Table no. 'Powder Room'.

Glamour. Decadence. OTT. Karl, we're talking the same language,
although I might want to restyle you and Stella, non? 

   I don't like to think of myself as someone to whom you could paste the word 'jaded' on. Not yet. Hopefully not ever but who knows what lies ahead. Right now in my life, especially whilst typing AND chomping on an intensely garlicky homemade burger, sandwiched between a warm fresh bagel oozing drippings of melted butter, things couldn't be better.

all gone.

...but that leads me to my point which is restaurants, their interiors and their food.

 I don't eat out so much anymore, despite living in a capital city, bursting with food joints from chic to sheeeeeeeet although many of the great places, I have been lucky enough to eat in over the years and the newer ones I hear about through Mr Jennings or friends that live more professional lives which takes them to 'dinner meetings' rather than food fights with a bunch of nutters in the kitchen (my children that is). Once tucked up in their little fluffy cloud snugglekin beds (?!) however my mind quickly turns to all things gastronomical and I have slowly begun to master the art of turning out a couple of plates loaded with very satisfying food flavours and tummy fillers, whilst wrapped securely in the confines of my own four walls. No need for baby-sitters, bracing the unwelcoming winter nights or having to navigate a journey home. Instead it's just a few flights of stairs and 'whoomp' into my heavily duvet + 274 quilts bed, perfect!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 So, to get me out, that restaurant has got to deliver and I'm not just talkin' food. I want an atmosphere, a divine interior and staff that don't swish around with a whiffy smell under their nose. I don't live in restaurants, I don't live in a party but when I go out I rather like the idea of something different. Something big. Something extreme. And guess what, I've almost found one - in a toilet. The restaurant Nopi is the more grown up version of Ottolenghi (of which there are two in London) and the food is a mix of Meditteranean, Middle-eastern and Asian but look to proper critics for a more foody review. I just remember saying oooh and aaahh to every one of the tapas style dishes and coveting a number of gold ornaments and objects scattered around the joint. Having driven I only drank one cocktail but I suddenly got a teenager buzz about the idea of drinking all night and not giving two hoots about the morning. It was some kind of champagne concoction with saffron syrup, gin, elderflower and lemon. Honestly, after a drink like that you too would have wanted to eat your dinner in the loo. There you found yourself surrounded by gold and mirrors and suddenly I felt it was wholly inappropriate to not be pumping out some great music from the Charleston era.It is decadent, glamorous, romantic and so not what you would have at home (unless you happen to live like Marie Antoinette). In fact, that is my only criticism of the restaurant. Not to bring 'the outside in' but to 'bring the toilet out'. By most peoples standards however it is probably just perfect although if they had really gone for it in the dining room... I'll say no more. The night scored itself  9 out of ten - losing a point for my toilet/dining room issue - sorry, I said I'd say no more - and when I woke the next morning I found a magpie must have been doing a bit of work for me too. The gold O they use as a bill weight at the end of your evening happened to have found it's way onto the end of my keyring. I swear it happened whilst I was dancing in the loo. 

nice logo.

lovely lights.

could be better...but

the powder room table.

whoops.

Nopi: - www.nopi-restaurant.com/

 

Can I Come In...?

 I've always thought front doors to be an unsung bit of beauty that escapes too many people in both cities and country alike. Of the hundreds of thousands of doors passed in a lifetime, most are forgettable, let alone alluring, enticing, engaging enough to add a curiosity. What's over that threshold could be grand and lavish or small and mysterious, it doesn't matter but the personality of a door can tell of the creative worth within. It doesn't take much to stand out or be different because the majority of doors may as well be called John or Sue. (A generalisation, forgive me, I'm sure there are plenty of fascinating characters out there carrying such a name but you get my point.)I get the head-turn when I see a Clemence or a Blyth. They have precious pieces of door furniture, bold colours or an aged yet loved fade going on that to the DFS sofa couple would keep them up at night with worry for not blending in. Embrace difference. Exude character and for goodness sake let me in. I love a nose.

Bingo! '125 yrs later' paint. My favourite of them all.

