At the Ideal Home Show

March 26, 2019

Today I’m sharing my highlights from this year’s Ideal Home Show, along with the trends that I noticed from the show. You’ll have seen in yesterday’s post that for me the good news was that the garden room sets were back, and that the garden section of the show was in the main section of the hall rather than in the smaller hall on the left as you enter.

Of the four garden room sets I was really keen on two. I’ve already mentioned The Upcycled Garden so there’s a fair chance that that’s one of them, and you’d be right. You’ll not be surprised to learn that the other is The Grow Your Own Garden and I’ll be sharing more of those, and the other two garden room sets in the next few weeks.

Colour, everywhere

The thing that really stood out was colour. It was everywhere. And as an advocate of colour you’ll know how much that pleases me. It was bold colour too as the photos below show. Those chairs, you’ll notice that they have the same pattern. I only noticed that as I put this post together, I’m sure though the backgrounds were different colours.

The ceiling and lamp shade above were in the child’s room in the Evolving House, I think that’s definitely the loudest ceiling I’ve ever seen and not sure it will be conducive to sleep. But it wasn’t all bright colours, the other colour that stood out around the show was pastel pink, it’s still set to be big in interiors this year. It featured in the room sets, with a pink kitchen and in the vintage bathroom room set; in the Evolving Home house and a gorgeous sofa in the interiors section of the show.

MIRRORS ON A PINK WALL IN THE EVOLVING HOME

FLYING BIRDS IN THE VINTAGE BATHROOM ROOM SET

Colour and patterns

And along with the colour came patterns, and plenty of them. While I’m not necessarily a fan of the frayed egg-shaped light the wallpaper behind it was bold and fantastic. In the room sets it was hard to find a room that wasn’t covered in pattern - the bedroom and living room - were full of it and clashing patterns too. And it wasn’t just the walls, the floors were patterned too, though not always at the same time.

‘Wire’ furniture

Last year I said that I’d seen plenty of pom poms, and sure enough pom poms make it big on the interiors scene. This year I noticed that there was plenty of ‘wire’ furniture - I’m not quite sure what else to call it. The lampshade in the boot room below is much more decorative than functional. I think we’ll be seeing much more of these.

So that’s a quick round-up of what I noticed, and plenty of photos to give you a glimpse of the show. Are you going this year, or have you been?

Reflecting on my week #76

March 25, 2019

I’ve spent the weekend mostly out and about with a visit to the hairdressers on Friday, the Ideal Home Show on Saturday and visiting the Painted Hall in Greenwich on its reopening weekend, Sunday. The working week that preceded it was also long and busy, and I learnt that my joint pain is real. I mean, I knew it was real because I can feel it, but talking to Helen at Actually Mummy it was reassuring to know it’s not just me.

I used my last day of leave on Friday - well the last that I’m taking, I’m rolling four days into next year as I’m hoping there’ll be more holidays. Although I’ve done little to make the big American holiday happen for June. I started, it got complicated and then life got busy again. However we still want to go away in June and yesterday I hit on a new masterplan. We’ve done walking and cycling holidays before with Inntravel and have never had a bad holiday, MOH had mooted the idea of going to Lisbon when we were talking holidays recently too. So the masterplan is to put it together - genius hey?

I think I’ve found a trip that appeals, it’s new for this year and is walking rather than cycling this time. The overview talks about cheeses, one of the hotels is next to a vineyard and there’s beautiful scenery too. We can tag on a few nights in Lisbon too, I think probably at the beginning of our trip while we’re still operating at city-speed. It could be a very cunning plan indeed…

Friday I spent way longer than I expected to in the hairdressers. The pink, which went in in November, has been replaced with orange (it’s not as bad as it sounds, but I can’t get a good photo yet!) and that involved more bleaching before the colour, hence the entrapment in the salon. It wasn’t as bad as I make it sound, but nearly three hours is a long time to be sitting in a gown looking less than glam.

Last week I started on my ‘be active, eat well and exercise’ campaign and it’s gone pretty well if I’m honest. I’ve walked to and from work everyday, even if I didn’t want to as the bus seemed to be at least 15 minutes away, and I’m way too impatient to wait. I’ve done well avoiding bars of chocolate, though I did crack open a packet of crisps on the day I took soup to work as I was still hungry.

