Yep, this is the big reveal that I alluded to a while back. Our apartment has been featured in the My Style section of Irish Interiors magazine – House & Home. That is little old me up there sitting in my office chair looking the picture of happiness in the least smug way possible. Thank you House & Home.

And now for another shameless plug – this apartment is about to go on the rental market so if anyone is interested in renting a two bedroom apartment (plus study) in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin, please get in touch.

Image from mabel & violet

This absentee blogger is back…briefly. This time with a sneak peek of a corner of the living room here at Mabel & Violet towers. More images are set to follow but not before the “big reveal” elsewhere – oh the drama and suspenders of it all!

While I’m here, I thought I’d take the time to let you know our other big news – himself has got a new job and  we are moving to that London! I can hardly contain myself with the excitement of moving to such a great city but I will really miss Dublin too. I’m really happy to report that our Irish customers will not be affected by this move because I will continue to run the online boutique from across the pond and all of our products will continue to be stored and sent from within Ireland, so no need to worry about any ker-azy postage costs from the UK! We only found out about this two weeks ago and we are moving two weeks from now so we are frantically trying to find somewhere to live and sort out our entire lives, hence my extensive absentee bloglord-iness. For shame though and in the words of my 4th class teacher – “must try harder.”

So this is how the office looked a short while ago, above. Remember this post about my wallpaper indecision? It was a close contest but the Ferm Living Black Fir Tree Wallpaper won the vote in the end and here are the results…

The cushions are also from Ferm Living except for the orange one that I made from some vintage fabric bought at a local market.

The prints are actually postcards designed by Sanna Annukka. I love her work but until I can afford an original print the postcards will have to do. They do look great in these Ikea Ribba frames though.

The vintage Herbert Terry anglepoise lamp was a wonderful ebay find and the yellow box is soon to be available from Mabel & Violet.

As you can see, I’m really embracing the yellow accent thang and it’s pretty much all down to Twig Hutchinson. If you click here, you’ll see what I mean.

D'Office in its current state

Anyway, enough moaning about positive problems, the real issue is that I’m having a major indecisive moment and I could really use some help. We have painted my office white (what other colour is there really?) but there is a small wall at the back of the room (see above) that I would like to wallpaper. The trouble is that I am torn between two wallpapers. I know, as problems go it’s a pretty pathetic one but I need to make a decision quicksmart so that I can move into my office and clean up the mess because while my home and office are in complete disarray so too is my mind.

Ferm Living Feather Wallpaper

I just love the Feather wallpaper by Ferm Living (above), which is a deep dark petrol blue colour with a large white feather print. But I also love their Black Fir Tree wallpaper (below), and I think that the monochrome look would also really suit the room. My desk is light grey and used to have black legs but in a fit of over-excitement I sprayed the legs white! Basically, the desk is irrelevant because it can be changed/replaced/upgraded/chucked in a skip, whatever!

Ferm Living Black Fir Tree Wallpaper

I also bought a fabulous vintage black anglepoise lamp (below) and until I can afford a lovely big Mac (eh, that’d be of the Apple variety not the McDonalds variety), my monitor for now is big and black. The accessories are making me lean towards the Black Fir Tree paper, however, the accessories are easy to change, the wallpaper not so.

If I had been in any way organised I would have created a mood board but I’m not so I haven’t. Did I mention the chaos? Please help! I need a decision ASAP before I go DEMENTED.

Do you remember this post that I wrote a while back about my search for an elusive, inexpensive Chesterfield sofa in Ireland? Well, the search continued for some time after this post and further to many near sightings online, a few wild goose chases and the threat of a divorce, I decided it was time to give up the ghost on finding my own vintage Chesterfield. But, a short time later and armed with a renewed sense of zeal, I got in touch with a man called Tom from a small but perfectly formed and rather well known shop called AJs on Capel Street here in Dublin. (Thanks Fi for pointing me in his direction.) Tom understood my plight and assured me that, although he could not find me a vintage Chesterfield, he could custom build one for me from scratch. He even managed to do me a bit of a deal! The fabric is a Designers Guild Cotton Velvet in the most amazing shade of teal and the finished piece just makes my heart sing! When it was first delivered I refused to sit on it for about two weeks and just sat on the other sofa admiring it from afar.