                                                                                     

No to Nosey

No, no and no again!

 When we first moved into our house, nearly eight years ago now, we had little in the way of furniture. Two young twenty somethings with a fat legged baby and a whole lot of excitement. Money had been spent on the bricks and mortar we had bought into, so to think of hiring some decorating help, to ease the eye of the psychedelic colour scheme that pervaded throughout was not even a thought let alone question. A ladder, some overalls, pots of paint and a determination to claim the space as our own was all that was needed. Oh and one more thing,some lace.

 Living in a London terrace, you become quickly aware of the audience of passers by that unselfconciously turn their giraffe like heads at a 90 degree angle and nose innocently into your front room as you go about your not so perfect day. No, I don't look like Alexis Carrington at 7.30am or Sofia Loren by 9pm. I enjoy a bit of Waynetta Slob behaviour on weekend mornings and I overindulge my kids love of Saturday morning crap on the box. But I like to imagine my neighbours believe we are capable of better. We needed a good old fashioned screen to hide behind but I've never liked the anonymity and blandness of that modern phenomenon - the frosted stencil and the net curtain evokes too many bad memories of a particulary scary local who used to twitch them with a fury as any one of my siblings or I would noisily pass their house as kids. But the French, like many things they do, they get it right. Their use of French lace, stretched flat across the pane  always looked so, well, classy and artisan and all things bourgeois. I never imagined as a child holidaying in France that beyond those lacy screens there would be anything I wouldn't want to live amongst, I could ignore the occasional sighting of a toothless old widow who might appear from the residence to sweep away any touristy debris from her medieval village doorstep. 
 Years later, on becoming a slightly more toothful owner of a street level residence I sourced some French lace to screen my own front window. Doing it on the cheap I cut, sewed and fitted it myself. It serves its purpose. It shields the neighbours from our less than perfect reality but it has never been quite right. I don't know, maybe it is the fit, maybe the design, maybe the white would be better black but it has lasted and for me, so many years later it proves my theory that lace is the only way to go. I am on the look out for some vintage lace to do a new replacement however so if you happened to know that antiqued lady I saw all those years ago, did she take the lace with her? It could look good in Hackney, I'll make sure of it. 

A little porte de toilette I visited in France recently.
Even the loos are classy!

           

There's Always Something.

Subtle, sophisticated, harmonious and different.
Full marks to the owners of No. 43.

 There are sometimes the occasional moments before a blog post where I find myself wondering what to write about. Usually, I'm thick with things to say but when much of your day is given over to looking out for the little people, it can distract even the most style opinionated of us from looking around, outside of our own cardboard boxes to the plethora of design inspiration that starts in the very same street you might live in. So whilst taking an ambling cycle ride home, after the desperate dash of a cycle ride into school, I found myself pondering about my next blog. As nothing immediate sprung to mind I switched on my 'inspire me' radar vision glasses and within five seconds was doing a dodgy U turn to stop and photograph some gorgeously lovely shutters. They were painted a beigey sort of colour and were sitting on the inside of a steely grey frame but the golden thread that held it all together and elevated it from 'nice' to 'we have the best window in the street' status, was the use of a soft yellow, skimming the edges of the panelling. I love it. It is the next step on from just beige and greige which we all still love but it adds a little more festival to an otherwise pretty grown up and sombre look. 
 Colour me up baby, I'm off down to our booby-trap of a cellar now. I'm sure I've got a sample pot or four of that very same yellow and if Moo man sleeps for just a little bit longer...

My dodgy U turn - nice railing post though.

  

Open Sesame.

Aaargh! Shut that door!!!!!

