too much. It's quite therapeutic in a funny way. 

I had hoped to finish this project by the end of February, but no matter. I made great progress over half term, during those long journeys to Durham and back and while staying with my in-laws, and I really picked up speed and enthusiasm once I could see that the end was in sight.

I was feeling a bit glum about this blanket - I still feel that the colours are not quite right but can't put my finger on it - until I draped it over Angus's unmade bed, just to get a feel for how it might look. Then I changed my mind and liked it a whole lot more.

So, I reckon there's maybe another week or two of work in that blanket, depending on how much time I can devote to it in the evenings, and then it will be finished.

Joining in with Jennifer's Winter Project Link Party at her blog Thistlebear.

The Cookery Calendar Challenge

February's book for the Cookery Calendar Challenge was Leon: Family & Friends by John Vincent and Kay Plunkett-Hodge. I believe I bought this in Waterstone's in a post-Christmas sale and, if I remember rightly, it was pretty cheap. Although the RRP was £25 I'm sure I only paid five or ten pounds for it - something made me buy it on a whim, anyway.

Things about this book I liked:

• the high production values; nice graphics and illustrations, thick pages, good photography and not one but two ribbon bookmarks
• many recipes have a photo of the finished dish (I have realised that this is really important to me - I am far more likely to skip past a recipe that doesn't have a photo)
• easy to read recipes - by easy, I mean a nice clear font that you can glance at rather than having to squint over while cooking

This book has a charming written style and it's very much a family cookbook with a mixture of traditional British and Thai recipes, drawing on the writers' childhoods and cooking influences. Full of memories and family history, it contains recipes like "Katie's Tartiflette", "Auntie Qing's Sushi Roll" and "Gardener John's Roasted Vegetables". It's pretty comprehensive, covering breakfasts, lunches and weekday dinners, slow weekend cooking, Christmas, birthdays and desserts. It's gorgeous to look at and leaf through and often made me smile.

And yet it's sat unused on my bookshelf for five years. I think it's partly because it tries to cover so much, and I have so many other books that perhaps do the same job. So I was keen to delve into this book and see what the recipes were like.

The first was "Storecupboard Daube", a rich and delicious beef stew containing garlic, red wine, anchovies and olives. This is not a weeknight meal, but something I'd cook on a Sunday for us to eat together as a family. I have to confess here that John cooked all of this meal as I was unwell, but I did eat and enjoy a little of it. We ate it with mashed potatoes and spring greens. 

Both John and I loved the deeper, saltier flavours the red wine and anchovies brought to the stew but the kids were underwhelmed. Angus was frankly appalled by the olives and made a big fuss about picking them out. Bella loved the olives but found the flavours too rich. (She didn't articulate it quite like that, more "I prefer your normal beef stew Daddy.") I actually enjoyed it more when we ate the leftovers a few nights later, reheated and served with brown rice and sour cream. That was amazing. So perhaps not a family favourite, but definitely a meal John and I both enjoyed. John said the recipe was a "bit of a faff", with various ingredients needing to be browned in a particular order, before being removed and the pan de-glazed. He said he'd make it again but next time just bung it all in together and shove it in the oven. John is a very good cook but has no time for faffing. 

My second choice was "Easy Pad Thai". It's one of those recipes that contains forty seven ingredients (ok, slight exaggeration) and takes ages to chop and prepare, but actually cooks in less than ten minutes. Despite the long list, it contains all my favourite flavours; lime, garlic, coriander, peanut...I was really excited to try it. 

I really wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. All I could smell was fish sauce, or Nam Pla and, while we all know that fish sauce tastes fantastic, it smells pretty terrible. Molly didn't even come into the kitchen to investigate during cooking, it was that bad. It also looked very beige, what with the noodles, prawns, eggs and beansprouts. 

But it was so good; light, zesty and full of texture with the peanuts and beansprouts providing just the right amount of crunch. Not a meal the kids would eat, but something John and I can eat together when they are in bed. Next time I might tone down the fish sauce though. 

I'm sorry about how horrible these photos are. They are all taken in electric light and food never looks the same that way, but until the clocks go forward that's all I can do. 

Continuing with an Asian theme, March's choice will be The Wagamama Cookbook. 

Do visit Penny at The Homemade Heart and find out more about her brilliant Cookery Calendar Challenge. Only two months in and it's already making me re-visit so many under-used cookery books, plus I am eating a lot of really nice food too and that's no bad thing. 

Half Term

Hello! How are you all? It's been a while. Half term has come and gone in a blur of decorating, birthdays, cake, travelling and washing, but it's was all very nice indeed. 

I celebrated my thirty ninth birthday last week. It was not the most relaxing day I've ever had, as I spent most of it with a paint brush in my hand, but it was lovely. John made me Nigella's chocolate and liquorice cake, the same one as last year, and it was divine. 

I love that he asks me what cake I'd like each year; I get to choose the cake that I want to eat, not the one that I think everyone else will like, and I don't have to bake it! Long may that happy tradition continue, I say. Family and friends spoilt me with cards and gifts. some useful and pretty; 

some that I know I'll enjoy (I've seen both these books well reviewed on other blogs);

and some that made me laugh out loud when I unwrapped them.

We spent last Tuesday to Saturday in Durham, visiting my in-laws. I know that I said it felt like spring last week, but it didn't feel very spring like in the north east of England. Thanks to Storm Doris the weather was pretty awful but we still had such a relaxing time; we slept in, went out for walks when the weather permitted, sat in front of the fire, and I got absolutely loads of crochet done. After the pace of life over the last few weeks it was bliss to have a few empty days in front of us with nothing in particular to do and nowhere we needed to be. You'd never know we had three days of wind and rain from looking at these photos, would you?

Molly coped brilliantly with the six hour journey there and back. We put her bed in the boot so she was very comfortable (not much room for bags though!) and while I don't think she exactly enjoyed the travelling, she wasn't distressed by it either. 

When we got home all the tete-a-tetes had come up in the garden. I'd planned to spend the last day of the holiday catching up with washing, jobs, emails and blogging but unfortunately I spent it in the out of hours doctors instead. One set of antibiotics and sick day later and I'm feeling a little better, although still very washed out.

Angus's bedroom is slowly coming together. There are still pictures to hang and a few crafty things I want to make, but the hard work is done. I'm looking forward to showing it to you soon.