LIVING ROOM: ALCOVE INSPIRATION & WINDOW SILLS

I came across this inspirational photograph, which is featured on many sites, and loved how they had painted the backs of the bookshelves with a accent colour.  It's a great way for creating the illusion of depth and adding interest to a room.  I may have to try this myself!

WINDOW SILLS
I'm already thinking of the next job needing to be done after the alcove project is finished.  The interior window sills need attention as they are scratched and gouged, in some places quite badly.  The easiest and quickest option is going to be to adhere a 3mm thick ply wood veneer and then paint white which will result in a good finish.  Decorative wood moulding can applied to the front edge to hide the seam.  The other option would be to fill with wood filler and sand or plane the wood down, which I feel is going to be more laborious and messy.   I think wherever possible sanding indoors should be avoided because of all dust that is created.

Here's the Pepper Kitty modelling the window sill in the Living Room.  It may be snowing outside, but when she's stretched out and hogging the heat from the radiators, she may as well be in the Bahamas!  I'm not sure if that look means 'rub my belly' or 'bring me a Pina Colada, please'.

LIVING ROOM: THE ALCOVE PROJECT #3

An update of where we are with the alcove cabinets & bookshelves:  The right side one is now in situ and ready for painting and to have the edge moulding fixed to the top and sides.

Again we almost couldn't get the bookshelf unit in, and at one point it was jammed into the space leaning forwards and I was having visions of having to take a chainsaw and hack the whole thing out and start again.  Luckily with a lot of brute force it finally moved into place.  I just hope that walls aren't so wavy on the left side and units slide in easily.

Next weekend we should be able to start the second cabinet.  As you can see this one was commandeered quite quickly as a makeshift wine bodega.  I'm just so happy that we are finally getting some storage!

LIVING ROOM: THE ALCOVE PROJECT #2

Well after 10 days of having a stinking cold, weekend work has now resumed on building the alcove units & bookcases in the Living Room.  The carcass of the first unit has been built and was quite a struggle to cram into the space as one of the walls was crooked and slanting towards the right.  After an intensive session of wood planing (towards the back) we managed to get the unit to fit.  Luckily, we are working with 30mm (1 1/4 inch) thick MDF which gives plenty of leeway to trim the sides if needed.

We thought it might be a good idea to run through a dry run fit of the bookcase so that any adjustments could be made before priming.  This is what it should roughly look like.

The central support of the cabinet acts to hold the hinges of what eventually will be a 4 door cabinet.  The long narrow doors should give it more of an illusion of height.  It's impossible to tell from the photograph but the cabinet unit is actually 4ft wide!

The shelves of the bookcase were temporarily supported by pieces on wood on the sides which won't be there when it is finished - including the bottom piece sitting on the top surface of the cabinet.
 

Moulding will close up the space between the top of the bookcase and any on the sides.  That should give it a more finished look.

I like the way that all the TV cables are now neatly hidden in the cavity surrounding the recessed TV.

I can't wait to see it finished and painted white.

    

THE MOTHER OF ALL MOTHER'S DAY GIFTS

There are times when all of us have inadvertently treated our parental home as some sort of 5 star hotel, where meals are cooked for us, our rooms cleaned, our beds made and our clothes laundered and ironed and all we have to do is check in and out.  It's a rite of passage to realise one day that it just isn't so.

For underappreciated entrepreneurial mothers the Hotel Mama doormat could make the perfect Mother's Day gift.  Of course, they'll also need to sort out the letterheaded billing invoices...  Payback time!

Available from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/BIG-DOOR-HOTEL-MAMA-carpet/dp/B002T0SARY

OBJECTS OF DESIRE: #1

Is it wrong to have a inexplicable fixation on the occassional beautiful object that one comes across like this  water buffalo horn & metal ashtray from Graham & Green? 

For the time being the photograph will have to suffice...

Available from: www.grahamandgreen.co.uk

THE PROBLEM WITH PAINT

It goes without saying that if you are painting woodwork with a gloss or satinwood paint, it is best to do this in the Summer when all the windows can be opened for ventilation.  Paint fumes can be a pain, especially if you are using oil based paints in the Winter and don’t want all your heating going out the windows. 

 

There are various tips online for eliminating the nasty smell, and one that I have tried and it seems to work is to slice onions in half, place them in a dish of water and position near the painted area.  The onions do seem to absorb the smell, although they also emit a slight oniony smell, but overall the smell of fresh paint disappears quicker.  It also gives your rooms a temporary Voodoo / Juju design aesthetic that can intrigue visitors. 

All our cut MDF for the Alcove Project arrived on Saturday and I’ve already started priming the wood for painting ready for assembling it.  Luckily the primer seems to be odourless and is touch dry within an hour.  I have two tins of Dulux Satinwood from last Summer when I started painting the doors but I’m loathed to use them because of the unpleasant smell. 

I read that Crown have done extensive research on this smelly problem and have cracked it by bringing out a special  Breatheasy® formulation that has the lowest level ratings of VOC (volatile organic compounds) and are odourless.  They actually have a non-drop satin paint for wood & metal and that should hopefully solve my problem.  I really can’t wait to get the cabinets and bookshelves put up!

