Glimpses of Summer in our Garden

Pear Tree Blossoms



Strawberries








Lemon Tree Blossoms 



Blue Skies (and an air display)

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Glimpses of Summer in our Garden

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White bedding...

... is a mainstay of many a stylish interior including most if not all of the best hotel rooms.


Some printed duvets and pillow covers are tempting, particularly those by designers such as Diane Von Furstenburg...


Paper Cheetah Duvet via dvf.com
...but it's hard to beat the versatility and the crisp, freshness of pure white bed linen.

Here are some of my current favourite bedroom images featuring white bedding.















above 4 images via Lonny
In these examples, simple white bedding is the perfect counterpoint to colourful and often patterned elements including cushions and blankets on the bed itself as well as soft furnishings, curtains and wall treatments.

The only drawback?  Keeping your whites pristine!!  However I recently came across this method for getting your whites really white.  Here's how it goes:


• Fill bucket/sink with hot water and add 2 tablespoons of washing up liquid.  Soak whites for 15 mins.  Remove and rinse with warm water.
• Fill bucket/sink with hot water and add 2 tablespoons of ammonia.  Soak whites for 15 mins.  Remove and rinse with warm water.
• Fill bucket/sink with hot water and add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.  Soak whites for 15 mins.  Remove and rinse with warm water.
• Put whites in washing machine on hot cycle (I also used a pre-wash) using your regular detergent and an oxy-action product.  Dry in the sun if possible. 
Et voila - even my yellowed pillow cases (yuck I know!) came out whiter than white and worthy of any 5* hotel room (if I may say so myself!).

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White bedding...

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A nice cup of tea and sit down

Mug and Tray by Freedom
Chocolate Brownie by me!

Sometimes, it's the little pleasures in life that bring you the most satisfaction.  I'm a tea addict and always feel like a good cuppa will go a long way towards sorting most things out!

By the way, what so you think of this little red lacquered tray I bought today?






It's from a set of five by Freedom and all for the very nice price of 69.95 NZD.




via Freedom.co.nz


I think these are going to be great for organising bit n bobs and doing little displays around the house.  It wasn't that long ago that I was lamenting the complete lack of nice trays to buy in NZ (see here) so thank you Freedom for introducing these lacquered numbers!

Another great little purchase I made lately is the ceramic owl vase.






This one is a bargain from Ezibuy (cost around 30 bucks).  I think it's very Jonathan Adler-esque!

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A nice cup of tea and sit down

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DIY Store Finds

Sorry I've been MIA the last week.  I started a new job last Monday so I've been pretty focused on that.  Anyways, I've promised myself to be more disciplined about posting going forward.  I'm also starting what I'm calling my running experiment.  It's going to be a staged programme over the next 6 weeks to get me up to running 5km's straight.  So currently lots of new endeavours in the life of Stylish Irish!

But back to the post at hand.  'Himself' and I recently made an excursion to Bunnings DIY.  Now NZ does not have a lot to boast about when it comes to shops but one thing they do impressively well is DIY Superstores.  While the purpose of this trip was to pick up materials for 'himself' to build another veggie patch (more on that in due course), I always like to have a hunt around DIY stores for homewares bargains.     This trip yielded this greek key doormat which was only 35 NZD. Now the greek key thing hasn't really hit NZ so I'm pretty sure Bunnings had no idea how on trend they were with this!



Greek Key Doormat
My other DIY store find happened yesterday when I was sent on a mercy dash to our local Mitre 10 to pick up some more potting mix.  I'd been looking for a new pot for the plant in our living room for a while - I'm ashamed to say it had been sitting in the icky plastic pot it came in for the last 1.5 years!  This was only around 30 NZD and while simple, I think it looks pretty good for the money.





Goes to show you can pick up some stylish bits in less than glamorous places... and at a great price.  


Have a great week everybody!

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DIY Store Finds

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So here's what's going down...

... in the life of Stylish Irish.




I bought a cover for my Ipad.  It's pretty simple, you might even say low-key...







...and only cost 25 bucks from Typo.  I might still indulge in the Marc Jacobs one I blogged about before  but in the meantime, I'm pretty happy with this.

So, I've also come over all domestic goddess lately.




We had some beetroot from the vege patch that needed using up, so I made some Cous Cous with Roasted Vegetables at the weekend.

 









Of course I didn't think to take any pics of the finished product but it did look more or less like this (the recipe is courtesy of Kiwi cooking and lifestyle star Annbel Langbein).

Finally, look at this gorgeous book that arrived for me earlier today:







It's a late birthday gift from my honey and I love it.  Take a sneak peek inside:











Almost as good as the real thing... better in a way because I don't think I'll ever own more than 200 different hermes scarves!!

Now I'm, thinking I might need to buy a new coffee table to display my new pretty book on...

Laters!

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So here's what's going down...

