Flirting with turquoise...

Now, many are the eyebrows that might now be raised a little higher than usual in front of the computer screens... Turquoise, she says? Aqua colours in the Swenglish home...?

Well, lately I have, to my own surprise, felt drawn to this strong and cheerful colour. Perhaps it is because of the magical summer we are having, where temperatures seem to have soared many weeks ago, only to surprise even themselves by then getting stuck there, high, high up in the unusually sweaty register... Perhaps this is why I am drawn to this slightly cooler colour, a sort of surrogate dip in the ocean for a Swede longing for school to finish and mental doors to open for beach days and splashing galore?

Perhaps this is why, during a visit to Camden Market in London at the beginning of the summer, I was surprised to see myself point at this large piece of fabric and say "could I have that one please?" and a moment later find myself in the street a few pounds shorter but with a bag full of aqua-coloured joy?

(Love versatile garden equipment..., like here with a tray placed on an upsidedown leaf bin/butt/barrel -instant side table, hooray!)

And this little fellow, he and I met in Sweden in June, and I invited him to come home with me. I am very glad I did, as with him came some wonderfully calming vibes...

Fruit... oh how we eat fruit in the summer heat! Pears, melons, strawberries - any and every fruit seems to lodge in our fridge, but only for a brief moment before it is enjoyed, giving us the juicy, fruity kick we are craving...

So there we have it, a quick and long overdue hello from a warm Wiltshire, where we are now getting ready for some proper summer holidaying, hoping the weather will not already have exhausted itself completely...

  Lake splashing, here we come!

So, from my little corner of turquoise tranquility, a warm hug to all of you who still pop in to visit The Swenglish Home blog. What is your colour that has got you tingling this summer?

Helena

❤

Eastern infatuation Part I...

On Friday morning, as I strolled past one of my favourite local second-hand shops, Granny's Attic, something in the window display caught my eye...

It couldn't be...? Surely, it couldn't be one of those lovely - I think - traditional Vietnamese or Chinese (?) bamboo rice storage jars (or perhaps copies of) that I have been admiring in some blogs and oriental-themed shops for some time. Admired their beauty and gasped at the normal £ 60- 90 price tag, that is... 

Feeling rather pleased to have finished a large assignment in the early hours of that very morning, I thought this £ 5 (!!) bargain would be a splendid reward...!

  

And so it was that this second-hand find gave birth to a whole new blog post from our front room, where my desire to surround myself with warm, spicy colours and a more gold-shimmering palette has been given free reign...

The second photo in the quartet above is of a basket (also seen in the mirror in the very first photo in this post) on the wall above the sofa, opposite the fire place .

(The original red tassel of this ceiling lamp has been exchanged for a 

window decoration from the Scandinavian oriental-inspired store Indiska.) 

From the mantelpiece hangs a chain with, among other things, a small Buddha. The very same little Buddha featured in a display I made a few years back, from which a photo was used to decorate some candles. Yes, well spotted, there is one of them, in front of the fire place, on a cast iron candle stick I found in a reclamation yard a few months ago.

My wall paper curtain panels (will be shown in their entirety in the next blog post) next to a home-made lamp   from years ago, whose only claim to qualify for this otherwise oriental-inspired room was the colour of the apples...

The wall colour does appear a very strange shade in some of these photos... It is certainly not as screamingly yellow as it looks in the image below, or as apricot as in the one above. More of a soft, warm, matt yellow, and we sometimes call it the "winter room", as this is a room which feels warm, both in colour and, obviously, because of its wood-burning stove.

In one of the photos above is a hint of another second-hand bargain I came across the other day, and which will be the focus of my next blog post from the same room...

Wishing you all a gold-shimmering Sunday!

Helena

To Bangkok with love...

Yesterday a very kind neighbour brought me

these exquisite orchids from Bangkok...

Today, as I admire their beauty,...

... I can't help but feel that my turning them this way and that...

... feels a little like an insult to the people of Bangkok,

whose worries are on a different scale...

So today, I will take a moment...

...to really appreciate what I have got...

Today, I will take two moments or three...

... to think about the people of Bangkok, with love...

(The vase is wrapped in pages from an old Turkish book.)

Room for dreams...

Today I invite you to put your feet up, to rest for a brief moment, to join me on a journey to the land where dreams are soft and bright, and where you can wake up feeling refueled and rejuvenated. Or at least have a little snooze, snore if you wish, and dream of nothing, nothing at all...

Today we are in the room often referred to so amusingly in this country, the "master bedroom". A bemused smile escapes me. "Master"... where then lies the mistress? Or is it perhaps master as opposed to servant? Either way, it is a bedroom. Where sleep carries us into the next day. If we are lucky enough not to be disturbed by small people, that is. Children, whose dreams may steer their sleep carriage into the land of dragons and "baddies", rather than all things fluffy and fine.

That's when the faux fur throw becomes their close companjon, keeping them safe. That's when synchronised snooring becomes their lullaby, and the pile of pillows their castle.

That's when zzzzzzzzzzzz...........

A plastered Swede...

And so it was that there was a rushed Swede on a fly-by visit to Stockholm in September 2007. The Casa Cor exhibition had just started and I had about 15 minutes to spare. With ca 40 architects and interior designers having created a wild and wacky home for an imaginary family, those 15 minutes were going to be jam-packed with impressions and inspiration, and I did not intend to miss a thing.

In one room hung some art work that caught my eye and made me think, like so often when I see something I can't afford, " What if I could try to make that myself?"

And so it was that a stubborn Swede returned to the UK carrying a baby in arms, whilst ushering a three-year-old along, pushing a pram and pulling a suitcase... and carrying two big buckets of Swedish plaster ("spackel"). After having searched everywhere in vain for English plaster behaving like the Swedish grainy, sandy kind, and refusing to give up on my experiment, this seemed a very natural solution to me. Needless to say, some other family members expressed some concern about my sanity and were quietly mocking my madness.

As much as I loathe working with MDF, this seemed like the best material for the square and the circle, which were then screwed together and covered in a thick layer of plaster. With the back end of an art paint brush, I made the lines to give it the texture I had in mind, and painted it with a matt gold and matt blackboard paint. As I did not have a picture of the art work that had inspired me, I had to try to recreate it from memory.

The result? A round golden wallthingamajig that seems to work rather well in our Oriental-inspired bedroom. Mocking family members mock no longer.

So, did it in the end ressemble the real deal? The picture to the left below is from Casa Cor. Conclusion: Same, same, but different.

Photo from a blog called "Living in Andyland".

Incy Wincy...



OK, I think it is time to get personal. After all, I have been exposing myself as a blogger for more than a week, so I think it is time to reveal the truth about my home. Show it as it is, warts and all. Alright, maybe warts would be a little too much for my readers, but here it is, the embarrassing and awkward reality.

Cobweb. Yep, spiders seem to believe that squatting here and there in our house will make us give it up and sign over the deeds to these eight-legged horrors. Well, they obviously have not met a Swede on a mission before. Armed with the hoover, telescoped to full length, I counter-attack. Ceiling, corners, under tables, they can run but they can't hide. Not from a Viking. Not from me and my hoover, fuelled by my hatred for them and their wicked webs. And so: victory, mission completed. Sweaty but satisfied I carry the hoover back downstairs and applaud myself on a job well done.

Or so I thought. Those of you with an eye for detail will already have spotted it. The subtle revenge of one stubborn spider. Too subtle for my ageing eye to see through the camera, but plainly obvious when blown up on the computer. My cherished bird cage, covered in cobweb. Now there is a beautiful example of man versus nature. Or woman versus irritating spider, as it were. One - nil to the spider.

Defying gravity...?

Who says baskets need to stand on tables and floors? I like to play Mary Contrary sometimes and avoid placing everything on ground level, or table level, or any flat surface reminding us of Newton's boring law. Hanging things from the ceiling, like lanterns or levitating Buddhas on swing-like shelves, or even upside-down flowers in tune with the season, all very modest outbreaks of civil disobedience. Or perhaps more like interior decorating naughtiness. Or could I plead artistic freedom? At the very least, it makes life a little more interesting.

As for baskets, walls are definitely the way to go.

Go East...

For those of you who have just begun to relax into the tranquil white backdrop of our kitchen-diner and the CALM area, it is time to hold on to your seats and open your minds to a little taste of saffron, a whiff of baklava, a hint of the Orient.

And for those of you who may wonder what one does when one cannot find a curtain material one likes, but is head over heals in love with a particular wallpaper? Easy. You hang two strips of wallpaper from the rail and ask them to believe they are curtains. Think wallpaper. Be wallpaper. And oh yes, you also prey your baby who is just getting ready to walk does not decide to pull himself up grabbing any curtains... Success rate on last prayers? 100 %. Still hanging and baby boy will be four in March.

And by the way, wallpaper cum curtain prayers require no religion. Just some faith in interior well-being.