my fancy bathroom floor

look! look! a post about something i have actually done in the house, not just am planning to do or idly dreaming about!

lack of funds and creative fussiness on both our parts led to an experimental and untested idea for our bathroom floor. there are no before photos, as for nearly four years, it was plywood painted with purple fence paint and spattered with various paints and adhesives as we very slowly made progress with the walls (unphotographable!).

mr lc wanted a green and white tiled floor like in the crash rooms in ER, i wanted to get some kind of patterned real linoleum, so we compromised and i screen-printed the floor!! my parents had covered a kitchen table with brown grocery bags and varnished it in the past so i figured along those lines and if it didn't work i could get my linoleum.

i have been using this pattern in black and white for years and we both love it, it is featured in a few places around our home already.

first i papered the floor with thickest lining paper and waterproof PVA, then tiled with the screen-printed thick art paper, and 3 layers of the PVA.  we may need to put a coat of boat varnish over the PVA as it still goes a bit cloudy when it gets drops of water on it, which does tend to happen a lot in a bathroom.

it does look ACE though!! now i just need to get a blind or some kind of "window treatment" so i can stop giving the neighbours a peep-show of an evening!!

when life gives you excess amounts of mint...

one of our mint bushes multiplied massively when we weren't looking so as i love mint soda i decided to make mint cordial!  recipie? pah!! i prefer the challenge of figuring it out as i go along...

two large salad spinners full of curly mint, with a bit of peppermint and apple(?)mint thrown in for possible balance of minty flavour

a litre-ish of boiling water and frightening amounts of caster and unrefined sugar (even for me!)

reduce down for probably not long enough (until it could just about be described as syrupy)

decant into bottle and label with nice ricedk wrapping paper (mr lc says i only made it so i could make the label!)

it does look like dark chicken stock but it tastes good!

The Hallway Plan (yes i'm back)

I can't stop looking at these hallway photos MFAMB posted today, don't know where it's originally from, but think the wallpaper is Farrow and Ball...

We already have an even nicer but similar mirror by our front door but i want a hall like this!  Now I really do have to act on my great idea for our frankly very boring hallway, it involves blackboard paint, white woodwork and ceilings and this Vivviene Westwood wallpaper...

So I just need at least £100 for wallpaper, about £80 for paint and to convince Mr LC that a mainly black hall will be FABULOUS!!  At least boys are usually seduceable with a bit of punk related history!

LOVE!!

Love all the colour and pattern all together! Especially love the lampshade and the pretty coloured plastic hangers and do always love the use of an Aqua Panna bottle - its the styling 'b-side' of S. Pelligrino!

Am assuming this is something to do with Anthropologie?

Image David Meredith via Desire to Inspire

All About the Contrasts!

After all the sugar... Black!  I recently had a large wall in work painted with blackboard paint and it looks GREAT!  My Favorite and My Best had some georgeous black painted summerhouses last week, and Yvestown posted about starting to use black in her house, maybe black is back?

I loved the kitchen blackboard wall trend of a few years ago, but Mr LC said no, I say it may still happen!

I never got my black bedroom as a teenager, parents said no and then landlords resoundingly said no!

Black does look good in a bathroom!

Oh I just need that bear!!!  I would contrast it with something pretty though, maybe a 50s floral still life?

I think, though, that the black wall is going to be the wall behind my desk in our study, I can scrawl on it in chalk and pretend to be a theoretical physicist!

Images: Apartment Therapy, Domino, AT, AT, Desire to Inspire.

Some Sugary Treats

I am led to believe that we no longer refer to pastels, but to sorbet shades.  That's OK by me, because by my reckoning I can now add rasperry and blackberry to the classsic spring-y pallette.  As WorldFreeze is still in full effect, despite the illusory sunshine, I shall indulge my yearnings for Springtime colour in some pretty interiors to cure the Monday blahs.

(not an interior, but pretty cool anyway)

Apart from the last two, which I know are Vanessa Bruno's Paris apartment - frome Elle Decoration - I haven't a clue where I found the rest of the images, they are part of my hoard of pretty picures, lazily saved and not referenced!

What!!!

Mr LC has just informed me that thre is "tons of silver dinnerware" in his mother's attic (this sounds so much grander than the reality!) but he told her we didn't want it.

Either he is joking or insane.  "What use would we have for silver dinnerware?".   Every bloody day use that's what!

I shall be rescinding his refusal and setting some stunning tables for baked beans and cheese on toast!

Toasty Goodness

I have been tring to avoid the new Toast catalogue and convince myself  I'm not interested, but just look how they sucker you in...

I have wanted one of their lovely 50s style swimsuits for sooo long, but as I neither swim nor want to inflict the caffine addict thighs on the general public, it may stay in fantasy land along with the verdant pool!

These pajamas and STUNNING kimono would in no way stay as indoor wear.

These boots fulfill the cowboy, workboot, biker requirement to a tee and look like they would fit my 'muscular' calves. I would make them work with everything!

I want this whole exact outfit, (do people actually buy kidneys?) and most especially the headdress, which I will shortly try to duplicate and I swear I will not wait for an occasion to wear it.  I will wear it to work, on a Tuesday!!!

Just Because I Didn't Post Yesterday...

I thought i would just share this stupendous Polly Wreford image which has been on a couple of the blogs recently,

and then checked in at Casapinka (who posted the pretty flowers as well) only to see this beauty!

Wowee!! She made this dress from lovely Amy Butler fabric, and how stylish and gorgeous does she look!!

Like a living embodiment of the flowers photo!

Glorious Home Offices

Oooh!

                        

Ahhhh!

                                     

Gasp!!

                                     

Wow!

                                 

Hmm, thats a prettily styled and organised shelf.

                                        

Arrgggh! Zoom out to mess, no curtains and one end of the table unpainted (it used to be agianst the wall).

Not too bad you say? There are now about ten boxes of stuff  in our living room which need to be organised into here. they are covered with a blanket at the moment, if I don't look at them they don't exist!!

This WILL BE ADDRESSED at the weekend! (Before the weekend of celebrations - Mum's birthday fishy themed meal and sister's engagement party at future in-laws!!)

I shall just think of the above. This is why we have inspiration files, perhaps they should be renamed motivation files!

Offices from Making It Lovely (two!), The Brick House, Living Etc, Kathryn M Ireland via just about every blog in the world last year and then me (can't you tell!)