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A few shots of my hallway

I'm really slow to post pictures of my house because it is such a work in progress (heck, there's a whole big extension as big as the current house planned!).  Inspired however by the vignettes I recently posted and feeling the need to play with the new Nikon D3100 we bought in Hong Kong, here are a few shots of our hallway including some vignettes of my very own making!  Hope you like.




The future extension will start where the hall currently ends meaning the existing kitchen/dining area will be demolished.  See here for the concept plans.








I'm a Leo and love this little lion I found in Trade Aid in Ponsonby Road near where we live in Auckland.  The Tivoli Audio radio was a Christmas gift last from me to 'himself'.





When we moved into the house, the original villa front door had been stripped back to the wood.  With complete disregard for someone else's hard work, I decided to paint it again in black.  I'm a big fan of the classic black and white colour combo.  I store all our reusable, cloth shopping bags in the basket by the front door so we don't forget to take them with us on trips to the supermarket.





We store shoes (and a couple of hats) on this little unit by the front door.  I found it on Trade Me (NZ"s answer to EBay).  It came in bare pine so I painted it white.  I toyed with the idea of going for a bold colour but chickened out in the end.  On top I keep some plastic trays, one for each of us to drop our keys, wallets etc. in.  There's also some room on top for whatever Orla Kiely bag I have on the go.








I still have lots to do in our hallway - it needs a lamp, the ceiling light fitting we bought ages ago still hasn't been put up, I think it might need a rug (black and white stripes?) and I'm thinking of doing a gallery wall on one of the currently bare walls.  Hope you've enjoyed the little glimpses of where I've gotten to though.

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A few shots of my hallway

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Fresh from our garden!

Fresh broccoli from our garden via Stylish Irish

Guess what we're having for dinner tonight?  Those meek little plants at the front of our veggie patch when I posted last Feb have a come a long way - see here.

PS Can't wait to buy a new camera when we're in Hong Kong soon.  I broke our old one (oops!) and am having to make do with my camera phone.

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Fresh from our garden!

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Tulips in Dustbins

A while ago, I did a post on Tulips.  I talked about being inspired by pictures I'd once seen of tulips grown in trash cans.  After a bit of digging, I managed to find the tear sheets and am delighted to be able to share the gorgeous images.











The tulip bulbs I ordered from nzbulbs.co.nz arrived last week and armed with the instructions set out in the gardenheaven.ie article on how to get the best display, I'm now really looking forward to giving this a go.  It might be wise though to hold off for another week or two before I plant as I think tulips like colder conditions.  It's still pretty mild here in Auckland.











Here's a summary of the instructions in the article:


1. Turn bin upside down and make around five 4cm holes in the bottom using a crowbar.  Hammer the sharp edges flat.
2. Turn bin right side up and fill with 30cm of drainage material i.e. bits of broken tile, bricks etc.
3. Put in around 30cm of potting compost before positioning your first layer of bulbs.
4. Add 5cm potting compost before the next layer and so on.
5. For seventy bulbs (which is recommended), have five or six different layers.

Apparently, the lower bulbs manage to push their way through just fine.



I'm still enchanted by the pretty names.  Those purple and white ones pictured above are called "White Dream" and "Queen of the Night". Also mentioned are "Pink Diamond", "Shirley" and "Carnval de Nice".




PS Check out Maurenice's latest post on her blog Villa Bisono here which features some gorgeous snaps of tulips including this one below.






via villa-bisono.com

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Tulips in Dustbins

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Project time - Getting creative

I’ve decided to revamp a 60’s/70’s desk I bought and have just finished giving it a primer undercoat.  I really like the retro shape of this desk but the original golden colour of the wood didn’t work in our house since we stained the floors walnut.






Originally, I was going to paint the outside white and go for a colour on the inside.  I couldn’t decide on whether I’d try doing the top shelves in the colour as well.  It’s a bit tricky getting a paint brush in there and I’m a bit OCD about getting a really nice, smooth finish.  The colours I was considering were black, grey, hermes orange, deep lemon and various shades of green from olive to lime.  THEN I thought about wallpapering the inside of the desk.  Something like this:


I’d almost convinced myself to file this idea away in the “too hard” tray but a further google of “wallpapered furniture” yielded the following visual goodies.










How can I resist giving this a go myself now I ask?


The lady responsible for creating these works of art is Bryonie Porter.  Wallpapering furniture is her business and she supplies a number of stores in London with her creations.  I love this in-situ image:



All photos via bryonieporter.com
So I’ve googled how to wallpaper furniture and it all seems fairly manageable once I’m organised.  My perfectionism will surely come out to play so I’ll probably stick with just doing the inside of the desk on this first attempt so the stakes aren’t too high! 


Now where do I go to buy some funky wallpaper in Auckland?  Or should I go for some vintage wallpaper via ebay?  Decisions…decisions…

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Project time - Getting creative

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