The Interior DIYer
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Life imitating catalogue

Over the weekend I was fussing over our bar cart; rearranging stuff, adding new tumbler glasses and finally getting around to re-syncing our clock. And then I had a teeny, tiny, mini ‘aha’ moment. 

In the winter of 2010 I brought home the current Marks & Spencers Home catalogue at the time, solely for its cover. It gave me heart-eye emojis, inspired a lot of what I did to our apartment afterwards and pretty much summed up everything I was digging at the time [I even blogged about it]. All those dark moody hues mixed with pops of bold pink and turquoise viridian really got me right in the feels. That catologue has been on display in our apartment since the moment I got it. For anyone who’s crept my blog for the past 5 years, you will have seen it from time to time. It wasn’t however until this weekend while I was dusting off said catalogue that I realised our couch is a little bit nailing it … 

Overcrowded with pillows, velvet and throws in lots of yummy dark colours and not forgetting the burgundy wall in the background [but let’s quickly forget my landlords hot mess of a leather couch]. I find it funny and kind of weird when things come around like that. Hardly blog worthy I know, but it was a funny realisation for me at the time. I’ve adored these colours for so long that this has only cemented how I feel about them.
It took me 5 years, but at least I took the scenic route. 

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Viridian is in

I have a love / hate relationship with colour. I’m forever envious of people’s homes that are full of colour, character and are beautifully cheery. I’ve tried colour. And I can’t do it. I fully appreciate and admire brave colour palettes, but I just can’t do them. I get really uncomfortable when there are wild colours in my own space. I’ve tried to figure it out. I fought it for a long time, but I’ve learned to accept that I’m a colour-phobe and embrace it. 

I do have colours other than maroon / burgundy that I appreciate [I know, I didn’t think it were possible either]. Case in point – teal or turquoise viridian*.

I wrote about my new colour crush back in September, but it kinda fell by the wayside. Until last week. I casually dropped into TK Maxx [the most dangerous kind of visit] and what did my eyes see? Only the most luscious pair of turquoise viridian velvet pillows. I actually closely resembled Gollum while I plucked them from the shelf; looking over my shoulder in case I’d be found out and my find would soon be compromised. 

I crammed them in my bike basket on Friday and cycled home. And so far, they’re not driving me crazy! They’re such a deep turquoise viridian and I think that’s what works. Plus, they’re velvet. But don’t expect to see loads more teal all up in here. Just little punches. 

I think this dark shade goes really well with the plum accents as well as some of the dainty pink here and there in our home. So what about you? Do you have an unusual colour crush? Or is there one you can’t stand? Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s this picky with colours …

*EDIT: we were discussing teal vs. turquoise over dinner tonight [I know, we’re so wild] when husband pipped up, “so turquoise and teal are like viridian then?”. There’s a reason I married that man. Viridian, for those of you who may not be as into Beetlejuice as I am, viridian is mentioned by Otho as a perfect blue-green colour for Delia’s bedroom. Is it starting to make sense now? Black and white stripes? Viridian? A serious aha moment.
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New old desk

For a while now I’ve been a bit over our home office. I’ve wanted to mix things up and more importantly, make our apartment a bit less IKEA-y. Don’t get me wrong, I heart IKEA, but thanks to our landlord’s [IKEA] furniture that we can’t change, our apartment was starting to look a bit like a catalog. So out with the new, and in with the old.

I wanted an older and darker desk with more character, so I took to the internet. I sold our IKEA desk within a couple of hours and that same evening I found a pretty sa-weet mahogany desk. It was petite, compact and fill of pretty. I even haggled it down to the same price that I sold our IKEA desk for, making it a direct swap of IKEA for mahogany! Not bad … 

My grand ideas for this small space kept bringing me back to Christine Dovey’s, aka Bijou and Boheme’s, basement makeover. There are no words. It’s just insanity. I’ve yabbered on about Christine many times before, so I’ll keep my drooling to a minimum today. But there’s something I just really adore about the dark accessories, white walls, old school painting and gold accents going on. A perfect mix of old and new. So ideally, I’d love if I could work the following into our new office space …

– Include our existing upcycled charity shop lamp. I’ve had a hankering to update it a little by adding MOAR DANGILY TRIM Done! 
– Add some more teal candles from Tiger [you cannot go wrong with 2 candles for €1], as well as adding another metallic antler candle holder, similar to the one on our living room shelf
– A giant piece of art of some sorts. Kinda old and maybe kinda new and I might even try my hand at something. This section is a bit up in the air. Can you tell?
– The moment we got the desk, I wanted to change the door knobs. They don’t look too bad below, but the current hardware is in no way in keeping with our living room [our office sits in the corner of our living room]. I’ve spent a couple of days searching for some yummy knobs [oh dear god, hello SEO!] in hardware stores to glitz up our desk, but no luck. Going completely against my ‘less IKEA look’, I spotted these ORRNAS  door knobs on the IKEA website and I like what I see. Bringing a little bit of IKEA back in is okay, right?

– I would just die if I could have a black ghost chair. Or dark grey. I’m not picky

At the moment the chair I’m using I found abandoned on the side of the road. It’s a lot less dirty than it sounds, trust me! If the whole ghost chair thing doesn’t work out [which let’s face it, probably won’t because of €€€], I’d contemplate reupholstering my skip-chair in black velvet. It seems like it would be a fairly straight forward job, the only thing deterring me at the moment is the thought of all the cat hair.

Oh and before I forget, above is a better picture detailing the top ‘drawer’ in our new old desk; it folds down revealing a rolling shelf that I use for my keyboard and mouse, and when the desk isn’t in use, we store our laptops in there. Out of sight, out of mind. This little desk isn’t just a pretty face, and I couldn’t be more smitten.

xx A