Update your interiors for Spring with Magpie

Hi guys,
I'm having a real interior design binge at the moment: Apartment Therapy is like crack to me! We bought our new house last May (so very nearly a year ago) and have done loads of renovating/decorating upstairs. But the big job that is the downstairs of our house has remained pretty much untouched: until now! Whilst spending one of many hours online window shopping for the details we'll put in when the real work is finally done, I stumbled across Magpie. Magpie is a British based ceramics company: they also create coordinating soft furnishings. There pieces tap into my personal taste so perfectly I wondered for a moment if there was some special mind voodoo going on!



I can imagine these pieces sitting on the 1950s Mid-Century dining table we bought last year (that still needs sanding and varnishing, but of course in my daydream it looks perfect!) To say the pieces are such great quality and such lovely designs, I was surprised by how reasonable the price-points are. 'Chirpy', the bird collection, is my favourite one: I love the rich colours and the mid century feel will match the theme of my open plan living room/dining room perfectly. The price point for this range is £8.50 for a mug, £20 for a set of four side plates, and £22.50 for a 4 serving espresso set. See what I mean? Really reasonable prices!

Looking what I'm going to put on it when it's finished has given me the inspiration I need to get out into the garden and finally get that dining table sanded down! Do you get newly motivated to update your house at this time of year? I suppose they call it 'Spring Cleaning' for a reason!

Love Tor x

2014 Trends From Achica: My New Obsession

Hi guys,
One of my main resolutions for 2014 (certainly my main shopping resolution) is to finally get to work on our house. We have so much decoration and renovation to do, and I have a vision for how I want the place to look: we're just not there yet!

We've christened 2014 the year of the house. And so all of my shopping focus is on shopping for things I need to get the place kitted out and looking perfect. That's why Achica is my newest obsession: it's like BrandAlley, but for incredible home furnishings! They sent me over their 2014 trend report this week, and I genuinely went weak at the knees with excitement. If my house could look like their catalogue then I would be one very happy bunny:


The geometric-style light fitting is on my immediate hunt and find list! I've bought an incredible chandelier for above my dining table, but don't want to get an electrician in to fit it until I have one for the living room too, so it's a matter of urgency. I also love the pastel room, and am going to use that picture as the basis for my office decoration!

So far, the only rooms we've completed are our bedroom (which we've done in various shades of grey with a vaguely Parisian feel) and Wilbur's nursery (which has a full-blown circus theme). My next project is the bathroom, which we are decking out in a water coloured blue and accessorising with Cath Kidston's rubber duck print. Then it's time to tackle the living room - gulp! We have Sanderson's dandelion clocks wallpaper for the feature wall and then need to get to work with the sander on all the fixtures and fittings. It's going to be the mother of all jobs, but we're looking forward to getting stuck in!

Do you have any interiors resolutions for 2014? And are you using the new year as an excuse to have a proper spring clean? Or are your resolutions far more fashion than home based? I'd love to hear all about them!

Love Tor x

Home: The hunt for the perfect desk!

Hi guys,
Despite the fact that we moved into our house back in April, it was only last weekend that we unpacked the final box! Unpacking those last boxes means that the 'box room' (also known as my office) is finally cleared and I am able to put the room together and start working in it: at the minute I'm working from a corner of our bedroom! Working for yourself requires piles of discipline (particularly when you're also trying to juggle looking after a demanding baby too) and I am so excited to get my office set up and finally be able to have my own dedicated work zone: and somewhere to put my mountain of filing too!
I have an office chair, shelving unit and even a lovely sofa in my office. But what I don't have is a desk. So right now that's my current obsession. I want something slightly unusual that will fit in with the quirky design of the room, but still usable and with plenty of room for all this paperwork. I really like this Z shaped desk from Furniture Plus Online, because of its unusual shape and its build in filing cabinet. The ultimate style I want from the room is relaxed and vintage inspired and something that feels really me. If I could end up with something that looked like either of these rooms I would be a really happy bunny: 
Do you have a home office? How have you decorated it? I'd love it if you could share links to your office inspiration: it's my current obsession! And of course, I'll be sharing the pictures with you as soon as I've finally finished mine!

Love Tor x

Home: Our house. In the middle of our street.

Hi guys,
Lots of people have asked if we're in our new house yet (I know I've done nothing but talk about it for a month). And the answer is yes! We moved in last week, and we've already unpacked most of the boxes, and started decorating and making our mark on the place.

Here's a quick shot of the palace I'll now be calling home, and our very first meal in the new living room. Enjoyed from Tupperware tubs and eaten whilst sat on the baby's play mat, but it still counts!

The last week has been a whirl of boxes, phone calls to utility companies, and furniture deliveries: hence my radio silence for much of last week. Our internet wasn't reconnected until last Thursday. But now normal blogging service has resumed, and I'm back with a vengeance!