 It used to be that a cupboard had two purposes. One to store the other to hide. When we moved into our house seven years ago now, we inherited a kitchen that had only recently been installed and whilst it would never have been my choice, cash flow was such that my fantasy of hand crafted free standing units, mixed up with some more contemporary additions was never going to be an option. Despite that we have managed to shunt things around enough, making it a little more accomodating of the expansive brood but it has never quashed my desire to have a complete makeover job done. The only problem is my present flirtation for an open shelf look. Jars of conserves and preserves, crates of fresh veg and fruit. Interesting herbs and spices all stacked in an organised chaos kind of a way. Realistically this is a disaster but if you were prepared to spend precious time in your day, wrestling shelves with their eternal quest to turn order upside down and inside out, this could be a great option. Evidence of our present larder type cupboard suggests I should stay well away but I would argue that such exposure might shame my mess into a delectable order of home grown,stewed and pickled order. 

 On a smaller, more achievable scale, I am presently collecting old wine crates for our eight year olds bedroom, covering some in cartoon strips inside and out and nailing them to his bedroom walls. He uses them to store and display his obsessive collection of all things miniature. Unfortunately, he has a three year old fizz bomb for a brother who takes great pleasure in exacting any revenge by destroying order in these little cases of lovliness and the old muggins of a design die-hard mum ends up repeatedly tidying up the devastation wreaked. To be honest, if I can sustain the continual barage of attacks from Caspar that kitchen will be no challenge for me. Bring it on. 

ahhh, calm...

peace...

stacking ...

chaotic order! 

Lovely.

Collecting.

Tony's collection of cartoon figurines - what can I say?

 I was never a collector of 'stuff'. Brownie badges wielded little charm, Just 17 magazines were girly and Brosette fans with their bottle tops for laces and all the other necessary bits were just daft. I was never much of a club member type and as a result I didn't really embrace the collector affliction. No stamps, only a few pongy rubbers and maybe a handful of scratch n' sniff stickers. They would all be thrown into one old Wall's Ice Cream tub and left to ferment and stagnate under my bed. Maybe I didn't really have the maturity to swear an allegiance to the collector club mentality. It was often a hobby that was shared with a girl friend and led you to the same shop week on week, emptying out your pocket money coins on the counter in exchange for what I saw as an unworthy bit of nonsense that didn't look any different to the other bit of unworthy nonsense bought the week before that and the week before that. So it came as a slight shock when I realised the other day there is a bit of 'collectorism' occuring under my own roof all these years later and I'm not referring to our eight year olds addiction to all things Pokemon.

 I have managed to amass more than a few sewing stools(?!) and stone wall heads(??!!). I blame second-hand furniture shops, car boot sales and antique fairs because it is at all of these places where you find yourself wandering, as if around an art gallery, slightly aimlessly and without much intention. Drowning a little in the array of trinkets and oddities that you don't need but your senses respond to. However, these have become the purchases which add personality to our house and without them our home would be much like any other house. It is good to let your heart lead the way sometimes. Especially when it doesn't break the bank. So as I pass one of the many heads on my daily journeys through the house and reach out for a book, stinky sock or more wishfully a big fat glass of wine from the more interesting sidetables (sewing boxes), I take some pleasure from my little collections in a way I was never able to appreciate as a kid. I'm just a little nervous of the similarity in the words collection and addiction!


some of my heads;

Rita

Marj

Brian

Wendy

 and some of my sewing stools;

books and a thief

nappies and more nappies

Oooh! A big fat  glass of (ribena pretending to be) wine.

Lady Time.

The Toilet of Venus
Even she had to wrestle her little cherubs out.

 Spending a penny. Having a tinkle. Off to the powder room. Whatever way you dress it, toilet action should be a solo mission (unless of course you are post nappies but pre-school and the freedom to yell "I've done a poo!" whilst waiting, bum up, hands down, for the lucky parent to tidy one up, is of benefit to all parties involved). 
 It is a hazy memory now since I've partaken in a lavatory trip sans children. "A door - closed? A lock? Why? Must investigate. Will interrogate. By the way, now I have you at eye-level and looking somewhat vulnerable with your trousers around your ankles, I am going to embark on a discussion of all things weird that inhabit my brain. And when you repeatedly ask me to go away, I will only do so slowly, whilst attempting to slide backwards along the floor, continuing my monologue which has side-stepped into my imagining life as a komodo dragon." ???? Yes, that's normal toilet visiting for me. But things are about to change.
 Having gone to a car boot sale in Norfolk at the weekend, I came across a gorgeous little door knocker.Kids or no kids, I would have bought it but as to where it would go, the gig-style audience of our lavatory dictated the answer. My boys love a novelty and while it may not last for long, the idea of a few loo visits where no-one can enter unless cordially invited has meant the toilet door has it. And it looks good.

