The Interior DIYer
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Gettin’ figgy with it

It’s funny how trends* can burrow into our thoughts and over time alter what we like. For years I’ve spied big and beautiful fiddle leaf fig plants [or are they trees?! #Clueless] in some of my favourite roomscapes. In the beginning I didn’t think much of them. But then they started to grow on me. Like a little bit something tropical in your living room. I hesitated for so long to buy one because I’ve heard they’re tricky. And actually, because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a fiddle leaf fig in real life. I may not have been looking particularly hard because this week I spied loads of them in our local hardware store.

I’ve heard fiddle leaf figs can be a bit high maintenance. Therefore, it was only natural that someone with such a fantastic record for murdering plants would buy one! In all seriousness, I’m determined to keep this guy alive. So far I’ve read that one cup of water per week is a good starting point and polishing the leaves with coconut oil is a must (?). Do they like direct sunlight? Do they hate hot / cold rooms? Should I prune it? Re-pot it? Rotate the pot? Can they thrive in dark corners? [ie – our entire apartment]. If you have any fig tips at all that you wouldn’t mind sharing, I would be hugely appreciative. At the very least I think I’ll need to set an alarm on my phone for when to water it … 

Standing at just 1ft tall and take pride of place on our dining room table already, he’s just a widdle fiddle.

*Can plants be trendy? That doesn’t sound right. I don’t see them as something that should be treated as a trend, but you know what I mean. 

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#MyBlogLife in Stellar magazine

Around this time last month the lovely Genevieve from Stellar asked if they could feature me as part of their #MyBlogLife series. I was excited and pretty humbled that they’d even ask, so I answered all the questions as best as I could, submitted my answers and a few photos. Everything was submitted before the Christmas holidays, so I kinda forgot about the feature [not entirely though – I’m not that bad! I was expecting it would be out next week]. So first thing this morning when I got into work my excited co-worker told me all about spying me in the current issue. Monday morning made! o/
I shared my thoughts on decluttering, hygge, upcycling, DIY and design in general. You can check meowt on the last page of the February issue of Stellar magazine, on shelves in all main news agents now! And thank you again Genevieve for thinking of featuring me x
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Little living room updates – cast your vote

Back in November while I was editing the photos I took of our new rug, the first picture I included in that post kind of made me uneasy. It was all the colours. And that end of the living room. It didn’t really work anymore. There was too much burgundy, there was too much wood that didn’t match and the rug made it more obvious. It all looked too thrown together and nothing worked. 

Since we’re renting our apartment and are stuck with our landlords furniture [I wish I could burn it to the ground and start over trade it in for more comfortable and practical pieces], I’m forever hitting road blocks in our own home. Of the many pieces of furniture, our landlord’s coffee table has been driving me up the wall. It’s not the same colour as the ‘wood’ floors and it’s quite distressed thanks to previous tenants. And I don’t mean the good kind of distressed that’s trendy. The bad kind. 

When Kimberly updated her vanity and then Linda updated her kitchen counters, both ingeniously using faux marble contact paper to do so, I filed that nicely in my brain [even check out my comment on Kimberly’s post. Ha!]. Contact paper is beyond perfect because when we move out, I’ll simply peel it off and it’ll be immediately reversible. As with most things I’m a bit unsure of, I did a mock up to help me make up my mind. I edited the cat basket to black, slapped some faux marble on the coffee table, and as anyone who has updated their home will know, the design domino effect came into play so the tray on our coffee table got edited too. Many times. 

Here’s what the above GIF is showing, frame by frame …
1. Original living room as it is now
2. Cat basket edited black 
3. Coffee table marble-ised
4. Tray edited black 
5. Tray edited burgundy
6. Tray edited viridian
7. Tray edited pink [for the hell of it]
And to think, this was all done without disturbing Juniper in the slightest.

Here’s where I need your help. Genuinely. Tell me what you think. Marble? Yes or no? A solid colour coffee table instead? And what colour tray should I go with? Or just leave it all alone? Srsly. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while, but a change is defo going to happen. At the moment I’m going for the black basket + marbled table + black tray. But nothing’s set in stone. Or faux marble.