The wonder of wall murals

 

3 years ago I painted this olive green tree on one of the walls in our spare room, and I got so many positive comments about it from friends, family, and even strangers online. A few people even contacted me through my blog and asked if they were allowed to use my tree as a stencil.
Of course I said yes!

I was browsing wall murals a while ago and came across this tree, which looks very similar to my own tree. Freaky! I swear I have never seen this particular tree before, but I guess there are lots of wall decor trees of this style, since it looks a lot better when the branches are swirly and lack tons of leaves.

Trees especially, are very  popular motives for wall art, especially when it comes to children's rooms. Now you don't need artistic skills to be able to decorate in this way though, but you can simply opt to invest in a wall sticker or wall mural.

For those of you who don't know what a wall mural is, I can tell you that it's basically a better quality wallpaper with an image printed on it. It still comes in rolls, so you'd have to match the strips yourself. But don't worry though - since you custom order the wall mural to the size of your wall it is really easy to put them up. Usually you'd only have the wall mural on one of the walls in your room, and have that wall as a focal wall. Would you not love waking up with the forest right next to you every morning? This particular forest motif wall mural is from I Want Wallpaper.

If a nature motif isn't your cup of tea, perhaps you'd be more interested in a city image? There are so many choices out there - from city skylines to famous landmarks such as the Brooklyn Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. I've fallen in love with this narrow town street framed by cream coloured buildings. It goes really well with the colours of this livingroom. Amazing!

 

Of course, you wouldn't have to go for a specific motif at all, but you  might just want something abstract,  such as a brick wall, or in this case a wall that looks as if it's covered with drift wood.

Some online wallpaper stores even offer to print your own photos on wallpaper, so in theory you could have your face blown up to the size of a wall, as long as the photo is of good enough quality. The choices are endless...

Think outside the box with coloured Chesterfield sofas

When you hear the word Chesterfield sofa, what does that make you think of?

To be absolutely honest with you, before I had looked into this I would probably have made a disgusting face and thought about dark and dingy men’s rooms with dark furniture – all with a strong smell of cigars and whiskey. That may have been the typical room for a Chesterfield sofa back in the day, but the classic sofa has got a completely new fresh look and a facelift for the 21^st century.

First of all – who says a Chesterfield sofa has to be of brown leather? Sure, this material works with pretty much any style, and brown isn’t just brown… I mean, just look at all the different types of brown leather in the Old Boot sofa collection! But if you want to think outside the box and go for an alternative colour, why not opt for either a stylish and clean white or cream sofa…

…or perhaps be bold and pick one with a colour that stands out, such as blue?

A blue sofa, or a neutral sofa with blue decorations such as cushions and throws, gives your home a very stylish and almost royal look.

The reason that blue feels so upper-class and posh is because this is a colour that is considered “classic”, and that will always be in style regardless of the season or the year. So if you want to move away from the brown leather but still want a classic style, blue is definitely the colour to opt for.

If you feel like being a bit more daring and bold, but still not too extreme, a purple sofa can give your room a real facelift. Just as dark blue, purple is considered being a bit of a royal colour. However, if you don’t want to go quite this bold, you can opt for a sofa of a light lilac colour. This will be the perfect choice if you have a living room with a bit of an antique or shabby chic style with lots of dusky or off-white colours.

What do you think of Chesterfield sofas now? Hopefully this little article of mine will have opened your eyes a little, and made you look at these sofas in a different way. This just shows that you can be creative with pretty much anything, and that you shouldn’t have preconceptions about things.

Kitchen decorations for the heart of the home

You know what they say… the kitchen is the heart of the home. You spend a lot of time in this room, so it’s important that it has got that perfect feeling and that you’re happy with how it looks.

I love my kitchen! It’s only small, but it is well planned, and I really like the teal colour of the walls.

To give it more of a personality I have added several different decorations of various styles. 

One of my favourite features in my kitchen is the wall hung wine rack which is made from cast iron and resembles swirly grape vines. This was a find and a real bargain from TK Maxx, and I make sure it’s always filled with wine bottles to make it look nice and welcoming. 

I recently invested in some new canisters for my tea, coffee and sugar. I went for a classic style of cream and wood from Asda’s home collection, as I thought this would go well with the rest of the decorations in my kitchen…

…Especially this wooden cheese board from bhs, and the little Loch Ness salt, pepper and oil set from Thumbs Up!. Quite quirky, don’t you think?

The weirdest decoration is my kitchen is this wooden and cast iron fruit bowl. Or fruit stand might be a better word for it. This was a present from my sister a few years ago, and she had bought it from an artist in Sweden. When I got the wrapper off it and took a first look at it I actually had no clue what it was. The woolly fruit gave it away though, but I do sometimes place real fruit on it as well. Oh, and all my dries chillies are hanging there neatly in a row – ready to be thrown into random dishes.

My weekend treat is making luxury coffee, and that is made possible due to this dream machine – the Nescafe dolce gusto. This is actually not mine, but it was a gift from me to my boyfriend. Although it’s technically a kitchen appliance, it serves as a decoration as well.

And talking about kitchen appliances… I recently visited my friend who’s just bought and moved into a new house, and I noticed that are their kitchen appliances matched. They were all metallic red, and really created a funky look in their kitchen. I must admit… the appliances in my kitchen do not match… Should they? I mean, just look at these gorgeous red kitchen appliances from Harrods and their KitchenAid collection!

I would absolutely love to have all my kitchen appliances match, so that they work as decorations as well.

What’s it like in your kitchen?