Peaches & Trifles: 2012

Mixing rooms

I've been trying to explain to Wills for months why having a claw-foot bath in a big open-plan study/sitting room is a great idea. But he says baths should live in bathrooms, beds in bedrooms, etc. Here's some photographic evidence in my favour...

(PS: This is actually a sort-of-hotel room, from One Fine Stay. Beautiful tub - and monk's bench).

Tim Walker

This isn't strictly interiors. But because Tim Walker is the most amazingly-imaginative photographer ever, and because I haven't found an afternoon to visit his exhibition currently taking place at Somerset House, here's a little blog tribute to him.

Don't try these interiors ideas at home... except, perhaps, this first one.

When Enid Blyton met Tim Walker...

Me, after a bad day's novel writing/decorating

Dear Santa...

Dear Santa, Here's a Christmas list from my little flat. Please be generous. x

This Rob Ryan paper cutting... It's called I Opened My Heart. It's £2,050...

Graham and Green's Ball Mirror. It's £130

Lovely Danish Wool Throw, £165

£62.50, Alexander & Pearl, candelabra

Sinatra Black Wood Lamp, £110, Alexander & Pearl...

Industrial Shoreditch Chair, £125

Starling - usually about £2k, but Ross sells mini 15cm ones for £150.

£250 Rockett St George Dining Bench

Deep Dream Cotton Sofa, Graham and Green, £2.5k

And this sofas.com bed, in soft grey wool, with storage for £1.3k.

Pretty dinners

Our current dining table fits one plate and two glasses, or two plates no glasses. Not all four. So Wills and I began shopping for a real dining table this week - one that doesn't look like it belongs in a doll's house. Everything on the high street was samey and bland, so we turned to online boutiques. What we went for in the end was this:

Very sensible and something of a compromise. But here's a tribute to the tables I REALLY fell for - but lost out on because they were a) too big, b) too pricey, c) already sold, or d) all three.

Alexander and Pearl, Rockett St George, Elemental Antiques and Distressed But Not Forsaken. Also check out The Old Cinema...

Affordable Art Fair

Some amazing finds at the Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead Heath yesterday...
Here are some of my favourites.

Sanghyun Kim

Barry Cawston, 34 Fials, £1,400

Hanna Sidorowicz, Menine Rose, £1,400

Yuko Moriyama, Wiffen Sky

Starling Swarm, (Eberhard Ross - he has loads of them)

Oil paints on aluminium...

A paper cutting. (Rob Ryan)

Where to buy (affordable) art?

Where to buy affordable art? I've always tried to copy the great (usually abstract) works that I lust after, but with a pricetag beyond me. But now Wills and I have decided to buy our first real artwork as a Christmas present to each other, the question is what. And from where.

Our search begins. But the first thing I've fallen for is WAY beyond our budget: These Penguin-inspired paintings by Hardland Miller...

Bit glum? Or tongue in cheek?

A Monday Afternoon (Anthropological) fantasy.

My colleague just introduced me to the beautiful homeware shop Anthropologie. Here's what's on my wishlist so far...

Top of my list: This sort-of postmodern chandelier. Most chandeliery-type ceiling hangings have glary bulb lighting but this one has a lovely, gentle glow. At £3,000+, the pricetag is a little overbudget so I'd settle for this £90ish birdie lampshade, which I suspect would also give off a warming rosy light.

Who wouldn't want a mural of Arcadia in their homes? I'd love mine on a freestanding/moveable wall in the centre of my big open-plan factory converted apartment. Perhaps separating the claw-footed bath from the gently-peeling French desk. (It is Arcadia/fantasy land after all).

And whoever says they don't need a tassled, Brazilian teatowel is lying.

For loose leaf cuppas taken inside that claw-foot bath whilst gazing at my Arcadia mural and contemplating a return to my gentle-peeling French desk...

Monday afternoon fantasy over... Back to work in the office. In other words, back to melamine desks and filing cabinets - not claw foot, china cup of loose leaf tea or a whiff of Arcadia in sight.

Stag lamp

I'm a bit obsessed with stags. Stag cushion, stag antler mount, and now I've added a stag lampshade to my collection. I stumbled upon Greenwich art/interior studio Lush Designs and commissioned one of these:

I was also rather taken with these...

The downside was, I ended up buying a short and slightly wonky (or maybe that's just my floorboards), boring black base from Habitat. Wish I'd gone with this one instead, made of rough, raw concrete...

Saying that, the base is from Made.com - and I'm STILL waiting for a replacement for the broken desk they sent me last December. Shoddy customer service. Awful delivery service. Nice desk though:

Stag chair. (Finally!)

I've wanted to post this since day one of this blog. One of the reasons I began cutting out interiors was because of this: An amazing chair made of entwined stag antlers...

The first time I saw this was in Francisco Costa's home in a Vogue feature. Here, it's the home of another designer, snapper by The Selby. Not sure about the thick cushion pads - would rather it was beautiful but impractical, I think.

Through the keyhole

I loved reading Abigail Ahern's book last year (and posting a blog about it here).
So I was excited to learn that Todd Selby visited her at home recently. Here are the pics of her London flat from his website. Suspect it would be fairly easy to replicate the dark painted floorboards, stripped brick walls (if you're blessed with a house with good foundations), and the moody colour scheme with showpiece lighting...
Other key ingredients: