50 Shades of White

Maybe it’s because I’m Swedish, but I have a real soft spot for the Scandinavian design aesthetic when it comes to interiors. Pale wooden floorboards, white walls and furniture mixed with grey and other neutrals and perhaps a few accents of stronger colours such as red or blue. Mixing old and modern pieces also makes for a unique home and I love the contrast it creates.

Here are some inspirational images from my Pinterest board ‘My Dream Abode’:

vardagsrum

{I love the positioning of the sofas in this room. Having them facing each other adds a cosy vibe which is offset by the grandeur of the stunning chandelier.}

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{White doesn’t have to mean stark. Layering different shades of whites and other neutrals creates a warm, inviting space.}

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{I love the tiles in this kitchen and the open shelves.}

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{This bedroom looks so calm and inviting.}

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{Using books as bedside tables is a great feature that doubles up as storage if you don’t have enough space for another bookcase. I also love the picture shelf above the bed.}

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{A practical and beautiful centerpiece filled with lovely cashmere. This picture makes me want to paint our floorboards white.}

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{The tiles, the lights, the bathtub – I love it all.}

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{If my boys shared a bedroom, this is the bunkbed I would get.}

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{This room is all about the details: the bunting, the Maileg bunnies with their own little matching bed, the practical blackboard…}

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{I wish our ceilings were high enough to carry off a chandelier on this scale. Oh and that my husband wasn’t allergic to cats!}

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{This room really makes the most of the natural light and I love the white letters on the wall.}

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{Another view of room number 9 which shows how effective a pop of colour can be in an otherwise all-white space. Mixing new and old furniture, such as this cupboard, in the same colour creates an original but cohesive look.}

Just the Two of Us

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After we waved goodbye to the boys at the school gates this morning, Clemmie and I had a leisurely walk back home. It was another beautiful, sunny day but the house seemed almost eerily quiet and it hit me that next year I will be at those same gates waving off not two but three kids. I still can’t get my head around the fact that kids here in England start school so early. The boys are both autumn babies so they were nearly five when they went into Reception class but Clemmie’s birthday is in July so she will have just turned four, which seems so very young. She starts preschool in two weeks’ time but that will only be 12 hours a week so just enough time for me to go to the gym, do a bit of blogging, and attempt to keep on top of the housework.

But if the last few years are anything to go by, I know that September 2014 will be here in just the blink of an eye. And then (with no more babies on the horizon) it will be time for me to really figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life… An exciting but also slightly daunting prospect.

Making Strawberry Jam

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The lesson I’ve learned today is that sometimes the experience is more important and enjoyable than the end result. My youngest son and I had been planning to make strawberry jam all summer but for one reason or another we didn’t get around to it before we went on holiday. So yesterday we finally went to the pick-your-own farm near to where we live only to discover that the strawberry picking season was over! Not ones to be deterred by such a small obstacle we decided to pick apples and blackberries for crumble instead and buy the strawberries from the greengrocers.

Being a complete jam-making novice, I found a recipe for strawberry jam on the BBC Food website which looked easy enough. So, having prepared the fruit the night before, we got to work today when daddy and big brother were at a football match and little sister was playing happily with Lego. It was great fun but, unfortunately,  we (read I) ended up over-boiling the mixture so in the end the jam had a rather toffee-like consistency. And although we halved the recipe, I still think we should have got 2-3 jars out of it rather than one! But the taste is great and if you spread it on hot toast it loses some of its chewiness. Casper happily wolfed down two slices so I think we did well for a first effort! Now all that remains is cleaning the red glue (sorry jam!) off the kitchen surfaces…

Strawberries mixed with sugar and ready to go in the fridge overnight. We used 500g of fruit rather than the 1kg given in the recipe.

Strawberries mixed with sugar and ready to go in the fridge overnight. We used 500g of fruit rather than the 1kg given in the recipe.

The jam boiling away on the stove.

The jam boiling away on the stove.

Our one and only jar of strawberry jam.

Our one and only jar of strawberry jam.

Casper enjoyed his jam on toast despite the toffee-like texture.

Casper enjoyed his jam on toast despite the toffee-like texture.

 

 

 

Let there be light

Lanterns Collage

When we get back from our holiday it will only be a matter of weeks before autumn is upon us. Hopefully there are still plenty of warm days ahead but as the evenings get darker, these lanterns from Nordic House will add a soft, romantic glow inside or outside.

In the picture: Big stainless steel lanterns from £135; Nautical hurricane lamps from £26.95; Numbered glass hurricanes from £19.95,; White willow hurricane £29.95.

