Double Renovation: Why The Sudden Rush?
I’ve made a little video for my Instagram page @casacrilly, where I put all of my house and interiors stuff, and it’s all about the double renovation we’re currently in the midst of – we’re doing up a little seaside holiday cottage in Dorset and also the house we’ve moved to. It’s all quite chaotic and I keep wondering whether it’s all entirely necessary but then I remember the two main reasons why all of this work (currently wall demolition, insulation, re-wiring and the full works in Dorset and then floor-sanding and floor-staining here at home) is pressing and necessary. To precis them for you, in case you don’t want to have to watch the video:
a) the cottage needs to be rented out, otherwise it completely defeats the point of itself and
b) we’ve started the chain of works at our own house because the floors are trying to kill me
I’ll expand on point b, shall I? Let’s rewind to when we first viewed our new house. It was instant love for the location and the views, which are unbeatable: not so much for the acres and acres of light solid elm throughout the interior. All solid elm floors, bespoke wardrobes and shelving in almost every room (beautifully done, I should say), a huge double-width staircase carved out of – you guessed it! – solid elm. Now I love wooden floors in photos, but in real life? Slidey as anything! Unless you wear shoes indoors (which feels weird to me) it’s like existing on an ice rink. If you cross the kitchen with a cup of tea then you’re basically signing away your right to sue. Run to answer the telephone (yes we still have a landline that we use, old school!) and you risk breaking your neck.
It becomes infinitely trickier with small children and shiny wooden floors. They career about like lunatics and the day is punctuated by me screaming “hold onto the bannister!” every time they go up or down the stairs. Which is a lot.
Then you can add the noise factor in. (I should have called this post Why I Now Love Carpets). Drop a toy on a wooden floor upstairs and the sound goes straight through you. Twice. The first time when it makes initial impact and then again when it inevitably rolls its way across the floor. Fitted carpet takes away the pain; a dropped basket of wooden foodstuffs at 6.25am? It’s like it never happened. Carpet brings a veil of hush. And yes, you can use rugs, but I do like the luxuriousness of a fitted carpet in bedrooms. And the neatness. Rugs in bedrooms, I can never seem to position them sensibly and then when I get them just right, I realise that the middle isn’t in line with the window, or the edge stops the door from opening.
So, it’s carpets upstairs and beautiful slippery, solid elm down. With rugs. (I seem to be better at downstairs rug positioning for some reason!) But before the neck-saving carpets can be rolled out, we have to stain all of the woodwork. Why? Because it’s like being in one of those furniture shops that only stock the sort of orangey oak or pine that was all the rage in the eighties. It’s overwhelmingly Pine Village. Even though it’s not pine, it’s elm. But the colour is an absolute bombardment to the senses and makes me feel as though I’m trapped in a space-time vortex that has paused in 1991. I think it’s just because there is so much of it.
That’s why we’re taking the wood down a notch or two, to something more in keeping with the seventies style in which it has been built. It’s all being stripped, stained and refinished and will be slightly darker, more luxurious in feel and more comfortable, I think – sometimes with the very light wood and the huge windows, I feel like Mike TeeVee in Wonka’s factory when they’re all in that bright white studio. It’s enough to give you snow blindness if it’s a very sunny day!
I should point out that we’re not changing the wood in the sunken living room that’s featured in these photos – that room is free of Pine Overwhelm Vibes. Annoyingly, the floor will have to come up at some point because underfloor heating is going in, but that’s a story for another day.
Right, well that turned into a very long explanation of what I basically said in the video. You can watch it here if you’d like a sort of audiobook version of this post! Make sure you’re following on @casacrilly for more regular updates and I’ll be back soon with a cottage update… I worry that posts like these are boring if you hate house stuff, but hopefully they’re labelled well enough to allow people to skip over them if they just want beauty…
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©2020 “
Casa Crilly and the Double Renovation
I said I’d come back to you with more about my side-hustle, sneakily mentioned last summer and not referred to since. It has been a bit crazy on the house front and so I didn’t really know where to start: then Christmas happened and then the latest lockdown and so we find ourselves in February with a lot of catching up to do.
