Thonet: We have a bit of a soft spot for anything designed by Thonet, especially the bent wood cafe chairs that we have in an array of pastel shades at home. In the 1830s Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats, his eventual breakthrough was his success in having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design entirely novel, elegant, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly as it was a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past - and whose aesthetic and functional appeal remains to this day.
Product of the Week: We love products that are both practical and stylish, hence why our Gable Folding Trestle Table is our product of the week. It’s the perfect piece for small interiors that do not compromise on style. Its solid oak trestle legs add a soft industrial look, perfectly on trend. Ideal for dining two, enjoy a romantic Saturday night dinner followed by an intimate Sunday morning breakfast. Alternatively it makes the perfect setting for those extra few guests when entertaining, either way it is the ideal size for looking lovely in the corner of any room: http://bit.ly/16K9jJH
Sorbetto: Having recently dusted off our old ice cream maker we’ve got back into making homemade raspberry sorbet as it’s surprisingly easy and wonderfully refreshing. It always feels like a healthy alternative to a pudding, however having seen how much sugar syrup is involved we’re not so sure that this is the case. The colour alone is incredibly appetising and always looks so enticing when spooned out into your favourite bowl, the perfect desert for a Summer’s evening, when we finally get some!
Happy Birthday Rowen & Wren!
Brass: Copper has long been a favourite metal of ours, we have introduced it into our home both practically (pans!) and decoratively. Although we still love it and the warmth it provides, there is a new metal on the block that we are equally as keen on! It has been emerging for a while now and we have noticed that it has become particularly prevalent on pinterest over the last few weeks, understandably so as there are some wonderful brass products currently available. We have fallen in love with the elegant brass door handle top left and the brass stopper decanters bottom right have gone straight on our wish list!
Perfect Panelling: If you’re familiar with our website you may have noticed that we have a bit of a soft spot for panelling. It makes a great product backdrop for our photoshoots and it also makes a great addition to a variety of rooms. Perfect for adding timeless interest to both commercial and residential properties, we’ve found some wonderful examples of well-panelled rooms. We love the examples where it has been teamed with dark paint colours making the panels even more prominent and dramatic.
A blousy affair…..One of our most popular pinterest boards is the ‘One day wedding’ board. Clearly we’re not the only ones who like to dream of what the big day could be like, even those that have already had theirs still like to dream. Subconsciously we seem to have collected images for a Country affair with vintage details, all floral images are blousy and beautiful in a palette of soft pinks, peaches and white. We particular love the idea of using our birch votives (top left) for floral centerpieces, perfect filled with peonies or garden roses: http://bit.ly/n3Fmy0
A cake worthy of a stand…Hands up, we’re not the best of bakers and we don’t find a great deal of time to play around in the kitchen, but we do love a slice of cake so a must have in our cupboards is a beautiful cake stand, ready and waiting for the kind cake donations we receive from friends and family. In our eyes all cakes are worthy of a stand and what a difference it makes, proudly presented and ready for slicing, clearly no cake should be without one.
The Squirrel & The Fox…..We’re very pleased to see that one of our personal favourites Socks the Fox has become an early favourite from our children’s collection. We’ve therefore become a little bit obsessed with creatures of the orange kind, in particular foxes and squirrels as found here. Some of our favourites include the beautiful orange nut cracker from Anthropologie and the ever so cute squirrel tape dispenser from Lushlee, plus our two favourites: http://bit.ly/ZYoCcV & http://bit.ly/13Q8b2H
1. Rowen & Wren / 2. DesignAtelierArticle / 3. Studio Meez / 4. Rowen & Wren / 5. Anthropologie / 6. Lushlee / 7. Emu Designs / 8. Robin & Mould / 9. Donna Wilson
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? We’ve enjoyed reading everyones garden tweets following the sunny weekend so we’ve been inspired to put together a little bit of garden inspiration for a change. What better way to spend one of our first Spring like weekends than getting your hands dirty, planting, potting and hopefully digging up some of the early fruits of your labour for Sunday Lunch. Here’s to more weekends in the garden, sunny or not :)
White on White: Although we love a splash of colour, sometimes the most effective colour combinations are the simplest tone on tone choices, and what could be simpler than white on white. It works particularly well when used on varied textures or in varied forms as seen on the beautiful image of a cake stand above, each tier is perfectly white with varied trims creating interest and texture. We also love the two hallway examples, white floors, walls, accessories and ceilings make bright and welcoming entrances, just be sure to remove any muddy boots!
The recent sunshine has got us pining for a day out of the office and off to the beach. For now we’re stuck in the office so instead of paying a visit we have been pining over beautiful images of the seaside and dreaming of future trips. We hope you enjoy the images too, if you too are resigned to your office chair for the day take a minute to daydream and join us on the beach…..
Customer Photo: We loved receiving these photos of our Ardley Mirror in a customers home. It looks like it was made for this Georgian fisherman’s cottage adding a perfect maritime feature to their living room. Combining the natural charm of a vintage styled frame with clean, contemporary paint finishes, our Ardley mirrors are the perfect update of a well-loved classic: http://bit.ly/10wOnEo
Cool for Kids: We’re enjoying seeing what the early favourites from our new Children’s range are. Whilst buying our Kids pieces we long debated the colour of the collection as it’s not an area we have a great deal of experience in, we wanted to keep the colouring in keeping with our current collections but also add a touch of playfulness to appeal to young and old alike. We’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well some of our more muted pieces have been selling, hence our collection of images above. We love the use of soothing grey blues in kids rooms and we have some great pieces to help create them: http://bit.ly/XYgdrr - Clearly things can never be too cool for kids!
Pretty Pomegranate: You may have noticed that we’re a little obsessed with food styling and photography, in fact we’re a little obsessed with food full stop. We love to experiment with the styling of beautiful foods on our kitchen products and particularly liked one of our latest shots of our Amory Marble Board styled with beautifully dark pomegranates and figs, the perfect fruits to contrast against the cool, light marble. A little bit of searching unveiled a whole heap of equally lovely images involving pomegranates, our favourite has to be the pomegranate pavlova! : http://bit.ly/15jsJUN