About the return of the heatwave and the trauma of a leaking pipe…

From this…

Wearing our wellies to take the boys to tennis camp on Tuesday

Wearing our wellies to take the boys to tennis camp on Tuesday

to this in just a couple of days:

Cooling down with some water play

Cooling down with some water play

Seeking shade in the playhouse at the bottom of the garden

Seeking shade in the playhouse at the bottom of the garden

Today saw the return of the heatwave after a few days of rain and thank goodness for that! At least Clemmie and I can spend time in the garden as our house is taken over by builders and covered in dust and debris. And there won’t even be a lovely shiny new kitchen or extension at the end of it, as they’re here to fix a leaking pipe buried deep in the wall of our downstairs cloakroom.

We need to get it fixed before we go on holiday as the consequences if it ruptured even more while we were away do not bear thinking about. Once the leak has been repaired all the walls and the ceiling have to dry out which will necessitate moving our fridge freezer and two large kitchen cupboards into the dining area (as that wall backs onto the cloakroom) which is not ideal when you have three kids and an already cramped kitchen…

But every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. At least the downstairs loo was on the list of rooms we hadn’t decorated since moving here six years ago, so I’m trying very hard to see this as an opportunity to replace the wood-effect laminate floor and pink walls with something more tasteful.

From this…

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to something like this in a couple of months if we’re lucky

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If money was no object…

…my dream home would be furnished with these items.

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Furniture Collage

Vivienne Westwood Squiggles rug

Louis Ghost chair by Philippe Starck

Super Elliptical table by Fritz Hansen

Eames rocking chair and Liv tulle lamp by Jonas Bohlin;

 

All pictures from my Pintrest board My Dream Abode

Growing up fast – Boys’ bedroom ideas

I’m sure I’m not the only mum who feels like this, but sometimes I look at my first-born and I can’t help but wonder where the years have gone. Is it really a decade since I struggled into work, heavily pregnant in the heatwave of 2003, excited but also a little bit scared at the prospect of becoming a mum?

This autumn he turns ten and there are already a few signs of pre-teen behaviour lurking in the shadows. Moodiness, yes, and a burgeoning desire for time alone to listen to music, read or just stare into space (preparing for all those hours of teenage angst no doubt!) but also a growing maturity that seems to manifest itself in a more caring and considerate approach to those around him (with the possible exception of his little brother!).

On a more practical level, he is definitely starting to outgrow his pirate-themed bedroom decor and we have started to look at different ideas in magazines and on Pintrest with a view to redecorating his room after the summer. He’s keen on a feature wall with graffiti wallpaper to offset an otherwise neutral colour scheme with white walls and wooden floor boards. On the whole, I would like to make sure that it is a room that will last him for quite a few years and can easily be updated by changing a few details like cushions, rugs and art work (or more likely, posters tacked on to the walls!).

Here is a selection of what we have found so far:

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All images from my Pintrest board Boys’ Bedrooms (link)

Recipe: Gluten free chocolate cake

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For Clemmie’s birthday party last weekend I made a gluten free chocolate cake in lieu of a traditional birthday cake so that my husband, who suffers from coeliac disease, could have a slice too. The cake turned out really well – nice and gooey on the inside – and tasted delicious with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients:

  • 100 g margarine or butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 250 g caster sugar
  • 90 g gluten free flour
  • 5 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp vanilla essence

1. Melt the butter or margarine over a low heat and let it cool

2. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence until light and fluffy

3. Combine the gluten free flour and cocoa powder in a separate bowl and carefully fold into the sugar and egg mixture

4. Add the melted butter or margarine and stir to combine

5. Grease a springform cake tin and coat it with cocoa powder before pouring in the batter

6. Bake in the oven at 150°C for 25-30 minutes.

Cake empty

A Room of One’s Own: Inspirational Workspaces

One of the (very minor) sacrifices we had to make when we had a third baby was to give up our home office and turn it into a nursery. I know we’re very lucky to have the space that we do, and we could have put the boys into the same bedroom but we decided that would be a surefire route to even less sleep.

While I do have a desk in my bedroom, I would love to one day have a separate workspace again. Not least so that we would have somewhere to keep our books and all the files containing important documents and other things I want to hold on to, like school reports and the children’s art work. As we only have one small bookcase at the moment, we have to be really ruthless about which books we keep – paperbacks go straight to the charity shop once we’ve read them and I try to borrow books from the library rather than buy new ones. Other essentials in my dream office would be a nice big desk and a large noticeboard for  inspirational pictures and important memos.

Here are some lovely images of inspirational home offices from a board I just started following on Pintrest called My Future Home (find it here) I love the first picture and I think my ideal office space would incorporate elements from the top four images. Which one is your favourite?

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A Happy Day

window sign

Today was no ordinary day – it was Clemmie’s third birthday. (Sign from a shop window in our village)

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Present opening and cupcakes for breakfast.

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The best present was without a doubt the yellow scooter which had been talked about for weeks. It had its first outing on the school run this morning.

Scooter school

A birthday party for a handful of little friends at home in the garden. Another day of glorious weather – long may it last!

Birthday party

Playing in the garden but the beloved scooter was never far away. No one else was allowed to touch it and for once I did not implore her to share.

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Happy birthday girl!

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