The exciting project that I’ve had on the down-low is a new renovation project, a little seaside holiday cottage in Dorset that I bought as an investment last summer. Just as a bit of background, I’ve been working on this holiday cottage idea, obsessively, for around five years but it has never been the right time to take the final leap and buy somewhere. I had found places over the years, but they had always been a little bit too far away for me to keep my eye on them, or they needed too much work, or they looked generally just too high maintenance for my current time-poor, young-kids situation .
Anyway, to cut a long story short, a cottage came up that was pretty much perfect, apart from not having any real kitchen, or heating, or phone line, or internet, and apart from the fact it needed some walls knocking about and a new bathroom and all new glazing and new floors, and I thought: THIS SEEMS LIKE A BRILLIANT IDEA!
So here we are, about to embark on a cottage reno. It actually feels easier than any other work we’ve done – I’m relatively detached from it because it’s not a home, it’s a business – but who knows what will happen as time goes on? We’ve already made quite a good start, but things have obviously been delayed because of lockdown, so once we get going properly there will be loads to write and talk about.
And I’m really excited for it to be done and for people to start staying there, because the location is so good. It’s completely off the beaten track, down a footpath that then leads down to the most beautiful beach that’s quite wild and wonderfully undeveloped. It was the location that got me, really…
…which brings me onto the other huge change: we actually moved house too! Just before Christmas. I think a lot of friends and family now firmly have us down in their address books as “the couple who have lost the plot”, but those who managed to see the new place before lockdown get why we did it. The views are incredible and we’re in a location that we didn’t ever think would come up, not in our lifetime at any rate. But we’ve managed to land ourselves another great big renovation project with the panoramic landscapes. I feel massively excited about that, or desperately stressed, depending which day of the week you ask me. I had completely forgotten that Mr AMR and I seem to have to disagree on absolutely everything for at least a month before finally listening to each other and realising that we actually want the same thing after all. It’s a process.
Our house is a completely different kettle of fish to the last house; it was built in the seventies onto a hill and has huge expanses of glazing and split levels and the whole house is surrounded by lush gardens, all you can hear is the sound of the brook and the singing birds. It’s quite a change going from the elegance and fine detail of a Georgian house to the simplicity of a modernist one, but then we always had mid-century places before so I suppose we must just be drawn to them!
So yeah: two renovations to think about and I think that they will probably overlap a little, which could be fun. Crazy-face emoji. Make sure you’re following on @casacrilly Instagram page for updates, just in case this lot of building work kills me off and it’s the last of my home content forever. I also have a Pinterest board, if you’re into that sort of thing – it was never really meant for public consumption, but it gives you a good idea of where I’m heading with things: Casa Crilly Pinterest.
Kind of bad timing, all of this, seeing as though we’re in a lockdown again, but I’m spending a lot of time planning and writing lists and annoying Charlie the Builder with my ever-changing plans. I think he probably rues the day he met me! He should set up a club with Mr AMR, hahahaha…..
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©2020 “
Simple Upgrades for a Showstopping Table
I’ve always fancied being the sort of person that could throw one of those dinner parties that seemingly only exist in Ferrero Rocher commercials and magazine shoots; French farmhouse tables overflowing with flowers and flickering candles, fine linen napkins placed upon artfully stacked place settings… A proper lavish dinner party thrown by the sort of grownup that I thought I would become. One day. The organised and stylish sort, possibly wearing a one-shouldered fuchsia organza ballgown and sporting an elfin crop.
In reality my table is covered in crayon and if I even get the food served onto it it’s a bloody miracle, especially at Christmas – who has time to arse about with flowers and linen when the turkey’s still defrosting in the sink and the cranberry sauce has bubbled over onto the hob and you’ve accidentally blocked the kitchen sink with goose fat?
But this year, this year, my reader friends, I am stepping up my table game. Partly because I met an actual real-life Tablescaper (it’s a thing) at a luncheon and became transfixed with her Instagram feed but mostly because for the past few years I have had an urge to make everything in my life a bit more domesticated and adult and this Christmas is the proverbial climax. I’ve bought a food processor so that I can make grown-up shredded vegetable ‘slaws’ like Jamie Oliver, I’ve bought a welly rack so that I can stop slugs from taking up residence inside my wellies. I use the phrase “willy nilly” and also “goodness gracious” (mainly to stop me from saying for f*ck’s sake all the time) and I bought some pot pourri.
See? Completely domesticated and adult.
But the grown-up dinner table thing is a bit more difficult. Firstly, I don’t happen to have a Tablescaper to hand (seriously, it’s actually a thing – check out event designer Fiona Leahy on Instagram) or a food stylist, like in the magazines. No washing up liquid in the beer to make it more frothy, no varnish on the turkey skin to make it gleam – no insulation foam squirted atop the pies to make them look as though they’ve been adorned with the most perfect swirls of cream…
It’s just me and the table. And the five thousand torn-out magazine pages that I’ve been studying obsessively to work out what these stylist people actually do to make everything look so fancy. Here are my thoughts and they’re all pretty straightforward – just little bits and bobs you can change or add to make things a bit fancier looking. Like. And none of these tweaks and upgrades need to be particularly expensive, either, apart from the posh plates bit, if you want posh plates, but even those are saving money in a roundabout way if you follow my advice…
So read on to find out how to make simple upgrades for a showstopping dinner table. (You know it was at the top of your list of priorities.)
Unapologetic Candles
I usually avoid candles like the plague because I am (since having kids) a health and safety fanatic. Although my cat is the same colour as the stair carpet and we’re all at risk of breaking our necks about eighty times a day, so I’m not sure why I even bother worrying.
Anyway, this is an obvious one but candles really do make a dinner table look amazing. And I’m not talking about IKEA tealights, though those serve a purpose, I’m talking about candles of height and distinction. Unapologetic candles. Long, elegant tapered ones that are raised upon ornate holders, so that their flames softly illuminate the chattering guests’ faces and don’t just lie there at tabletop level, heating up the hummus and scorching people’s sleeves.
Get those candles up high and all of a sudden you have drama and theatrical shadows and the thrilling prospect of at least one person knocking them over and setting fire to the tablecloth.
I’ve recently discovered pillar candles, too – the best I’ve tried are the Charles Farris altar candles (you can find them at John Lewis here*, from £6) but I’d welcome your own recommendations. I love how solid and chunky the pillar candles are and how brilliant they look grouped together – I buy different heights and plonk them on a large plate or tray or wooden board.
Leopard candlesticks were bought from OKA here* – £45 for two. Pillar candles bought en masse from John Lewis (see above), pottery is Burleigh x Soho Home here. Table is vintage Ercol, bought from eBay two years ago as a set with six chairs. Napkins are Zara (see below) and the bee napkin rings were from House of Fraser two years ago.
Beautiful stainless steel cutlery is from Robert Welch – the Palm Bright range here. Pottery shown here is Burleigh x Soho Home as before and Burleigh in Black Regal Peacock, see here.
Posh Useful Plates
Choosing nice dinner plates (and bowls, and side plates and whatever else you end up getting once you dip your toe into the world of dinnerware) is an absolute minefield because you always end up doing one of two things (at least I do):
1 Buying amazing plates that are far too fancy to eat on every day; they are so fine that they break if you cut your potatoes too vigorously, or they shatter if you sneeze too hard in their direction.
2 Buying plain, solid plates that weigh the same as manhole covers but that spark no joy whatsoever and feel too dowdy for nice dinners, which means that you then also end up buying option one anyway and keeping them in the “special” cupboard for three hundred and sixty days of the year.
What you really want (I now know from vast-ish experience – I have many plates, both living and departed) is a plate that’s practical, reasonably hardy and that sparks utter, utter joy every time you lay the table. Dinnerware that you will use every single day, that isn’t so absurdly dear that you’ll have palpitations about it but that is beautiful enough to serve every situation.
Enter from stage left: Burleigh pottery. My Burleigh jugs (hoho) are some of my most prized home possessions. Sounds silly, I know, but they really bring a smile to my face. The design on them just looks good everywhere. Rustic old table? Put a Burleigh jug in the centre and suddenly it’s a scene from Country Homes and Interiors. Mid Century glass-fronted sideboard? Fill that with Calico tableware and the contrast between traditional and modern is a pleasing one of intense and magnificent beauty.
(Do I spend too much time thinking about how stuff looks? Absolutely. We all have our hobbies!)
The Burleigh pieces in these pictures are a combination of the stately Black Regal Peacock range (on Burleigh’s website here) and the glorious Hibiscus, which is exclusive to Soho Home (Burleigh x Soho Home here). You can find all of the classic designs on Burleigh’s website here. The brilliant thing about Burleigh is that almost everything looks great thrown together, even from different ranges – a mix and match set-up looks cool and purposeful rather than weird and accidental. The feeling should be a general one of “ooh, look at me, I’m too cool to have everything matching – I’m so eclectic!” rather than “shit, I’ve dropped another three plates into the sink Tony, we’re going to have to use some bits from the wedding set.”
Have a browse on their site – there’s also a factory shop, which I must never go near ever, ever because I would buy it all, and there are various pre-chosen sets that offer better value than buying pieces separately.
Oh and if you’re still after gift ideas then there couldn’t be a better gift for a tea-lover than a Burleigh tea set, surely? I love the pretty blue Felicity tea set, here and the traditional Blue Calico, here.
Pillar candles from John Lewis, as before. Pottery as detailed above. Gold cutlery bought from Marks and Spencer last year here*, beast-footed bowl was bought from Anthropologie. Glassware bought from H&M home.
Proper Napkins
Oh I do love a proper napkin. We never use them at home if we’re alone (bit of kitchen roll if it’s a particularly messy taco-typed meal, otherwise why do you even need one?) but for dinners and special occasions it just feels lovely and so grownup to offer a pressed linen or cotton napkin.
If you can be arsed to press them.
If you can’t be bothered to iron then make sure you get the linen ones that look hipster and cool even when they are wrinkled. And tie a bit of rustic ribbon or brown string around them instead of using a napkin ring, so that they look like something you’ve found in a hay barn. Sprig of dried lavender, job done.
I rather like the napkins simply folded over once and thrown nonchalantly onto the top of the plate, as though a Parisian waiter has laid the table. “F*ck you customer!*”
(*not all Parisian waiters hate their clientele, I’m sure. At any rate, their constant ire is always a great source of amusement to me!)
I bought my table linen from Zara here – the napkins were £19 for four and I bought a matching lace-trimmed table runner. To be quite honest, the runner is something of a faff – I didn’t need it and it’s covered in all of the candles/flowers/serving plates anyway!
Crocodile Candle Holders, £30 each from &Klavering – I bought mine at Amara here*.
Duck leg candle holders, £9.95 each – I bought mine at Graham & Green here*.
Kitsch Pointless Plates
If you already have serviceable crockery but want something quirkier, adding some smaller plates to sit over the top of your existing ones can be cheaper and less of a commitment than going for a whole new set. It also looks really fancy when you use your normal dinner plate as a charger and then place a smaller, more decorative one on top. Utterly pointless, from an eating point of view, but gives everything a bit of a facelift.
I quite like pointless plates, anyway – good for olive stones, serving individual quenelles of butter, sauces, ketchup or anything you want to decant from a jar or bottle. As plates for eating from, they are ridiculous, but for adding a bit of jazz and flair to the table they are excellent! Which makes them not pointless, I suppose…
I bought these badgery/fruity ones from H&M Home and they were a few pounds each. (I have no clue where they have gone online, they seem to have vanished, but I only bought them the other week so they may have a comeback tour.)
They have that kitsch sort of appeal that seems to be de rigeur at the moment and I thought that they looked relatively festive, too. They are small enough that they can all be packed away into the back of the cupboard when they’re not needed – all much more convenient than buying a whole set of specific “Christmas” plates with – I dunno – pine trees on them or something.
Foliage and Flowers
I am not a person who buys flowers for myself. I’m incredibly fortunate in that now and then clients might send me a beautiful bunch, and in the spring and summer I pick bluebells and various other flowers from the garden, but going to the actual florist has always seemed like a huge extravagance.
However I did splash out a few times this year, usually because I was filming something in particular and wanted to sort of “dress” the background, and it’s amazing how much of a difference a vase of flowers can make to a room.
So put a load of flowers on a dinner table and all of a sudden you’ve halfway there in terms of looks. Add flowers, or foliage, and it’s no longer just a dinner table, it’s a desirable place to be. People are drawn to their seats, everything suddenly looks so sumptuous and decadent and of course the food will be delicious if the setting looks that good…
(Little do they know that you’ve reheated four Tesco lasagnes and put some sprigs of parsley on top. Dug around the edges with the back of a teaspoon to make it look more homemade. Drizzled it with extra virgin olive oil. Scorched the top a bit with a bunsen burner to make it look authentic.)
So yeah: flaaaars. The ones in these pictures were for my birthday and the red berry ones were taken home after an event I was at because I didn’t want them to go to waste. They’ve lasted over a week already – I just need to keep feeding them and nursing them for a couple more weeks and I might be able to use them for Christmas! (Mental image of me gently wiping the berries and leaves with a cool cloth, changing the water hourly, adding special feed powder and carefully snipping out dead bits.)
Joking aside, because I will have to buy more at Christmas, it’s really worth taking a look inside your local independent florist’s. Mine quite often has a bucket of “imperfect” blooms outside, dead cheap, really great condition still but not quite up to the standard they need to be for the full-price bouquets. I agree it’s an extravagance, but a beautiful extravagance and one that – if you’re anything like me – will bring you great cheer.
Lots of Stuff Overstuffing
One of the common things you see in the tablescaping images on Instagram (what has my life become?!) is that the tables tend to be really full of stuff. I mean you can barely get the plates in front of the guests. There are huge flower arrangements that take up 80% of the surface area, place names on elaborate cards, candles by the dozen, glasses for this and tumblers for that, gifts for the guests (for the love of God don’t get started on that, you’ll be financially bereft by Boxing Day!), jugs of Seedlip Cocktail, decanters of well-drawn eco-water…
It’s all very OTT and would be faintly absurd in a domestic setting perhaps, but the feeling of table excess does look very appealing and inviting. So I suppose the general rule is to do things with purpose – if you’re keeping it all very elegant and minimalist then fine, a white linen tablecloth and some beautiful candles will do, but if you’re going for the “fuller” look then try not to do it by halves!
You can easily “get the look” by keeping your flowers (if you have any) low and spread out, rather than tall and slim so that they cover more ground. At Christmas, rather than paying for an expensive bunch of flowers, you could ask the florist if they have lots of seasonal green foliage, which is cheaper and looks great in abundance around the centre of the table. Smells amazing too.
(If you have a holly bush/fir tree in the garden then you know where you need to go with your garden scissors!)
If you’re short of bits and bobs and the table looks a bit empty then bring out the condiments and put them in interesting bowls and jugs. It’s a bit of a pain when you have to decant them back at the end of the night but it’s nicer than having a jar of Hellman’s on the table and it gives you more – well – stuff.
I realise this is becoming a little bit Pippa’s Tips obvious, so I’ll stop now, but surely you’ve got the gist of it? Make it look decadent by grouping things like candles and vases, add height to the table with tall candlesticks rather than little tealights and add some interest with gorgeous dinnerware and cutlery. If you’re going the whole shebang with your dinnerware and cutlery then get stuff that you’ll use all the time and not just squirrel away “for best”, and if you’re on a budget or have perfectly good crockery that you just find a bit boring then add some quirky little plates to sit on top. (Hunt around for bits that look good with it, or that purposefully mismatch.)
Right, I’m off to work out how to use my new food processor. Hopefully it won’t go the same way as the last one, which had an accident when it tried to crush some ice. (It had already drunk six salt-rimmed Margaritas…)
The post Simple Upgrades for a Showstopping Table appeared first on A Model Recommends.
Simple Upgrades for a Showstopping Table was first posted on December 13, 2019 at 7:20 pm.
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Welcome to My Fireplace Catalogue
I was going to call this post Top Faux Christmas Garlands but when I looked at the pictures it was more like a fireplace catalogue, so I’ve kept the title real and relevant for you.
Hohoho.
Fireplaces aren’t all they’re crack(l)ed up to be, in my opinion. It must have been more than a full time job, in the Georgian times, keeping the house fires going. A constant hassle. Finding your matches, using your old manuscripts as kindling, hoovering up the soot with Ye Olde Henry Hoovre.
And also quite hazardous, all those sizzling grates. Imagine always worrying about whether a spark had flown too far from the hearth and set fire to the edge of your wicker chair or piece of parchment or box of gunpowder or whatever.
No smoke detectors, either – the first you’d have known about a disaster was your horse winnying in the stable. And that’s not the most reliable method.
In these modern times, sticking the heating on is far simpler than going outside into the cold and selecting your firewood, chopping it, carrying it inside and then arranging it carefully so that the flames catch etc etc.
(I write that like I’ve actually done it – I haven’t lit a fire since I was in the Girl Guides, which was almost thirty years ago now. Mr AMR does it and has all of the equipment, like his special axe and his special gloves…I like to dress as Red Riding Hood and trot past the woodshed coquettishly.)
And that’s why none of the fireplaces in the house are working open ones (two have wood-burners). It’s a pain in the arse having proper fires. They look great in pictures, in reality they are probably the least efficient way of heating a house known to man. Apparently you lose about eighty per cent of the heat up the chimney. Or something. Don’t quote me – I’ve guessed at that statistic and can’t even be bothered to open a new internet tab to check it!
Dedication.
Anyway, welcome to my fireplace showcase. Or, if we’re being sensible about it, a roundup of some of the best faux garlands. Didn’t think you needed a garland in your life? Think again. I’m a convert. If you have a large, long feature in a room, such as a mantelpiece or a shelf or a console table, then a garland arranged along the length of it looks instantly quite plushly festive.
Why faux? Have you seen the price of fresh ones? Good God, you could buy the whole Christmas dinner thrice over. And they die! For some reason I don’t mind if the wreath dies (and I love the smell of the real ones as I come in the front door) but an indoor garland that’s only on show for a few weeks of the year: give me faux. Give me something I can box up and stick on the loft until next year.
Here are my favourites:
Frosted Red Berry Garland, Gisela Graham at Amara here*.
I think that this one might be my overall favourite (followed by the other red berries one, see below – I must have a thing about red this year!); there’s something a bit childlike and magical about the frosted apples and berries. It almost feels as though there should be toadstools and little silvery spiderwebs woven in too!
I think that because the apples and berries look so purposefully fake, the whole garland just seems incredibly well put-together and expensive. It’s properly kitsch and it’s not pretending to be something it’s not.
I bought my garland at Amara here* – it was £50.
Three Metre Pre-Lit Christmas Garland, Marks & Spencer In-store.
Wow, this went fast online! No wonder, it’s a beauty – really, really very long and generous on the faux-foliage. Fo-fo-foliage.
I hated the pre-lit thing, when I first switched the lights on, but they’ve grown on me. It’s cheery and festive.
Berry Garland from Sainsbury’s In-store and Argos here
This berry number is my second favourite garland. I think that it just looks quite elegant and striking and chic.
Sold out online, the one at Argos looks really very similar (and now that Argos are inside my local Sainsbury’s I do wonder whether it’s the same garland?) to the point where even the berries are in the same positions!
Golden Pinecone Garland, £18 at Amara here*
Another simple but rather elegant buy, this pinecone garland is lightweight and non-fussy but looks very cheerful draped along a shelf or mantelpiece.
This would possibly be my pick if I needed to use a garland on the Christmas table, too – all of the others are a bit too cumbersome. This one would bend and snake around things nicely! I paid £18 for mine at Amara here*.
The gorgeous wooden nutcrackers are extra large ones and you can find them at M&S here* and instore.
This frosted berry and faux-faux-foliage garland is also from Marks & Spencer, but you need to run to store to catch it. Again pre-lit, it’s slightly more muted because of the frosty effect and so would suit your interior decor if you prefer lighter, more neutral tones.
I quite like the sprigs of white berries and the snowy pine cones. This one isn’t so supersized as the other M&S garland – I think it’s about 180cm, which seems to be about standard…
Pom Pom Garland, £12 at Sainsbury’s here.
This fluffy garland is soft and cute and perfect for a kid’s room. Angelica was thrilled with this when she came home from school – she wasn’t expecting any decorations in her room (however minimal) so it was a bit of a bonus. Except that then Ted wanted decorations and so we had to cover his beams in tinsel and I nearly broke my neck standing on the footstool…
What have a started? Next year the decorations will have crept into the garden…in a few years it’ll be one of those mad houses that people queue up to see, with lights covering the whole exterior and a full-size Santa sticking out of the chimney. Order your tickets now….
