The Interior DIYer

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The rug is not the issue


At long last, the rug is down. This hugely fabulous IKEA Stockholm rug hadn’t been in stock in Dublin since … probably ever. One fateful day I checked their online stock checker, and there it was. All 2.4m of it and only 5 in stock. I rushed out and managed to get my hands on the last medium rug. Followed quickly by a sweltering dose of guilt. 

As I wrote two weeks ago, I decided to use my our new rug as an incentive. My embarrassing goal being – I could only put our rug down once I got a job. For anyone outside of Ireland reading this, it may not seem like a big deal, but here in Ireland, the jobs front is horrific. I’m an office zombie by day, and unfortunately like some of the offices I’ve worked with in the past, the company I was working with went bust in April. So I was unemployed, and had splurged on this amaze-balls rug. In order to stay afloat, I quickly turned my guilt into an incentive. Long story short, I landed myself a temp role, so down went the rug last weekend. All kinds of awesome …

Our new rug perfectly anchors my here and there infatuation with black and white throughout our apartment, not to mention it adds a perfect punch of pattern to our living space. I’m a big-time fan of the layered effect, so I may try my hand at DIYing a faux zebra skin rug {I’ve seen a couple of very do-able tutorials out there} and see how it works layered with this puppy. I’m thinking either silver, gold or lavender in stead of the typical black zebra stripes. Yum, yum. But nothing’s set in stone.
Boy, am I smitten. And as it happens, so are our kittehs. 

So far rug has settled in nicely and will  be an especially warm welcome when winter hits our cave of an apartment, and most of our time is spent curled up on the couch with Netflix. 
I hope wherever you are you’re having as nice of weather as we’re experiencing here in Dublin! Lots of dining al fesco and tall, cold beverages. And ice cream. Mostly ice cream. xx A
p.s. Sorry for the cringey employment rant. I try to keep my writing real. Girl got bills to pay.

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Well hung

Two weeks ago I wrote about spotting this beaut one day during lunch. The Little Green is a cafe/bar which hosts artists’ work on a weekly basis, which is where I happened upon this piece by Bon. I needed it in my life. With a little sign that stated ‘pay what you want for artwork‘, I contacted Bon immediately. No, really. I e-mailed him before my lunch got to the table. A couple of days and a few awkward bus journeys later, this baby is home and hung. 
Who better to describe the piece better than the man himself; I was fortunate enough to get a quote from Bon about this particular piece – 

“I found the piece of board behind my house. It wasn’t an ordinary board; there was a company logo/stencil printed in the corner. The idea of this work just came up to me. The board looks like it came from a factory, and that’s why there are fishes stenciled on it in black because it’s like a symbol of toxic product. 

I think paining on boards such as this one is more satisfactory because I change items that somebody has thrown away and I have a chance to give them a second absolutely different life.”  

Talk about an awesome quote, and is exactly what drew me to the piece in the first place. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into our living room. This space worked out perfectly as this narrow wall is an exterior stone wall, and since this puppy is fierce heavy, I don’t think a plasterboard wall would have fared well.

And below, to give you an idea of exactly where it is in our home. Sorry for the grainy/wish-washy picture – me, camera and the cave-like lighting in our apartment were not getting along yesterday, but you get the idea. 

Boy, am I glad we walked into The Little Green that day. Check more of Bon’s awesome work here. xx A

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Wishing you a …

It’s been cray around here lately, hence my MIA on the blog this week. But I’m adjusting, and I should be back to my usual blogging next week.

Some good news – I’ll be rolling out my new rug much sooner than I had expected – no complaining there! I also got my new graffiti/artwork home and hung. And FINGERS CROSSED our recent burst of cracking weather here in Dublin is due to hang around for our long weekend ahead. I foresee lots of long walks and chillaxing in parks. xx A

p.s. I’m a fraud. I don’t even drink tea. That’s chocolate milk. But damn, I’mma drink it fancy.