                  "Knock,knock - can I come in?"
                  "No."
Genius!      

Tick, Tock.

Flavour Flav - a man who
knew a thing or two about clocks!

 We had a clock in our bathroom which hung directly above the door. Were it able to talk it would have had much to say about my variety of different faces expressed when looking at it. Firstly, in the morning, there was the 'desperate face' as I would bash about the room attempting various cleaning/dressing activities, often combined in the hope it might speed the process, which of course it never does. Secondly, the midday me, who thinks they have time on their side and might gaze idly up, giving it a nod, as I would a friend. Thirdly, the 'lost control of the situation' face as the children run amock pre-bath, all at once, naked, laughing hysterically, dirty pants flying and the realisation that order has to be regained to get any kind of a lock down happening in the next hour. And then finally comes the 'to bed' face, which is slightly cross because, beaten with physical exhaustion, I have once again found myself brushing my teeth later, much later than intended.
 But then our clock broke! A son - a very angry son, on being reprimanded for being a bit of a nincumpoop to his brother, decided to demonstrate his embarrasment and sheer fury by doing a bit of door slamming and much to my horror, right in front of my eyes, fell our clock. Silence permeated in the wake of this mini disaster as Leo saw the double disaster he had just brought about although he was exempt from more cross words as he saw my relief at it not having landed on any of his brothers.
  We were left without a clock and how we missed it. Of course it was the missing that made us realise how much we had come to rely on it, so for a time I had one of the kids alarm clocks propped up on a cabinet but it never felt like an honest clock, the neon colours and comedy stars always seemed to belittle the reality of time. So on my travels I kept my eyes open for a replacement but things seemed either too cold in their design or too 'designed'. Until I found Mr Tukes clock. Perfect. I didn't want old but I did want modest. I didn't want bright but I did want colour. I didn't want modern but I did want different. Oh and I didn't want to spend big money bacause...well, we don't have it. So, ladies and gentleman, for £44 I give you the Barnaby Tuke clock (http://www.studiospecial.com/shop) which, if ever you find yourself in an equally challenging door slamming moment, could also be your next face watching friend. Although this time, I'm trying to smile at it a little more.

And that's the thumbs up from me.

Getting a Handle on It.

 Where am I in life, now I dither, um and ah about a doors handle? It should be concerning really that a 36 year old mother of four, who has GCSEs a plenty (what were they all for, I still ask?), A'levels and a first class degree, can wile away her quiet moments (albeit, not many of them) thinking about the right shape, size, material and colour of a door knob. But then maybe it is due to the fact I struggle to even enter half the rooms in our house because of the lack of said item. They did once adorn our doors. Okey, they weren't beautiful. World of Interiors had no plans to write about them but they worked. Now, having become an expert at breaking and entering I have come to realise that something must be done. It is one thing to release your own child from behind a trapped toilet door, quite another to release the baby-sitter. So today, after having stalked and prowled around various re-claim yards this past two months, I am the proud owner of one (!) pair of door handles. 

Enter at own risk
(if you can get in.)

shop owner - 'I don't think I have a matching pair.'
me - 'Do you have a pair?'
shop owner - 'well, you could say these two look similar...?'
me - 'They look similar.'
shop owner - 'I like you.'
me - 'Thanks.'

Come in.
(Well, when I've figured out how to fix them.)

