A FURNITURE AND LIFE REVAMP

What with buying a new apartment, moving house, throwing out old and deciding about what to get new, coupled with moving another child across the oceans to a foreign country and throwing in a Christmas and a New Year in-between, all of that in the space of 3 months. Yes tired, but good, I think.

Jack the fat cat

I bought these chairs years ago and love the old rose fabric but it just would not go with the new space. Introducing the french stripe was the right decision.Jack the fat cat of course made a bee line for the newly upholstered chairs and it is now his space, whether he fits on it or not.

Old rose print

A great change I think.

French Stripe Chair

He just absolutely refuses to move…..half on half off, hanging on for dear life!

I had 2 round mirrors desperate for a change and the new deep coppery shade made old look good again. Various colours and coats of paint got it to this shade.

Random Photo:

The perfect colour contrast.I wish I knew what plant this is.

My sister in law (Suzette) painted this for her house recently.

 

 

Shapes

My mind is always occupied with colour, shapes and lately buildings and roof shapes everywhere and at unexpected places even in shops ( of all places). Maybe time to tackle a painting again to satisfy the obsession.

These absolutely gorgeous row-houses were displayed above the door on the outside of the entrance to a shop in Knysna, Western Cape. Very clever.

This shop window in Seoul, Korea caught my eye and imagination.

Seoul, window dressing.

These beautiful wooden houses I bought in Ulsan, Korea. I have no idea what the idea/use was behind them but they were there and had to come home with me as well.

Indiidual wooden blocks.

The blue and white canvas roofs were lined up on the beach in Busan-I think as part of the Ice Bear Swim ( or something to that effect) event in the dead of their winter.

Busan beach

Yes, for sure a continuous theme going round in my head.

Random Photo:

Window to my soul.

Late afternoon at a time of year that it was not ” supposed to” rain in Cape Town.

Cape Town

The flower arranging gene

Or the lack thereof in my case. I skipped that one. My sisters both got all those genes from the available gene pool. I need to be very careful which pot/vase I use for my flowers, because the job is up the the vase, not me. I so love flowers, always have them in the house. So along came the mother of a high tea which I had for my birthday a few months back and my sister came up( thankfully….) with these ideas.

King Protea in a tea pot

She saw the protea in a tea pot idea in a magazine weeks before the day and I went flower hunting to get just the right size protea as they can be HUGE.

The glass dome effect:

Flowers in glass dome

We shall be in faraway lands this Christmas. At last I will see my daughter’s face in real time and not skype! Christmas and New Year in South Korea will be an experience. About 35 degrees C colder than Cape Town at the moment which makes packing a funny business. Layering UP during the 23 hours travel time until the cold hits on arrival, but come hail or snow, I am excited!

My random photo taken last week in Granger Bay:

The mist came rolling in from the ocean, fog horn blaring.

Granger Bay Cape Town, misty day

Moving and a bit of furniture revamp

We recently moved home and one always views your furniture a bit differently when it sits there on a parking lot/pavement ready to be hauled into a big truck. Tired looking is just not the word….

A week before the big move I got a bee in my bonnet about sanding and revamping the look of my server/sideboard which I intended doing a long time ago but obviously never got around to.  I am all into the French look but I have no French furniture and with no intention of replacing big items, I shall make do with what I have.

I wish I had the know-how and time capacity to attempt big jobs myself but alas….. , even the small ones I want to do gets lost in time. I still wish I could do carpentry, of any sort, but this time I relied on a good reference and got a guy with magical carpentry skills to do the sanding on short notice and before the schlep of moving 11 floors up into a building with a heavenly view. He kindly sent me two pics of the work in progress.

Well, he did it and he did it right and now I want to have everything in sight sanded. Maybe a sanding machine doohdah thingy for my looming birthday, who knows? (Group eye-roll I know!)

I am very chuffed with the result.

Magical.