So, thanks to a bit of matchmaking from Fi and Tom, Chester and I have been living happily together enjoying cosy nights by the fire, whiling away Sunday mornings with the papers and entertaining some rather envious friends. Chester has everything that I was looking for in a sofa, and more….beauty, comfort and quiet companionship. It turns out that Mr Field and I are indeed, as expected, a match made in heaven.

Images from my own home.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose… this beautiful bunting that’s what Bill! While going through the new arrivals of bespoke bunting for some customers the other day, I stumbled across this pretty piece with my name on it, both figuratively and literally! And there was a note from my lovely friend Aoife who creates this bunting by hand, wishing me a belated happy birthday. She is so sweet and so is my new bunting, which is taking pride of place above my office desk and it gives me a little lift every time I look up. It also reminds me that spring is just around the corner, yippee!

Before

Just to clarify, the bathroom was tiny as you can see in the picture on the left above so we knocked down the wall between it and the walk in wardrobe in the bedroom, pictured right, to create a much more appropriately sized main bathroom. The wallpaper was peeling off the wall due to a leak from a corroded pipe on the roof – the main reason that our re-decorating took longer to complete.

After

Now it’s all a bit matchy matcherson in my opinion but it was designed to satisfy the wants and needs of many so my own creative whimsy was put to one side along with the notion of a free-standing bath. The white porcelain tiles were a great little find in B&Q, until we discovered that a) they’re not white and b) they come in many different shades of not white. It turns out that B&Q don’t have batch numbers on these particular tiles and it is impossible to match shades, especially under the UV lights of their shop floor. So, after weeks of to-ing and fro-ing to various B&Q shops we gave up on ever finding the shade of “not white” that we needed to complete the bathroom so we have resigned to living with a strip of tiles that are just one shade different than the rest of the wall. See if you can spot it!

As expected, the tongue and groove has moved a little since it was installed and needs to be touched up with another lick of paint but, I must admit, I like that it’s not perfect because it gives the bathroom a slightly aged look. You see, in my strange interiors obsessed little world, I love newly decorated interiors but I don’t like when they look like newly decorated interiors. I like a home to look worn and lived in, a bit rough around the edges, not untidy or unclean, just with added character.

So anyway, in the immortal words of the lovely Mary Fitzgerald…here’s one I made earlier (I’ll bet Mary didn’t actually make hers either)! I bought this one in my local florist at the Dublin 4 price of €12.00. Then all you need are:

2 large oranges

6 cinnamon sticks

6 small baubles

1 large bauble

Needle & thread

Twine & scissors

To decorate it I sliced up some large oranges and baked the slices in the oven at 180 degrees C for approx. 30 – 40 minutes turning them over halfway through. When the oranges were cool I added a whole clove to every second segment. Then I attached/sewed them to the wreath using a needle and thread. Using twine, I then attached the cinnamon sticks to the wreath and wrapped small Christmas baubles around them. I used these Silvered Glass Baubles. Lastly, I added the co-ordinating large bauble to the bottom of the wreath…at voila!

These wreaths are also a great way to add a festive touch to an autumn/winter wedding, perfect for hanging around the reception venue, decorating the church windows or even used as table centrepieces. Just pop a large pillar candle in the centre and hey presto!

Right now I’m thinking about fires and fireplaces, a lot. Why? Because we need a fire for this lovely faux chimney breast that we built and then cut an electric fire with marble surround shaped hole out of! The problem is that the fire we wanted is a “Wall Hung” fire and not a “Hole in the Wall” fire so it’s going back to the shop. Who knew these things could be so complicated? I find that I’m quite partial to the hole in the wall now though, it’s not as huge as it looks in the photo but we might have to reduce it in size a little. I don’t think I’m going to win this one though and an electric fire it will be, ah well. Here is some drool-worthy hole in the wall and traditional fireplace inspiration for your viewing pleasure…

I love the simplicity of the traditional fireplaces in the last three images. All images are from Shoot Factory bar the first one, which is from our living room!