The Interior DIYer
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Anybody? No? Dust.

Earlier this week I finally made it in to Dust. After stalking Sarah and Lisa on their Dust journey and updates on all the amazing things they find and stock, I finally stopped in to their shop. And can I just say. Yes.  
Zebras, unicorns, faux hydrangeas and viridian. Dark moody hues splashed with vibrant colours and accessories. High gloss black floors, stairs and banister. I could not fault the place. My eye balls were in heaven … 

Dust sell the most beautiful [and convincing] faux flowers. Faux-rangements? I love how they’ve mixed them too in their presentation – not just strictly one group of flowers. 

And can we talk about the colour on the walls? Lisa and Sarah went with Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue that acts almost as a neutral. A deep oceanic hue that makes everything stand to attention and changes so much as the light changes. I’m seriously thinking adding this wall colour to our apartment. Maybe repainting our burgundy wall with it? I now want to change our entire apartment.

Everywhere you turned, there were more gems. It wasn’t possible for me to leave empty handed, so I picked out a few things. One of which is a nihilist’s screen cloth to perfectly match The Dude’s rug mouse pad husband got me for Christmas last year [I painted the final wall in our living room which is behind our desk, so I’m hoping to share an update on that space soon!]. 

I was unfortunately very limited with what I could buy that day as they all had to fit into my handbag as I was on my bicyclette. But I’ve learned my lesson. Next time I’m bringing the car. 

Dust is located just off of Camden Street on Grantham Street. Don’t ask, but for some reason I thought it was nowhere near that. Now that I know Dust is a stones throw from the beginning of one of my favourite charity shop routes, I will be stopping in every. single. time. 

And finally, I am forever reminded of the below whenever I see a Dust update pop up in my social media feeds … Anybody? No? Dust.

Happy Friday everyone! Why not enjoy some Dust this weekend? It’s actually very low in fat, so you can have as much as you like.
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Collections

If I told you I have only a handful of things I collect, my husband would laugh in my face. He’d immediately correct me with “you collect pillows, empty boxes, wrapping paper you never use and handbags to name a few“. Well, yeah. That’s true. I have a lot of all of those things. Although I will say I only have 7 handbags, which as I’ve tried to convince husband, ain’t a lot in lady terms. 

I’m very conscious of the fine line between having a quirky collection and being a full blown hoarder. I’m quite ruthless in recent years when it comes to cutting clutter, but there are a small few things I enjoy collecting that aren’t taking over our apartment. Yet. 

FEATHERS – oh, I can’t resist a pretty feather. If I see one that’s particularly lovely, I will go out of my way to pick it up. My two favourite found feathers are a dotted magpie feather and a swan feather I rescued last year after a lawnmower went over it. I just can’t help myself. But I have no idea how to display them. At the moment they’re just sitting on our shelves, safely out of reach from furry paws.

WHISKERS – when I say I collect whiskers, it sounds really disturbing. No, you don’t need to call animal welfare; I don’t pluck our cats faces. These are whiskers I find around our apartment when I’m tidying. When I spot one, I talk in an embarrassing cat mom voice and add it to the little jar my cousin gifted me last year from Tiger. It is literally the purrfect size. Both of our cats have white whiskers, so I never know if they came from Juniper or Toshi. 

Also, I don’t know if it’s a midlife crisis, but I’ve always adored the Sylvanian Families, but never had them when I was younger. I’ve collected two kittens recently, and I can easily see myself getting a giant collection. Yes, I took their clothes off. Our cats don’t wear clothes so neither are these guys. They are just SO SAWFT AND FLOOFY! 

CORKS – I’ve written about our cork collection before, and it’s a tradition of ours still going strong. Whenever we celebrate a special occasion and a non-screw-top bottle of wine is involved, we’ll keep the cork and write that days details on it. We have corks from our anniversaries, holidays, wedding, honeymoon, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, and silly occasions such as our landlord not increasing our rent one year.

So tell me, do you have any weird or unusual collections? Are the collections you have things you buy or things you find? And how do you display your collections?

Also featured – skull can art – bar cart
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Working on my shelfie

I recently vented about wanting to paint over our burgundy feature wall. I love burgundy, but for some reason it was really getting to me. I was being driven insane [I know, total #FirstWorldProblem]. It was, dare I say, too much burgundy?

But in reality, the last thing I want to do was to paint over it. Even though feature walls are a bit of a faux pas these days [I’m not one to stick to trends], I still love ours. I sat down and stared at it; trying to figure out what irked me so much about it. Then I realised there was simply too much – a burgundy wall, burgundy books, red books, purple books and burgundy accents all over the shelves [which you can see a bit here]. It was too much of the same colour in such a small space. So I gave our wall one last chance before getting my paintbrush out. On Monday evening I took everything burgundy off our shelves and went strictly black and white with little pink and viridian highlights …

While I was de-burgundying, I tried to take a fresh look at our shelves. It’s tough though when you’ve been staring at the same shelves for 5 years [and can’t do much because they’re your landlords], so I tried mixing up the monotony of the layout by removing a couple of shelves to fit in larger pieces [cloche and desk lamp]. I wish I did this years ago …

I of course had to reintroduce the kitty nook back into the shelves as part of making the layout simpler and sassier. It was quite sad when I got rid of the kitty nook by putting books on that little shelf; Juniper would walk up to it and stare at it longingly. To say she was excited when it returned is an absolute understatement. She clambers onto the chair and up into her cosy nook once again.

I’m hoping you’ll also pay special attention to my obvious pairing of the pillow with the spine of Abigail Ahern’s Decorating with Style book under our Robert’s radio. Marvel at my sublime coordination skills and including a new colour in our home! I’m breaking out. Aren’t you impressed? Next I’ll be trying socks with sandals.

I’m not sold on the layout of the right shelving unit yet [as seen in the second picture]. I need to put a bit more effort into that one, but as for the left unit, I am completely game. The burgundy wall no longer fights with what’s on the shelves. The pink and minuscule amounts of viridian compliment it nicely.

You’re safe for now, burgundy wall. I’m glad we’re on speaking terms again.