The Interior DIYer
Uncategorized

Getting nesty

It took me quite unexpectedly, but in the beginning stages of my pregnancy my design taste took a u-turn. It changed completely and I was very close to tearing everything out of our apartment, buying really colourful accessories and painting all the walls blue. I’m glad for my crippling morning sickness though as it stopped me from doing anything and luckily as the weeks passed I grew out of my temporary fad and started to love our apartment again [no offence to anyone who has a colourful home – I love colourful homes and applaud people who embrace colour! I just know after years of trying, I can’t live with much colour].

One thing that did stick as my nesting fever continued was an overwhelming need to add greenery to our home. Kind of like literally nesting; in the true sense of the word.

I’ve added little touches of leafy greens here and there through accessories so I don’t scare myself off it too quickly. I ordered this Leaves + dots pillow from K is for Black by Anna Dorfman the other week and I love the pattern on it so much. It’s perfect and has spent time in almost every room since it arrived.

That rosemary plant has since died. On the other hand our fiddle leaf fig [which are known for being picky plants] has grown by 8 leaves since I brought it home in January. It’s gotten so big that I’ll be moving it into the spare bedroom / nursery soon enough! It seems the more difficult the plant, the easier is it for me to keep alive. I’ve given up trying to figure out that anomaly. 

The nursery is DEFINITELY having green happen to it. At the moment I want to paint the whole thing a really dark forest green, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to do it. I’m still getting my head around a design so the spare bedroom hasn’t been touched yet. I’ll be starting work on it in the next couple of weeks now that work it quieting down so I’ll have some energy to tackle it. 
As of tomorrow, bebe will be here in t-minus 14 weeks [I’M IN MY THIRD TRIMESTER WTF!] so I’m hoping to decide on a design within the next week and start soon after. I would have considered myself a fairly nesty person before I got pregnant, but my urge to clean and reorganise every aspect of everything ever is becoming almost uncontrollable. I’m also kind of not complaining. 

Uncategorized

Thrifty things – copper jelly moulds

Over the weekend I had some time to walk one of my favourite Dublin charity shop routes. I was on the lookout for nothing in particular, but kind of also had my radar possible nursery furniture. I didn’t find any furniture, however I did find these absolutely adorable copper jelly moulds. I’m super sappy these days so the heart-shaped piece jumped out at me immediately as well as the smaller mould. They were both marked as €1 each [!!!] in Age Action so I couldn’t not get them. 

I’m fairly certain they’re not vintage as they’re quite light and are actually more of a rose-gold colour than copper in real life [they look very much copper in these pictures]. I think the heart shaped mould would look really lovely hanging up in the baby’s room and the smaller one for holding all kinds of tiny baby related nonsense on a shelf. 

We’ll have to buy some brand new pieces for the nursery [cot, bedclothes etc], but for the most part I’m really hoping to find as many second hand pieces as possible. I have a vague idea of furniture, layout and colours at the moment, but I have yet to sit down and see if it will all work together. I’m feeling really good these days so I want to get stuck in painting and assembling and fussing over baby stuff! I figure I should start sooner rather than later before my energy levels drop back to non-existent.

Uncategorized

Laser cut Arcade

I’m not sure about where you are, but today the weather in Dublin is fifty shades of meh. In an effort to cheer up my afternoon I thought I’d share this amazing laser cut wood silhouette of George’s Street Arcade by Alljoy Design that I spied in Jam Art Prints last weekend. It’s not often that I see something and immediately have to have it [I usually think about something a lot before buying it, even if it’s a pair of tights], but I actually had to have this piece. 

The George’s Street Arcade is one of my favourite buildings in Dublin City Centre and even though I’ve passed it regularly for close to 12 years I still stop, stare and dream about living up among the turrets. This laser cut representation is so beautifully detailed and perfectly reflects just how amazing the Arcade is.

I wasn’t too keen on the font that was used for the engraving across the front so I covered it with a piece of Dymo that says the same as underneath [the engraving says George St Arcade but the correct name is George’s St Arcade]. I’m sure that’s me being pedantic, but I can easily remove the label if I change my mind or if a sweltering level of guilt hits me. There’s of course the option to frame this piece but I quite like how it looks perched on our living room shelf against the dark walls. I’m very glad to have this quirky piece added to our embarrassingly small collection of artwork, but I’m working on it!