Adrift In A Sea Of Plastic Toys

Years ago, I remember reading an interview with Rachel Weisz, who had recently given birth to her son, Henry. She explained that before Henry arrived, she had been determined that the house would not become overrun with plastic toys. "And now here we sit", she said, "adrift in a sea of plastic toys".

Uh uh, I thought. When I have a child, I will not give in to the plastic onslaught! There is no need for children to have brightly coloured plastic toys with flashing lights and tinkling noises! They should have nice wooden toys that will teach them to use their imaginations!

Fast forward several years, and Andre and I are now the very proud parents of an adorable baby girl. Here's how our living room is looking post-baba.

White shell chandelier:

Pottery vessels carefully arranged on open shelving:

Dining area with cream silk cushions and handmade art:

Vintage cabinet filled with heirloom linens:

Duck-egg blue cushions (and terracotta-and-white Jack Russell) to co-ordinate with the slightly lighter duck-egg blue walls:

And what's this vision of delight? Ladies and gentlemen, please make the acquaintance of the Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo:

Oh yes. We may not be adrift in a sea of plastic toys (they all get packed away at the end of the day once little one has gone to bed), but there is no packing away of a Jumperoo that takes up basically the same amount of space as the dining room table. It's hideous. And plastic. But Eva loves it, and spends whole minutes at a time! bouncing happily away in it.

Sometimes I think about making a nice fabric cover in the same material as the cushions that can be dropped over the main seat and activity centre bit at the end of the day, but then I remember I'd rather use my free time to, you know, sleep.

So yeah, I'm definitely a member of the 'give 'em a saucepan and a wooden spoon' school of baby entertainment, but what can I say, sometimes a huge plastic virulently coloured bouncing machine really hits the spot. Even if it doesn't co-ordinate with the chandelier...

How To Keep Your Jack Russells Happy

One of my favourite places in the UK is the Gower peninsula, in Wales.

Incredible beaches:

Stunning sunsets:

And hilltop villages:

Andre and I took the rascals there for a long weekend a few months ago, and stayed in a very cute dog-friendly cottage. Mr Enrique and Miss Penelope adored said cottage (probably because it smelled deliciously of Strange Unidentified Hound), but in particular they were very keen on the shaggy rug in the living room, which they romped on enthusiastically every evening.

So I decided to look for a rug for our own living room - and after spending literally months looking at near-identical shaggy beige rugs online, we happened quite unexpectedly on the perfect rug in B&Q, of all places, while prowling for screws and hinges - so we bought it immediately and bore it home. Following the addition of an Ikea STOPP (when I'm a grown-up I'm totally going to be the dude who sits in a big swivel chair in a corner office and comes up with all the awesome Ikea product names) to fix it into place, we unleashed a couple of Jack Russells who absolutely loved it:

At first it was a little odd not having a coffee table (where do you sling your cappuccino?) but now I'm completely used to it, and the idea of having something blocking the middle of the living room seems kind of weird. The room feels much bigger without the coffee table, and the rug is super-soft under foot. Loving it.

Have you made a cool purchase recently from an unexpected place? Do tell.

Gorgeous New Allium Wall Lamps

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that among my favourite Christmas presents this year were the two Hannah Nunn Allium wall lamps that Andre gave me.

I've been coveting these wall lamps ever since I purchased an Allium table lamp from Hannah when I visted the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (you can see it lit up and looking all pretty on my mirrored chest of drawers here), and subsequently bought a Blossom lamp to give to a family member as a Christmas present (which you can see in this gift round-up).

So naturally upon our return to the Nest (after spending Christmas with my parents in Yorkshire) I wanted to get the lamps on the wall as soon as possible. Fortunately for me, Andre is a patient man, so he put down his suitcase, and picked up a screwdriver.

Here's how our original wall lamps looked:

Yeah, not so pretty. OK, they're a nice, simple design - but my personal design philosophy is to, over time, fill our house with beautiful things that catch the eye on every glance. So the old lamps had to go.

First of all, we removed the old lamp shade. I’m using the royal we here, you understand - although I’m certainly not afraid to pick up a saw, I took a more supervisory (read lazy) role on this occasion. And then we removed the old silver light fitting:

Enrique was very interested in proceedings - whereas Penny felt it more important to recline on at least four cushions and work on her full figure:

We measured, drilled holes, re-wired, and finally screwed the lamp to the wall with one of those special bendy screwdrivers:

Here are a couple of tips. First of all, the lamps only came with holes at the top. When we screwed the first one to the wall, we found that the bottom of the lamp lifted away from the wall (probably because all our walls are wonky). We tried loosening the top screws to even things out, but then the lamp was too loose. So I very carefully cut a couple of extra holes towards the bottom of the lamp, so that we could screw the bottom of the lamp to the wall as well as the top:

I didn't notice I'd positioned the lamp with some random guy's face peeping through the gap until after I downloaded the photos. It made me giggle. Well hello there!

Second tip - you can just about see the pencil cross in the other picture above, which I had used as a mark to show where one of the holes should be drilled (in order for the lamp on the left wall to align to the lamp on the right wall, which we did first).

After measuring and marking I realised I’d put the cross immediately above the wire box – and if we’d drilled into the wall, we would probably have hit the wires in the wall. Ouch.

The wires for most wall lamps run from the ceiling to the lamp, so make sure you don’t drill immediately above a light fitting (or below, just in case they come from the floor). Or use one of those beeping things which detect hidden wires.

So we had to move el secondo lampo about ten cm to the left – and although this meant it didn’t line up with the first lamp, it still looked fine. When you’re working in a wonky older house, it’s sometimes more important to go by what looks good to the eye, rather than what the spirit level and tape measure tell you.

Here’s how everything turned out:

Yeah. The lamps are gorgeous. I’m really happy. So now in the living room we have two Allium wall lamps, one stunning white ceramic chandelier, one calla lily-inspired Ikea lamp (which you can see here and here) and one vintage wooden floor-standing lamp that was handmade by my Grandad. You could say I am fairly obsessed with lighting. You would be correct. Anyone else out there with a similar addiction?

Back tomorrow with more lovely Nestage – stay tuned :-)

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