Zoe Murphy: Loving what belongs to you

I’m continuing my 2016-fest today with a few photos from my visit to the London Design Festival, where I took these photos of Zoe Murphy, a young designer’s work. I’ve realised that I’m quite a fan of mid-century furniture, especially when it’s had a bit of attention and brought up to date.

In its original state I can admire the furniture, but it’s when it has either simple colour blocking like the unit in our Porto apartment, or the bold designs at this year’s Grand Designs Live. Zoe pieces take a similar approach, but there’s much more detail and colour. She says she takes her inspiration from her seaside hometown of Margate.

She also promotes the idea of ‘loving what belongs to you’ using the shapes and textures inspired by her home town to decorate the furniture, none more so evident than the buildings in the table below.

What do you think? Are you a fan, or do you prefer your mid-century modern furniture unadorned?

The Upcycled Garden

This is the last of the garden room sets from this year’s Ideal Home Show, and I’ve saved my favourite until last. And in true me-style, I had quite a good chat with Max McMurdo who was hanging around the garden he created trying to eat his lunch and have a conversation with someone who thought he looked familiar, but thought nothing more of it. Until I actually read the leaflet I picked up and realised who I’d been chatting to over the upcycled pallet.

It is a particularly good use of pallets, and one I wished I’d thought of when in my first house dad and I put up a front fence made of pallets. Just adding an extra plank to keep those pots in, would have added some interest. I was clearly way ahead of my time, although looking back I think I’d have had to nail the pots in as a plant that was on my open porch, which took two people to lift disappeared one day. It’s not actually the sort of thing you can phone the police for is it?

“Yes, hello Officer, yes my five foot money plant, that’s extremely heavy is missing.”

“Where did I leave it? Well on my doorstep, it’s too heavy to move you see.”

But anyway I digress, although that is how and when I got my yucca plant, which is still going strong despite a small accident with MOH falling onto it recently. These doors too reminded me of the “shed-that-dad-built” which I shared on here a couple of years ago. That post is worth a look for the old-fashioned photos alone.

Back to my chat with Max. It was the real Max I got to speak to, not the statuesque one that perched on yet another pallet. Max is a designer and upcycler and has gone “back to his roots” according to the leaflet with this Land Rover inspired garden, reusing ideas from his book “Upcycling Outdoors”. The leaflet goes on to say that upcycling items has “previously been associated with items within the home” but that this garden shows what you can do with your outside space. I’d just like to say, pop back to the post with the “shed-that-dad-built” there was much upcycling going on there, mostly through quirkiness and need, rather than driven by a reuse mantra, but it was the early nineties…

It’s true though that suitcase side tables are more often used indoors, but they do make a lovely planter too.

That old tool trolley isn’t what it seems either - it’s a barbeque of course. And while storage is always important everywhere, so is having a functional and attractive dining area. Some planks laid across a wooden frame have easily sorted that - that’s definitely something to remember and reuse at some point.

You didn’t believe me when I said it was a barbeque did you? Here you go…

It was definitely my favourite garden, and while the planting is quite subtle, it’s there thought, and as we know all good gardens are based on a good structure.

What do you think? For me, there’s memories, inspiration and so many things to see in each and every one of these photos. I’m only sorry there wasn’t more time to enjoy the space and take full advantage of the hospitality laid on!

A succulent in a tin

A while back I bought a tin of strawberry tea in a fabulous pink tin from Fortnum & Mason. It turned out that the tin was indeed fabulous, but the tea not so much. So saving the best of it, the tin has been in my cupboard for a while as I knew, one day I'd have a use for it. I vaguely remembered seeing succulents planted in tins on Pinterest and I thought, as you do, how hard can it be?

In short, pretty easy - the hardest and most laborious part was removing the paper labels from two sides of the tin. There'd been plenty of cycles through the dishwasher, some scoring and some soaking, but some of the label remained. Last weekend I decided the paper labels were going once and for all.  Cue more soaking - and a new trick - some nail varnish remover to remove that sticky residue that some glues leave.

And finally my tin was ready.

I decided not to pierce drainage holes in my pretty tin, but also didn't want the succulent to sit in water. But instead of crocks and stones I added some corks to the bottom of the tin before filling with earth.

I hadn't planned to plant a pink succulent, I'd wanted to use one of the ice white ones that I'm propagating from a fallen leaf as I thought that'd make a nice contrast to the pink. However when I looked at the leaves, they weren't quite ready and I couldn't quite bring myself to uproot the ice white plant that's still establishing itself in my succulent trug. 

And instead this pink succulent called me.

I added some vermiculite to the top - I think I'd used my grit laying the base for the pizza oven - and that adds a textured addition to the soil, which glistens in the sun and will, I hope help with moisture retention. 

The results though were stunning, a pretty succulent in a pretty tin, and a great garden table decoration that'd look equally good in the conservatory, or well anywhere really.

What do you think?

If you want some more succulent inspiration, why not join me over on my Succulent Love board on Pinterest: