Flowers on the Roadside

I am often so tempted to pull-over the car and whip out the pair of scissors I keep in my glove box and cut flowers from bushes on the roadside. Today I did just that. I was driving over to pick up Harry from sailing and I saw these big bright beautiful pink flowers on a huge bush on the side of the road. I did a u-turn, stopped and cut a few. They have very prickly stems so I had to use the paper bag in the door pocket which was left-over from Harry's sausage roll this morning to handle them. Although they have dropped a little bit since arriving home, I do think they look pretty in the aqua vase I put them in on our fireplace mantel. It's amazing what beauty you can discover without even spending a cent.

Weekend reflections.

Weekend reflections is hosted by James from NewTown Area Photo.

I made this photo some time ago on a sunny day.

For more reflections pictures go here:http://newtowndailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Suzani Chair at Jenny's House

I love seeing where bits and pieces from our shop end up. Here's a picture above of one of our vintage French chairs, which we covered in a suzani, in the kitchen of a lovely customer and blogger, Jenny from My Pink Door...I think it looks great in her kitchen/dining area with the fantastic black and white floor and the other mismatched chairs.

Skywatch Friday.

For this weeks Skywatch Friday I have this picture my granddaughter made last week when she was here. She did very well I think, so worth posting in my blog.

For more skywatch pictures from all over the world go here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Get Wamrth and Beauty Living Room Designs with Hardwood Floors

 I love a simple and natural living room designs, designing a simple house can be start from choosing the materials of the floors, one of the best choice on floor plan is the hardwood floor. Hardwood floors are popular and it is easy care and cleaning, great style coupled with durability and as always, they’re natural and safe for the environment. They are extremely good and have some great benefits as well as being impressive to look at as well. Hardwood can also improve the warmth and the beauty of the living room. If you take proper care of your hardwood floors, they will last for years and years. A lot of homeowners make the choice of using hardwood floors in their home compared to using traditional carpets or other material’s flooring.

 In order to get a natural but modern look of the hardwood floor, you can choose a hardwood with tile style, a hardwood that designed in a special style so the hardwood looks like a tile. Its can reflects the traditionally warm aesthetics and high-performance, making them the favorite choice of homeowners, its also can

enabling a unique antique look once the floor is installed.

 Now we need to know about the various hardwood floorings available in the market.

The original form of hardwood flooring is the solid wood where strips, parquets and planks of solid wood are available. But laying them is a tough job and there is no chance that you can do it yourself. It is very hardy and if maintained with just a little bit of care, it can last generations.

But people avoid original hardwood flooring because of its cost and difficulty in laying. So they go for engineered wood. Engineered wood is wood and not wood at the same time. It is layers of wood veneer fused together. Good quality wood and bad quality wood are used in manufacture of this material and hence the lower cost. Other advantages are that you can get many designs and textures and these floorings are especially engineered to withstand different weather conditions, chemicals, temperatures and humidity.

Among the toughest of the engineered hardwood floors are the ones where planks of hardwood are given an acrylic coating. This coating makes them resistance to scratches. So the surface stays intact for a long time. So this flooring is very useful for areas with high footfall. Hardwood flooring is also available in two types – the pre-finished and unfinished types. The pre-finished type of hardwood flooring is easy to lay and you can even do it yourself with proper tools.

A New Window

Today we worked on a new display in our front window at Black & Spiro. We wanted it to be fresh and colourful and eye catching. This is our last window before our very exciting Christmas window which will be installed in a few weeks time. We wrapped bits of remnant fabric around birdcages and hung them in front of a gorgeous bright pink and white and black floral fabric. It always makes me feel so happy when we have installed a fresh new window at the shop...

Black & Spiro Today

Here's a little shapshot of some things in the shop which I am loving right now. Our new purple inlay chest of drawers is like a breath of fresh air...it's so pretty! I really am having a purple moment! One of my favourite quotes {by Virginia Woolf} which I had hand written and framed in an old white-painted frame - "Arrange whatever pieces come your way". This quote really is wonderful. I love it!

Mosaic Monday.

Mosaic Monday is hosted by Mary from The little red house,

A few years ago, also in this time of year, we went on a vacation to the Florida Keys. We had a wonderful time and I found some photo's to show how beautiful it is there. Hopefully we will be able to go again there someday.

For more mosaic pictures go here: http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/

Green Bedroom Decor for Small Bedroom Designs

Green is a fresh color that can be applied in any interior painting, make the interior looks gorgeous and cozy decorating ideas. A green color on bedroom designs can be well combined with white and natural wicker. Its a dreamy bedroom design.

 

Beautiful & Colourful

Just because I love the colours in these pictures...so inspiring.

image 1 & 2 - jil sander via the satorialist, image 3 - vintage liz claiborne ad via

Skywatch Friday.

For skywatch Friday I have these two sunset pictures I made last night. Doesn't it look like a very angry sky?

For more beautiful skypictures from all over the world go here:http://skyley.blogspot.com/

News

I have some news to share with you today which I am so very proud of. Yesterday we received 2 exciting publications in the mail....

Last year I was encouraged by my girls here at Black & Spiro and also Stephanie from In House Agencies to submit my work into the Andrew Martin International Interior Designer of the Year Awards. I certainly wasn't very hopeful considering the amazing designers from across the world who feature in the book each year. However, after completely forgetting that I had submitted some photos of my work, earlier this year I received an email to advise me that I had been selected as one of the world's leading interior designers in the 2010 volume 14 Andrew Martin Interior Design Review book. I was overwhelmed to say the least. It has been a long wait for the book to arrive but yesterday it came. It is so big and beautiful and the work featured by amazing designers from all over the world is divine. The Andrew Martin International Interior Designer of the Year has been described by the Times as "The Oscars for the Interior Design World".

