A merry little xmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

From now on

Our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the Yule-tide gay

From now on

Our troubles will be far away

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more

Through the years

We all will be together

If the fates allow

So hang a shining star upon the highest bough ....

And have yourself

A Merry Little Christmas now

I wish you joy, peace, laughter and good health

This Xmas and always

Nx

Rain on the caravan roof - Part 2

So, can a caravan really be an object of desire? 

As if Byron Bay wasn't cool enough - why not stay in one of these at the Atlantic?

It can if it's an Airstream!  This is the caravan that I have on my wishlist and one day I'll roam the countryside or park myself somewhere in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in one of these beauties.

Originating in 1930s California, the Airstream was developed from original designs by a guy called Bowlus,
who also happened to be the head designer of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis

So called for their aerodynamic shape, the Airstream is a thing of utter beauty to me.  Since my caravanning holidays as a little girl, I have always been fascinated by the interior design of the mini home-away-from-home.

(found on Google images - sorry, lost the thread!)

It's the ultimate design challenge - how do you fit everything you need for weeks or months on the road into such a tiny space?

Really smart thinking is how.  And stacks of ingenuity.  Nothing in such a compact space can have only one purpose, so your table has to fold away to become the base of your bed, and everything you sit on must also serve as storage. 

(lost the thread of these ones too ... oops)

I just love the cleverness of it.  Then add the styling, detailing and retro cool of the Airstream exterior ....

Um .... I am dying of coolness overload here, or as a lovely blogger bud of mine would say - hooley dooley!
Who the heck knew Fritz Hansen had designed an Airstream - and a Mini to tow it?  Check them out here

.... and you have another deserving winner of the coveted William Morris award:


                                                          BEAUTIFUL and USEFUL.


Til next time, Nx

K'Gari .... meaning paradise

Otherwise known as Fraser Island.   Have you been yet?

Nx

Rain on the caravan roof - Part 1

Over the past week, a lot of people in my part of the world (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia that is) have been heard to say, "I wish it would just b****y well rain!"  Two things I've learnt about Queenslanders since moving here last year that are summed up in this sentence: 1. they don't mince their words and 2. they take a very keen interest in the weather.  If you live here and don't know what the BOM is, well, you'd just better go and find out before you're sent back to New South Wales or wherever it is you came from.  (It's the Bureau of Meteorology website, by the way.  It's first with storm warnings, so kinda important round these parts).

So now we have what we wished for - it's pouring!  And has been all day.  Just in time for a 4-hour drive up to Fraser Island tomorrow for a very welcome break.  I was feeling a little uninspired to blog today, what with it being so grey and wet outside, and a wee bit cool (I really need to toughen up).  Until, that is, I started listening to the rain on the tin (deck) roof.  How I love that sound ....

Visit Wallpaper Decor for the OAS (Oasis) Collection

And why do I love that sound so much?  Simply because, when I was a littlie, every year our family packed up the car and the trusty Thompson Traveller - our caravan - and headed south for our very own European vacation.  I was a happy and a very lucky little camper to have spent holidays in France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy and Andorra (it's a tiny country between France and Spain), and all before I was even a teen.

via Talking to Unicorns

On these holidays, my brothers and I made friends and played with kids without being able to speak each other's language. 

via Blondie and Co

We learnt how to pack light, because somehow you had to squeeze 3 weeks' worth of clothes into a cubby hole about the size of a shoe box. 

 A travelling Brisbane shop - otherwise known as the Best Little Vintage Van in Vegas

We got to swim in the sea, get a suntan (and burn), wear nothing but flip flops and swimsuits for 3 whole weeks, and of course we got to sample exotic 'foreign food' - I still have a vivid memory of eating my first pizza!

But one of the strongest sensory memories I have is lying in bed listening to the pitter-patter of summer rain on the roof of our home-away-from-home.  Mum and Dad would still be up, talking in hushed voices (we were only separated by a curtain, after all) and maybe playing cards on the table that would later be folded away to form the base of their bed (design genius!).

Check out this little wagon somewhere in a forest in Denmark at Boboho

I loved caravanning as a child, it holds many happy memories for me, so much so that I now have a dream of one day having a very special type of caravan to call my own ....

But you'll just have to wait until next week to find out what that is, if you haven't guessed already!


Til then, Nx

Getting over the bathroom blues

I wasn't sure I'd manage a post today.  Although Friday is a day I usually have to myself and get to do my own thing, I had put today aside for ...... upgrading my iPhone 3 to my new iPhone 4s! 

My iPhone 4 has been sitting patiently in its box for a week or two now, waiting for me to pluck up the courage to tackle the switch. 

Many hours later and it's all done - PHEW!  Nothing lost, no mishaps whatsoever and major, major excitement as my iPhone now talks to my iPad - I just took a photo on my iPhone and straight away it appeared on my iPad - um, how cool is that.

Anyhoo, I digress.  The other task I undertook today, while various software updates, backups and whatnot were occurring, was putting the bathroom in my new home into some kind of order.  When I moved in, it looked like this ....

Ah, the joys of living in an unrenovated 1958 house.  Now I don't know about you, but I'm a hopelessly impatient renovator.  I want everything done NOW, or sooner if possible.  The thought of living with awful and tatty decor is just soooooo depressing. 

But the reality is, you just can't do everything at once - especially when it comes to expensive upgrades like a bathroom.  So here are some of my tips for living with a room that's sadly in need of a revamp, but will just have to wait .....

• Keep it clean, just as clean if not cleaner than everywhere else.  A space that feels cleaner will always feel better - don't neglect it until you don't even want to go in there anymore!

• Create distractions!  Add plenty of things you want to look at, so your attention doesn't wander to things that make you cringe. 

My look is generally quite busy - which if you've been reading make space for a while you'll know is my style - and I've put even more little things to look at in my bathroom, because there's plenty I don't want to see!

• Think laterally about what you use for decoration. 

This is a favourite, favourite tip of mine, for any room or any decorating situation.  In a bathroom, you could stick to displaying all your products and toiletries, but for me they tend to all look the same after a while.  To introduce different shapes, colours and textures, see what else you have around the house that would spruce things up, like a scarf on a hook ....

Or some tiles perhaps ....

• Lighten up dark corners.

I put the Jeffrey Smart picture in the yellow frame above the bath for a specific reason - until now that whole corner felt so dark and grungy that it was making an already small room feel smaller.  Now there's something nice and bright to draw your eye across the whole width of the room, making the space feel just that little bit bigger.

And my final tip ....

• Save like mad until you have enough money to create the room of your dreams!

Til next time, Nx

P.S. Can you spot the budgie?

A little dream come true

Happy Friday everyone. I hope your week has gone well and that you're looking forward to a weekend filled with fun, relaxation, adventure or rest - whatever it may be that your body and your soul need most right now.

Last Sunday was my birthday, and to celebrate, I wanted to invite a few close friends round for lunch. As you may, or may not know, I've just moved house and I'm very happy to say that my new home has a deck - and a pool.  This is, or should I say was, the deck ....



Now a few years ago, I have no idea how many, I got the notion to track down some bright and beautiful, colourful fabric that I could turn into a tablecloth for a large outdoor table.  Not that I had the large outdoor table at the time, so it was a random notion to have!  I scoured the internet, becoming a little obsessed in the process - I had the fabric exactly in mind, if only I could find it!

Thank goodness for Marimekko, now my #1 all time favourite fabric house. The last piece I could find of the discontinued Dorma fabric by Maija Isola in the yellow/orange/pink colourway flew my way from the US of A for about as much in postage as the 3m length of fabric cost me to buy!

I think I actually got teary as I opened the package and shook out this utterly delicious fabric for the first time.

Since then, I have secretly dreamt of a day, a day when I would find myself sharing some fun and laughter with enough friends to fill my roomy entertaining space, to sit at my great big table, covered in my glorious Dorma fabric ....

And of course I couldn't stop there.  It's one thing to sit and eat around the table, but what about space for everyone to chill out and relax in between dips in the pool?

Just take 2 cane chairs bought on eBay ($89 for both) with some floor cushions from Spotlight ($25 each, reduced from $50) ....

A child's bed from Endeavour Foundation charity shop ($59.95) turned into a daybed with some fabric from Spotlight and a few more cushions ....

A cane table (free - it was council clean-up here recently, you see) with no top, a piece of marine ply from Bunnings and a length of oilcloth from Spotlight (hmmm, been there a few times lately!) ....

A few accessories here and there ....

Add in some very good company, fresh prawns and bubbly, then a dip in the lovely warm pool ....
And what have you got?

Some very happy campers - none more so than me. 

Til next time, Nx



Texture Tour

I'm still recovering from moving house, so what better way to ease back into blogging than to get the old holiday snaps out again and finish my trio of tours. Just in case you missed the other two, here are Colour and Pattern, but today it's all about Texture.

There's something about the word texture and its many meanings that I really connect with. 

I feel as if, for life to be interesting, for it to stretch us and grow us, it's got to have texture, and stacks of it.  We have to "take the rough with the smooth" and weave our own way through "life's rich tapestry".

Detail from Temple of Apollo by Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay at Jupiter Artland

Texture adds warmth and depth to a space or place, and so often tells a story. 

Snuff Cottage, Culross

You can see texture, but you can also feel it.

Clay Tree Wall by Andy Goldsworthy at Jupiter Artland

My favourite interiors, and artworks, have those elements that make you want to reach out and touch them.

And it wasn't deliberate, but apart from 2 of these images (and I'm sure you can guess which 2!), my choices for the Texture Tour are all from my native Scotland.

No particular reason, maybe it's because I know it so well that I tend to look closer and notice the beautfiul details.

Like the lichen on the rocks, or this fence railing at the cemetery overlooking Loch Leven ...

But it doesn't really matter where we are.  

Texture is all around us, adding beauty and interest.

The trick is remembering to stop and take notice.  Our own little tapestry will be all the richer for it.



Til next time, Nx