Chevrons and vertical spaces at the Ideal Home Show

This is the last post sharing the room sets from this year's Ideal Home Show and follows on from the kitchen and dining room last week and the bedroom and bathroom the week before.  So which two rooms are left, and which features chevrons, and which makes use of its vertical spaces?

You might have guessed that one of the rooms is the living room, and you'd be right. This room set marries blues, greys, pastel pinks and copper accessories against a bold chevron patterned floor.

It's a room full of shapes too. The diagonals of the chevrons, the square and oblong cushions and the rounded table and pouffe. And there's plenty of places to put your nick-nacks; a trestle table and an inbuilt faux pastel pink shelf.

I told you it was a bold floor didn't I? 

But somehow the floor is another way to add texture to the room without overpowering the space - it just goes to show that if you go bold with your flooring, then while you don't want to add too many patterns, you don't need to be ultra safe either.

The final room set, could be classed a bit of a cheat, as it's an outside room. But it's a space that more of us would love to make better use of, weather permitting. You'll not be surprised to know that I loved the bright colours and it's a space that I feel would zing with energy. 

It's also the space that makes good use of the vertical space in a way that many of us could adopt. I like the modern slats, although now I think of it they do also remind me of the old fashioned lath and plaster too!

It was good to see that the copper trend is still strong, the longer it's here the more it grows on me. And while I've been slow to adopt this, now I think it's hard to avoid it.  I don't think this is the most practical space as where would you put all those cushions overnight?!

So there's all the room sets, there's been some great rooms and looking back I wonder why it took me so long to share them!  Of the six rooms, which was your favourite?

A sewing project for the future

Now this post is likely to confirm a certain level of craziness you may never have realised I had. And that's ok, because when I saw this partially (in fact barely) completed embroidered tablecloth when we visited Snape Maltings over the summer, I knew there was no way I was going to leave this in the shop. I also knew that there was a high chance that I wouldn't do anything with this for quite a while and that's ok too (and now that I've found crochet, it could be even a bit further down the list, but the good news it's still on the list!)

Now isn't it beautiful?

And it has the potential to be a stunner. Even though it's been many years since I've done any embroidery. And there is no pattern or colour chart. And I don't have any threads, or actually I may have some but that's reliant on me finishing another long-held cross stitch project. I've dug that out again since we've been back from Suffolk (this one that I shared on Instagram), so that's a good sign but quickly realised I needed my eyes testing as the count was a bit smaller than I remembered.

Predictably MOH was on hand to ask what I needed this tablecloth for and where I could possibly use it. Of course knowing this was coming I was ready for it and my answer of "on that old French table in the garden" was clearly said confidently and assertively enough that it was accepted.  Must remember that for the future. It's true though it will look great on that table, and one day I may even get around to re-painting that too.

I think there's enough clues in the work that's already taken place to carry on, and make the tablecloth my own. I'll worry about what the stitch is when I'm closer to starting I think, unless you can identify it from these photos.

There's a pink and peach coloured rose in each corner, or rather that will be my aim. There's one completed yellow rose midway between those, so there's another three to do, and there's a central section which hasn't been started yet, but again the colour for that isn't something that needs deciding now.

I told you this post might confirm a certain level of craziness, but for ten pounds, it really did need rescuing didn't it?

An autumnal feel with pops of summer colour

I've been meaning to write this post since last weekend when I popped out into the garden and found more colour than I was expecting to see. I'd convinced myself that everything had turned autumnal almost overnight - and it almost did - but it seems my garden isn't quite ready to give up its colour. With a blast of sun shining on it too, it'd be easy to convince ourselves that maybe it was more like summer after all, but only for a moment!

The blue geranium seemed to be enjoying the sun as much as me, I'd not noticed before but it almost has a white ring at its centre as well as tie and dye like petals!

The patio pots I planted up at the start of June are only just coming into their own, as you can see I've still flowers in bud but these impatiens are doing well, even if they're a bit nibbled. I'd bought some really small lucky dip plug plants and while they were good value, they've taken a while to actually flower in our north facing garden so it's not something I think I'll be doing again next year.

The hardy fuchsia provides another pop of colour as we walk up the garden and despite giving it a serious hacking earlier in the year, it's still flowering and is giving the pyracantha berries in the background a good run for their money.

The sedums are just starting to add some autumnal pink in the garden, we've these throughout the garden in clumps which works to unify our space. I was especially pleased to see these looking so well as these are the ones planted in my gabion planters, I'm taking it that they're happy there!

In the sleeper bed I'd randomly planted some of my seedlings - and then promptly forgot about them - until now that is, this beautiful cosmos has just started to flower and it's great to see its vibrancy as I turned the corner of our garden.  I quite like the idea of forgetting where I'd planted seedlings, as it does bring a nice and unexpected surprise, well as long as MOH doesn't mistake them for weeds as they're not marked that is!

I've also discovered a little friend looking for a new home. It must have been quite traumatic for him/her while I was watering the plants.  I hope I haven't washed away any chance of a family they'd been busy with.  He was persuaded to look for alternative accommodation gently, and encouraged to hop over the lawn back into the beds for safety, so hopefully he'll be fine. We see several toads in our garden, and hear them rustling their way through the garden after dark "on manoeuvres" and we definitely have less slugs and snails where we see the toads, so they're a good thing to have.

Not such a good thing to have right now is squirrels.  They are fast becoming the bane of our garden, what with their digging and sudden penchant for my succulents. I've many leaves that have come away from the plant, and while I know I can grow new plants from them, and I'm in danger of being overrun by succulents, it'd be much better for the leaves to stay attached in the first place.

The squirrel is also popping into the greenhouse and digging, not in a helpful way though. In much the same way as he's - or they've - been digging in the grass. MOH is far from pleased about how many holes he has in his grass at the moment, and if I were the squirrel I would be giving MOH quite a wide berth.

On the plus side I should be able to fill another trug with all these new succulent plants, or start my own succulent business!!

Near the patio the hibiscus has continued to flower, it seems to still be enjoying the weather although I've got my eye on it and the forecast. I'm still in two minds what to do with it over the winter, but a more pressing concern is what to do with it when we're away in October, in case there's an unexpected cold snap.

I found some pots at the back of the garden which I'd also potted up with those tiny bedding plants that are in full flower and conveniently they were red and white so they've been brought down to the front of the garden to keep the hibiscus company, and with the added advantage of giving the illusion of colour throughout the garden when looking from the house.

The pear tree at the back of our garden is full of pears. We gave the tree quite a severe pruning in the Spring and this is how it repays us, I'm not hopeful for the fruits being edible though as we've not had much success in the past. They are rock hard and the longer we leave them on the tree, the more likely that pesky squirrel is to have sunk his teeth into them.  

If you've any ideas on how I can win with these pears, I'd love to hear them.