My first original Angie Lewin print!

It's no secret that I'm a BIG fan of Angie Lewin's prints, and for my birthday a few months ago I received my first ever original Angie Lewin print. 

It was a very big surprise, and the print made the journey all the way from Norfolk, England safely to my living room in Melbourne, Australia!   I finally got it back from being framed and is now proudly hanging on the limited wall space we have (most of my walls are full of my father's wonderful watercolour paintings!) 

The limited edition lino print is called 'Spey Seedheads' and I have the Artists Proof version - an artists proof being the first few prints taken prior to the regular, published edition of the print.  A big thank you to my lovely partner Mr B for such a beautiful and thoughtful gift..... although you've set yourself a pretty high standard to follow now!

New kitchen!

It's been a little quiet here as we've been going through some major kitchen renovations for the past few weeks.... we had to remove all the old kitchen units and get everything out of the kitchen ready for the new floor that had to be laid before we could even start installing the kitchen, so it's been a bit of an epic transformation. 

For several weeks we had no oven and no kitchen - so we were cooking on a single burner camping stove and washing up in the bathroom sink! If that wasn't bad enough our old water boiler then decided to pack up - so we had no water for a few days and no hot water for a week! Seriously bad timing!! Lots of boiling water on the camping stove to wash and make endless cups of tea to get us through.

So, this is the original kitchen - seen here from a few years ago prior to the re-stumping and chaos that followed!.....

.....then everything removed from the kitchen and the new floor and tiles being laid......

..... then here we are constructing the new kitchen units under the watchful presence of Jolly!

And finally the finished result!!  We're so pleased with what we've acheived and with the exception of the floor and the tiling we did it all ourselves!  The mess and hassle has been well worth it - and it's great to finally have a spacious and organised kitchen at last.

The only trouble is this means no more excuses and it's time to get cooking!......

Kitchen details

A few weeks ago I posted about my trip to the fabulous Mill Markets at Dayelsford (see post here). Whilst I was there I spotted this old shelf unit - and I just knew it would be prefect in my kitchen!

It was actually sold as a hanging shelf and was originally the other way up - however I removed the hooks and turned it around the other way so it now sits on top of my kitchen bench!  I love having patterned things on display rather than hidden behind cupboard doors, so this is perfect to display some of my favourite kitchen items as well as being very functional. 

I also found a use for the glass jug I bought at the market too - it's a perfect vessel for housing wooden spoons!

Singapore Tiles

I was reading the fabulous Design Files blog a couple of days ago and saw the home of interior designer Sonya Marish.  Sonya runs a business Jatana Interiors that specializes in sourcing rare and antique tiles from around the world. 

Seeing the wonderful array of tiles reminded me of some photographs I took in Singapore last year of the most amazing decorative tiles featured on the exteriors of the original colonial buildings.  The colour and pattern elements were stunning - and I loved the mix of pretty floral designs contrasting the geometric structures.

Too cute!