LIVING ROOM: THE ALCOVE PROJECT

It’s totally shameless not to have updated this blog since October, but I can assure you that since then various bits of work have gone on: The bamboo flooring was laid in the living room at the end of last year and beginning of this one.  It looks beautiful.  However, we can’t continue laying more flooring in the other rooms until we free up some space.  Since most of it is consumed by my mountains of books with nowhere to place them, the solution seems to be to crack on and build the alcove units and bookcases in the living room.  This should help alleviate the problem.

The last few weekends have been spent with measuring up & sketching out a logical way to build them.   As the final product will be painted white to match the architraves and skirting, we’ve decided to build them out of 30mm MDF, which should result in some robust units and avoid sagging shelves (one of my pet hates).  The bookshelves in the living room will mainly be for the growing collection of over-sized art books so they need to support a lot of weight.

Photograph: www.caligaricabinets.co.uk

The various quotes online I’ve seen for alcove cabinets with bookshelves have varied from £750 - £1200 per unit so I’m hoping that building them ourselves will save us a fair bit of money.  The material costing of 3 units worked out at around £120 per unit (excluding doors & handles).  The third unit is a slim line unit for bedroom one to accommodate the smaller books with a 4 door cabinet below for DVDs & CDs.  I'd love to have them custom built but sadly my budget doesn't stretch that far, but there are plenty of pictures online (as left and below) for inspiration.

 The advantage of custom made furniture is that you can utilise the space as you want to, to suit your needs rather than trying to buy pre-made cabinets and ending up with a lot of dead space.

The motif in the living room is going to be glass so I've sourced some lovely square glass cabinet handles, but more on that later.

Photograph: www.peterhendersonfurniture.co.uk

 

LIVING ROOM: LIGHTING THE WAY

One of the useful functions of this blog is to act as a scrap book for design ideas.  Products that I like are collected and posted here and it's funny how visual trends start to emerge.   I've been looking at table lamps to flank either side of the Living Room sofa.  I kind of know what I'd like, but don't know if I can find it out there - which is the common dilemma.  Ideally, I'm looking for that 'I must have that' sensation which should accompany every purchase, but within keeping with the design guidelines: contemporary, clean, modern, stylish, etc.  In addition to this, it has to be cat proof - so delicate, glass lamp bases that can easily be knocked over and smashed are out.   

 

I think one of the obvious rules when furnishing any room is to try to stay within the design style so that the pieces don't appear incongruous: French Provincial rarely works next to Bauhaus unless you are going for that house clearance storeroom look - which I'm sure will one day be a look.  It is always useful to look at photographs of interior designs that attract you and study them to see how they've worked it out.  Most of all, I am a believer that you should surround yourself with objects that you love or that mean something to you. 

 

For our line-up of table lamp contenders so far, here are the beauties:-  

Evidently I have a thing about square shades...

SO WHERE WERE WE?

OK I'll admit it:  I've been a lazy blogger and I didn't post at all in September.  So where were we?

Well to recap, July & August the whole place except the kitchen was re-plastered.  We are still in the process of painting, and a great deal of time has been spent finishing off the new front door.

The Office proved more problematic as some of the old plaster had blown and needed to be removed completely - causing even more dust and mess!

THE NEW FRONT DOOR
As you can see the original front door was quite shabby looking.  It was very drafty too in the winter, with the letterbox flapping in strong winds.

Before

I'd never really liked the painted brickwork surround, so a simple solution seemed to be to have the surround rendered in concrete from the canopy down.

The new front door is a steel security door with a 12 point locking system, and is something akin to a vault door but with a useful spyhole and letterbox.  You can never have enough security in London!

A PIR sensor courtesy light is always a useful fixture to install as it ends the need to be fumbling around on those dark winter nights trying to match the key to the lock.

And finally, a video intercom doorbell is an essential,  especially if you live on the first floor, as it saves you schlepping down those stairs to only find it's a nuisance caller or an Avon lady!  Yes, convenience always wins out in the end.

There is still work to be completed as a black slate door step or tiles, need to be sourced and fitted. 

After

Two big urn style planters at either side should complete the finishing touch.

I'd still like to fill the courtyard with shrubbery in planters so it becomes a sort of secret garden behind the gate.   It's also a great place for the Pepper kitty to run around and she loves to go out there to explore.  Being predominantly a house cat, she's very intrigued by the other house kitty called Lucky that appears in the window adjacent to our Front door.  Cats in windows.

Lucky is a great looking cat with a little zen like beard and tuxedo jacket, he belongs to our lovely neighbour, Marilyn who kitty sits Pepper when we are away for long periods.

RESTORATION MAKEOVER MADNESS

Ecce Homo by Elias Garcia Martinez

I love this true story that appeared in the news a few days ago!

Cecilia Gimenez, an 80 year old Spanish parishioner decided to give a deteriorating church fresco a little 'restoration' after convincing the priest and sacristan.

As a result Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) painted by Elias Garcia Martinez in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza more than 100 years ago was given a vigorous make-over.

The once classical Christ-like portrait is now said to resemble 'a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic' and has horrified and stunned Art historians throughout Spain.

After Restoration

What was she thinking?  Was she happy with the finished result?  Did she enjoy herself?  Her version is certainly Picasso-esque and would make a great submission for The Turner Prize.

I guess the moral of this story is: Don't over-estimate your abilities and secondly don't make-over things that you don't personally own.
 

To remedy the situation, the Sanctuary of Mercy Church have decided to cover the ruined pimped up fresco with a photographic reproduction of the original painting.