The post Welcome to My Fireplace Catalogue appeared first on A Model Recommends.
Welcome to My Fireplace Catalogue was first posted on December 6, 2019 at 3:56 pm.
©2018 “A Model Recommends“. Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com
Cinematic Views and a Mouse’s Back
I interrupt the gift guide frenzy to bring you some videos that have somehow slipped the net, here on A Model Recommends. Firstly, this house update and then – perhaps tomorrow if I get a move on – a rambling makeup try-on with a fancy new red lipstick and a chat about Gold Digger.
Please tell me you’ve been watching BBC’S Gold Digger? There’s much I feel I need to discuss with you! I tell you what, I’ll give you a head start now so that you can watch the first episode before my next post – then we can chat about it next time. You’ll definitely have something to say.
Though I’m wary about recommending it as Mr AMR only gave it a four out of ten and felt quite cross that his time had been wasted – I found it utterly ridiculous in many places but enjoyed it immensely.
Anyway, back to the house update: Cinematic Views and a Mouse’s Back. Not an actual mouse’s back; it’s a Farrow & Ball paint shade. Very descriptive. There’ll be a longer post soon with all of the house shenanigans, this is just to keep you all going…
The post Cinematic Views and a Mouse’s Back appeared first on A Model Recommends.
Cinematic Views and a Mouse’s Back was first posted on November 30, 2019 at 12:31 pm.
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Decorating? Read This First…
A great decorating book to feast upon, if you’re something of an interiors aficionado; Farrow & Ball’s Recipes for Decorating* by Joa Studholme. It’s an absolute visual delight. Whether you’re a serial re-painter who loves to experiment with colour or a confused starter with no idea how to pick a more flattering shade for the living room (me), it has both practical advice (how to work with the type of light you have, how to complement your architecture) and pure, unadulterated pictorial eye candy. Pages and pages of painted walls in modern houses, in creaky manors, in cosy attics and open spaces.
I should actually pop my hand up here and say that if all of that sounds like your idea of heaven then you need to make sure you’ve already done the first book from Farrow & Ball, which is called How To Decorate*. Again, educational elements sit alongside a total visual bombardment of decorating loveliness, so you can either read it cover to cover, absorbing every word (me) or dip in and out over a cup of nighttime cocoa for months afterwards, ruminating over future projects in the same way you might look to recipe books for a casual appetite whetter (also me).
How To Decorate (I bought mine here*) starts at the very, very beginning – looking at the direction your light comes from into a room, the size of a room, what you’re going to be using a room for – and gently suggests reasons for choosing certain paint shades and finishes. Although it’s very obviously the best possible advert for Farrow & Ball’s own paint range, you don’t really notice that – or, in my case, I don’t really care. Anyone who can impart such good advice in such an engaging way can take my money, quite frankly. But the decorating style advice could feasibly apply to any paint or wallpaper brand so long as you’re willing to ignore F&B’s warnings about pigment and quality and depth of colour.
Recipes for Decorating takes things a step further with proper in-depth case studies in real houses, looking at the way the paint shades change in different light, how they work with architectural features and so on. At the end of each case study there’s a recipe card with all of the shades noted down – and you can see really clearly here how different paints can look when used in practice.
There’s also a brief section on how to be your own colour curator – the colour curation is a service F&B offer to all customers, where a curator comes to your house and helps you to pick paints. Basically. I treated myself to this last week and it was excellent – it’s £195, but you get a £50 voucher to spend on paint so I’m calling it £145.
And it was so helpful – my curator, Jill, just knew all of the shades inside out and how they would look in each room so it made the decision-making process so much quicker and easier. I’m going to do a full review on the service, so if you have any specific questions then let me know – I wanted to get this post out first because it has been sitting in my drafts folder for months, waiting for images!
So: wonderfully curated book of house p*rn + practical decorating advice = book worth having. Find it online here*, it’s currently £15.94, which also makes it prime Christmas gift-giving fodder if it’s not too early to mention the C-word…
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Decorating? Read This First… was first posted on November 13, 2019 at 4:55 pm.
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