Hook Art

Walls, when empty, are essentially one great big canvas and the choice of adornments are limitless but for some reason we always reach for a picture. Being married to a film man, we are never short of photos that can be blown up and framed as great prints but I don't believe walls should be solely covered in 2D images. For me, a bit of shaking it up adds interest and personality to a space and now our new hallway is shaping up to be my new favourite room (see dark days post), I'm going to act it out in full effect!      
 The first things to bite the dust are our old hooks and quite frankly good riddance to them. Ugly old things that I happily suffocated in overflowing bags and coats, they didn't love me and I certainly never loved them. The thing is, in this Victorian terrace, that we have come to love, there ain't no room for hiding your 'dumping stuff.' So if we're going to see it, then I want to smile at it. And so, in anticipation of a new hallway, I have collated my hook collection over the last twelve months and it's looking good. 
 The only problem is, small infants have been seen trying to hang coats on them. God forbid!

Don't touch!

Just look!

To be hung please, Boss man?!

'Oh, waiter woman...!'

they need to be moooi'd!

Big family, big table. 
We had a brilliant table which we have loved and smeared for the last fourteen years but it stopped working for us when the Moo came along. Suddenly, if anyone came round to join us for any meals they might find themselves perched on the sofa or sharing their seat with a wriggly bottomed child. Space around our social hub was becoming an issue.
Of course, being the slightly odd character that I am, I immediately knew where to find our solution. Moooi. It has been about six years that I have been yacking on about this particular table although I hadn't seen it in the 'flesh' until it was ceremoniously carried into the house on Friday. (The ceremony involved two normal delivery men and one over-excited ceremony creating mad woman.) The reason I hadn't seen it is because most of these tables are ordered in black or brown or white but I had another plan. So after much longing for, putting money aside and then ordering, it is here and in my opinion IT'S FLIPPIN' GREAT!

The Moo man from Stoke Newington says....Yes!

(Reasons it works: 1.)square room = round table   2.)technical material on base balances with thick oak top   3.)bright colour adds a bit of personality to a normally boring colored item of furniture that TAKES UP SOOOOO MUCH ROOM so don't be boring about it!   4.) Asa Moo says Yes! and he is super cool, now eats with a silver knife and fork, always clears up AND he leaves a tip.)

     

it's the little things

my favourite very 'little thing'. -birthday pressie from very patient lovely man.

The list could have been so long and it would have ended in a huge bill at various poncey ... but lovely, furniture shops. Fortunately, for all of us who are now living in My House (we've added three more since our first arrival here.), I was restrained by the one thing that admittedly usually inhibits creativity. Hard cash.
So in between babies I could usually be found up a ladder or on all fours painting floor boards, browsing in secondhand furniture shops or up early, driving to big antique fairs. We needed lights, chairs, oh and maybe some more lights and chairs. (Yes, I admit, I became slightly weird in my addiction to finding LIGHTS AND CHAIRS! - I'm still working on that.) Anyhow, over this period of time we have come to acquire some really great bits and pieces and few of them would cost more than twenty quid. Of course, my constant hovering around the shops twentytwentyone and atelier did also mean that we have lived without some bits of furniture for a while until...kerching, the coppers might add up and the boss man would, by then, almost happily let me make that longed for purchase in the hope I would stop wittering on about 'how wicked it is going to look, over there, when we fill it with the fluffy pink  giant poodle thing that hangs from a trapeeze.' (- not really by the way. Bit nervous you might start wondering about my taste here. Hopefully, in time, you'll just get that one.)
And now, seven years on, punctuated with intermittent lame attempts to jump ship and move us all to Bath (- went to a great wedding and saw big gardens!), Norfolk (- stayed with friends and didn't have to sit on a loo WHILST talking to a dreamy son about gremlins because they had SO MANY LOOS THAT THE LITTLE MUNCHKINS COULDN'T FIND ME) and oh, I don't know, other places that seemed well,finished, we are still here. And it is due to all the little bits of work we have done (often very late at night!), small purchases and that thing called time, which makes this place feel like home. 
And I love it. 
(Plus, I've become rather fond of our little gremlin chats.)

sparkly cheap secondhand shop lampshade thing

dirt cheap once expensive last one left sale clock

"feet up for a fiver?"  - "sold, to the overexcited lady with a fluffy poodle on a trapeze."

ps. Mave Rebecca Doherty, born last night to my brilliant sister Raccadackers and John. Yeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! She's a peach! Well done, you northeners. x