I've posted lots more 'before' pictures of the house over on the Fabfrocks at Home blog. And I'll be updating it regularly with our DIY/Home decorating and shopping progress. So if you want to follow our journey, that's where to go!

Love Tor x

Fabfrocks at home: The compromise living room

Hi guys,
Well, you've already seen the dressing room and the nursery. Next up on the tour of our new house is the living room. Because the house has a living room and dining room, the room is much smaller than the living/dining combo room we had in the old flat. The affect is that it feels nice and cosy, full of all my favourite things.

I call our living room a compromise room because Mike and I have such different tastes. He likes things minimalist, and is a huge fan of slick black furniture. Me? Well I'm the complete opposite! I like vintage, colour, and clutter! So our living room is an odd combination of both. Here's how it looks:




The trunk looks vintage but isn't, it's actually from Homesense. The phone and lamp are both from Debenhams and the little brass bird was a bootsale acquired gift from a friend. We brought the furry stags head back from Berlin (I promise you stuffing this into Mike's rucksack because we were travelling hand-luggage-only was not a highlight of the trip!) The fireguard screen is the newest addition to this room: I got it from a carboot sale for just £1, where it needed some serious work. We scrubbed it clean, replaced the fabric inside the body of the screen and new jewelled knobs for the top (these are just ordinary doorknobs from B&Q, but they serve exactly the same purpose!)

We're renting this place (we're hoping to buy early next year) so we're reluctant to paint or do any extensive refurbishment to the living room: renting and injecting personality is hard! But I do like this room: it's so cozy and just perfect for snuggling up warm in when it's cold outside.

Do you have to compromise in your house? Do you have different tastes from your partner/housemates and how do you make it work?

Love Tor xx

Fabfrocks at Home: My walk-in wardrobe

Hi guys,
It has always been a fantasy of mine to have a walk-in wardrobe. A room where I could keep all of my clothes and accessories, plan outfits, a relaxing fashion space that was just for me. So when we moved into a house that had a box room which could only be accessed from the main bedroom my first thought wasn't the same as everyone elses ("nursery!"). No: my first thought was '"wardrobe!" I promptly gave my husband full reign of the built-in wardrobe in the bedroom, and my mission for this weekend was to a) finally unpack all my clothes (it's only been 3 months!) and b) set about creating my dream.

The main thing was that I wanted to turn the room, effectively a blank canvas, into a wardrobe on a tight budget. So I utilized the big wardrobe, chest of drawers, and dressing table that we already had from our old flat. I then brought an £8.99 hanging mirror from The Range which I've hung over my wardrobe door, storage boxes from John Lewis for my handbags (£9 each) and from Asda for my make up and jewellery (£4 each).




Finally I wanted a clever storage solution for all my shoes, in a way that I could see them and the pairs I wear most often could be on display. And a comfy chair, so that I could view my domain for hours without hurting my back. So we hit some second hand furniture stores and picked up some shelves for the shoes for £20. Sadly I couldn't find an armchair I liked, but the hunt is still on!


The plan was that turning this space into a workable dressing room shouldn't cost more than £100: I managed to achieve my goal and have only spent £65 so far, including the hooks and trinket boxes and other bits and pieces I picked up. That means I have £35 left to find that elusive armchair. Pretty impressive, even if I do say so myself, and not bad for a weekend's work!!

Now I will admit this isn't quite the walk in I always dreamed of. What I would really like is an open floor to ceiling wardrobe across one whole wall, so that all of my clothes were always on display. But as we're renting this place, fitting something that big to the walls just isn't feasible. And so, for now, this is my version of the dream! I'm really looking forward to getting dressed tomorrow morning....

Love Tor x

Fabfrocks at home: The chair

Yes, you're right: this is a picture of a chair.

I don't often feature home stuff on the blog, but I painted and reupholstered this chair myself and i'm so proud of how it's turned out that I have to share!

I brought the fabric for the seat about 6 months ago and have spent all that time looking for the perfect chair to cover. I found it at the weekend and I couldn't have been more excited: according to its markings it is from 1969 but it has the modern shape that is the bf's preference and was a bargain at £20 (my lovely nan paid: a wonderful gift) When we bought it it was white and had a black leather pad. With the help of my dad (this is code for 'he did most of the work') it was painted with a pillarbox red gloss paint. It needed a second coat, which I applied last night. Then my mum showed me how reupholster the cushion, which I did once I got the chair back to London: it was a real family effort!

I still have loads of fabric left (acres in fact!) to make some cushions which will make the chair more comfortable to sit back in, and tie the colour scheme and patterns all together too. I originally wanted to paint the chair turquoise but it didn't match the room, and now i'm really happy with how the red turned out. I enjoyed doing it so much that i'm now on the look out for another chair to do something very similar to for our bedroom!

If you add up the cost of the original chair, paint, and fabric, making this cost around £40. But I think that's incredibly cheap for a piece of furniture, especially when you consider that noone in the whole world can have a chair quite like this!

Love, Tor xx