A new light that's right at home

Recently I took MOH along to a blogging event at Habitat to celebrate their new lighting range, which is definitely worth a look. I'm a big Habitat fan, and remember spending my teenage Saturdays mooning over their items. Back then I suspect my focus was on smaller items, but over the years, it's a shop I continue to go back to regularly.

The event, complete with its own hashtag #HabitatLightClub, was a great night out and it's not every day you can say you went to a club in the basement, in the light department of a Tottenham Court Road shop, now is it?  Well we did, and ssshh don't tell anyone we don't do clubs very often now, but we had a great night, and look out for a post next week on some of the light range and more from the store.

But before that let me show you the light we left with.  And yes, that was the other reason for taking MOH along as his parcel carrying skills are second to none.  Which was handy as the Bobby Metal floor lamp is made of sturdy stuff, it was easy to carry home but after I'd trekked him to Charing Cross apparently he was starting to feel it.

But you need some weight in a floor lamp, don't you?  

This weekend MOH realised his other job, and that was to assemble it. It was relatively easy, but I took one look at the picture instructions and tactically retreated to do something, anything - me and picture instructions really don't get on.  But he did a fab job, and with a lightbulb sourced more quickly than I expected it wasn't long before we were in business.

What I hadn't realised when I'd selected the light was how well it fits into our colour scheme. The grey, the almost brown red and the yellow, I know it sounds horrendous doesn't it, but look at the picture below and you'll see just what I mean.

And yes, that throw is an earlier Habitat item, which still is very much in use.

Here's a closer look at the weighted base, and I'm loving the knobbly shadow that's formed around four o'clock.  And to show it's not just the throw that's full of colour, the rug is too!

So with my lamp raring to go, there was only one thing for it. 

Yes, to get comfortable and stuck into my crochet again!  I'm not sure if I've followed the pattern for this square exactly right, but I'm liking the effect so it's staying, and will be part of the yellow Granny Square blanket that's underway.

What do you think?

* This is a collaborative post with Habitat, but all views and opinions are my own.

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?