Not only did the Andrew Martin book arrive yesterday, the new Nov/Dec Vogue Living arrived which our new store is featured in. How exciting to be featured in my absolute favourite magazine for a second year in a row. It really does show that lots of hard work and determination pays off in the end.

I could almost cry...

xo

Anna

Outdoor Wednesday.

Outdoor Wednesday is hosted by Susan from  a Southern daydreamer.

The weekend before last we were in Amsterdam and we had the most beautiful weather. As you can see people love to sit on terrasses and enjoy themselves watching other people go by while having a cool drink on such wonderful days.

For more outdoor pictures go here:http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/

Verandas and landscapes- How to create a beautiful exterior and a great living space

Landscaping has become one of the favorite DIY and design trends in recent years, and it’s also become an area of design which is considered somehow unaffordable. That’s way off the mark. You can add a lot to your home environment, with just simple but versatile verandas or pergolas. You can also do your design in affordable stages, and reduce outlays to suit your budget.

Landscaping and verandas
Landscaping is actually based on features. The elements of design will be relatively simple.
For example:
• Lawn
• Garden beds
• Rockeries
• Fountain
• Border features and fencing
The idea is that a veranda will complement these features, and provide a transitional environment from the house to the garden landscaping. The designs are naturally interlinked.
If you’ve seen those fabulous old style verandas which seem to create another part of the garden, all decked out with hanging pots, the faithful old family table and bric a brac, you’ll know the design mix a veranda can achieve. It’s not as difficult as it looks. Modern verandas have morphed into a design feature of much the same kind, just slightly more complex.
The modern veranda is now part veranda, part living space, and often enclosed to some degree. This is the “sunroom effect”, based on the fact that many sunrooms usually started as verandas, and people liked them so much they evolved into home extensions.
Design structure
Whatever sort of veranda you have, you can reinvent it into any form, and scape around it as you wish. Forget the mythology of massive expense and unspeakably fashionable bruises to your house budget. The design structure for mixing landscaping and verandas is extremely simple and you can do it at your own speed and on any budget.
You need:
A concept and a look to work with. Pro landscapers work with a plan from the start, and they just develop it into a landscape design.
For example:
The veranda faces south with a nice view. It’s a solid timber design, aged treated pine. It gets heat in one season and cold in another. The basic concept is to provide screening while keeping the view. The homeowner starts by installing some box frame covers with adjustable screens, very cheap, made to measure.
The screens also shield the house from hot and cold. The landscaping, external, now uses plantings to create further cover, like an ivy trellis, a few Chinese pines (small trees which as so beautiful they fit any design and are absolutely zero maintenance.)and some trees outside the view which also function as flower beds while blocking out the hot glare and sun angles and the cold blasts.
Net cost? Some time, but not a lot of money. The result is a beautiful landscape, made to personal tastes, and an upgraded, all-weather veranda.

One of the most loved landscaping icons, pergolas are an additional cover feature, and you can produce the most beautiful covered paths with a pergola, using roses, bougainvilleas, and other climbers.
If you want your place landscaped your way, start with your veranda, and consider what you’d like. The rest is incredible fun

Take Me Away

If I could click my fingers and be anywhere right now, I think I'd like to be here at Hotel Augustus in Forte dei Marmi, Italy. I found these fabulous photos on the ever-stylish satorialist blog.

Designing a Fresh Look Living Room with Tweaking the Trend

Living room is the most important place in our house, as the place for relaxing while watching TV or meeting with your beloved family. Designing a fresh look living room is designing a living room by applying a something fresh, new and cozy decoration. Its important to still keep the main function of the room, furniture, flooring, green and white coloring scheme, or anything else that can make your living room looks fresh.

Mosaic Monday

My contribution for Mosaic MOnday, hosted by Mary from The little red house, is all about bikes. Holland is a country full of bikes.Everybody has one. We learn to ride it when we are four years old and we ride it till we are old. So here an impression of Holland and bikes.

 
For more mosaics go to Mary's blog.

Weekend Tidbits

My weekend has been filled with happiness. Spending time at home with my family is my favourite thing in the world. Yesterday I played with fabrics and tied them onto chairs with bows.



Last night we had some friends over for dinner. It was cold so we lit the fire. I arranged fresh Lillies and leaves from our garden on our coffee table and I lit lots of candles. Candles and flowers make me so happy.

Not only did I arrange flowers from our garden in our house, I cooked roast chicken and used fresh rosemary and tomatoes from our garden. I bundled up a little parcel of rosemary and tomatoes for my friends to take home with them. They absolutely loved it.

This morning I have been sitting in our lounge room with the paper and my bubba listening to my music. The boys are about to have a swim as it's so gorgeous and sunny...still too cold for me though.

Can you believe I just spotted this gladioli flower which has popped up smack bang in the middle of our baron block. We obviously have very fertile soil here.

I collected more November Lillies from my friend Phoebe Stephens yesterday. I am obsessed with them at the moment.

Spring really is starting to shine through today. The blue skies are stunning as is my Jacaranda tree which is just starting to flower...

I'm off to enjoy the rest of this glorious sunny Spring day.

xo

Anna