The exercise DVD is getting easier, which is good I think, and I’ve only missed or shortened it on a couple of days which is much better than I expected. I’ve another week on this level, then there’s a new DVD to master - and one that I’ve not made it to before. I’ve not tried on the outfit again (yet) but my everyday clothes are starting to feel more comfortable so I’m hoping it’s good news, but I know it’s not time yet to stop and celebrate. We’ve a few nights out planned in the next few weeks, which will need navigating and they’ll be the celebrations.

I’ll share more about my visit to the Ideal Home Show here tomorrow, but it seemed quite quiet although I’m not sure if that’s because everyone was either marching or avoiding Central London because of the march, or just not at the show for whatever reason. There were many of the same things as usual at the show, but with a few exciting additions, which for me were:

The Willow Wands are fantastic, I bought three of the small size for £20 and plan to use two of them in our large black pots by the conservatory, replacing the box ball. One box has already gone and I’ve a feeling a second may not last too long. The box caterpillar has made it to Greenwich and while we can spray them, I wonder if it’s just a matter of time and maybe it’s time for a change - but we’ll see.

The highly decorative teak furniture on the Omia stand is imported from Bali and the detail is exquisite, and there’s much more to it than the cabinet I’ve shown, but more on that another day. Puji also specialise in teak furniture, but have so much more too. They’re a Manchester based company who specialise in sustainable and eco-friendly reclaimed teak furniture, but again more on them another day.

There was only one house as such this year, although it was a modular house that can evolve with families and so was actually two houses. But it’s a clear trend for the show, there’s definitely less houses than there used to be and while that’s a shame it’s understandable as I’m sure they’re not cheap to make happen.

The good news was that the garden ‘room sets’ were back and the garden section was in the main part of the hall. I’ll be sharing photos from the four garden room sets, although I’ve less photos of the family fun space. There was no voting for these spaces this year, but my vote would be for the Upcycled Garden and not because I had a lovely chat with Max McMurdo, the designer and recycler extraordinaire - he was lovely, and happy to chat, despite trying to snaffle his lunch at the same time.

There were room sets galore, the theme was a bit lame this year I thought - royalty - but there were some lovely items in the rooms and I’d be happy to have too. I’ll be sharing more of the all of the room sets, and the garden ones too here, so look out for those.

On Sunday we were off out again, but closer to home. I’d got tickets for the re-opening weekend of the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College. It’s pretty much next to where I work and so it was nice to pop along and see what’s been going on in the building next door. And it is pretty amazing, we’d heard that following the restoration there was a £12 entry fee, which sounded steep. However, it’s worth it and you can use your ticket for the whole year which, even if you’re just a visitor, isn’t such a bad deal.

The ceiling takes your breath away, you might have seen photos of it already but I’m sharing another here and will share more later on in the week. It really is a gem and no photo can do it justice, so if you’re ever in Greenwich go along and see it for yourself. And give me a shout, if I’m able to I’ll pop out and say hello.

Post Comment Love 22 - 24 March

March 22, 2019

Hello there and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo a friendly linky where you can link any post published in the last week. If you were here last week, it was great to see you and if you’re new here this week, then you’re very welcome. Both Morgan and I know you’ll find some great posts to read, and encourage you to pop over to some of the posts linked and take the time to leave a comment or two so that everyone benefits from some extra love.

Last weekend I vowed to be more active and eat more healthily, and so far I’ve mostly stuck to it which I’ve surprised myself by. If you’d have asked me I’d have said my willpower was low, but I’ve walked to and from work each day and persevered with the exercise DVD. I’ve got today off, using the last of my leave up and when I booked it, it seemed like a good idea - and it is - but now I know that Monday will be more busy because of it, but that’s Monday and I can deal with that then.

My photo this week is from last year’s Ideal Home Show, I can’t quite believe it’s a whole year ago that the show was on. It opens today, and I have a loose plan to go this weekend. So that means a whole new set of photos to share.

Blogger Showcase: Lois from Auburn Roe

Lois loves to write about travel on her blog, Auburn Roe and describes herself as passionate, free-spirited and hard-working. She’s a full time student whose best quality is not giving up and persevering, and her perfect night in involves eating chocolate cake. Sounds great to me. This week you can find out more about Lois and her blog over at Morgan’s this week.

But before you go, take a moment to connect with Lois on her social channels: Twitter - Instagram - Pinterest.

If you’d like to feature in a future Blogger Showcase, then please get in touch with Morgan and I and once we’ve received your answers we can arrange a date.