Hi guys, I'm moving this to my Tumblr account, so it will be rebuilt at:

http://emilyandmatthew.tumblr.com

xx

You'll need to facebook message me for the password. x

We Are Golden

So I've been tossing and turning and changing my mind more times than a starlet lately. What to do with the loungeroom? And...I think I've finally decided (That is, I haven't changed my mind in a week now, for me, that is something). The colour will be....gold.

Now when I say gold I mean Orange. I mean Golden Orange. That beautiful wake-me-up Orange that makes Black framed pictures shout out "Im Black, look at my clean lines" and makes leather couches say "Wallow in my Leather Blackness while I sit against this ORANGE wall."...whats that you say? Your couch doesn't talk to you?

I think this colour will bounce off the walls beautifully and make the room shout "Good Morning!" every day. Hopefully at night it will warm the room up (It definately suffers from a 'Beige and FREEZING' problem right now) and also give the whole house some pep.

(An example of the kind of Orange I'm going for)

The colour inspiration came from this post on Design*Sponge and also from a host of places... from a long love of Mexican art (via Frida Kahlo), from flowers, birds, clothing...and of course, from Fidel's.

(Fidel's beautiful walls)

Fidel's was definately one of my favorite cafes in Wellington, next to Midnight Espresso. I loved it when they painted their walls a burnt orange, because even in winter (and Wellington gets COLD) the cafe felt so warm and cheery.

I'm really excited to get cracking and I think I may try and get the lounge done first (it certainly will need the added warmth in a couple of months!) before I start on anything else. I've also arranged to have a Day of the Dead Dinner Party so if I could manage it before then....well, that would a) be a miracle and b) be amazing!

Duck Egg Delicious

The bedroom is the first room on the rota for redecorating and boy, am I excited! The bedroom is a square box really, with a big open window on the sunny side and two small wall spaces where our clothes live. I want to turn it into a more calming, cosy room, as right now it's magnolia and beige beige BEIGE!...
We've (and I can say We because I gave Matt 4 colours to choose from :P) chosen this beautiful shade from Crown Paints.

Mmmm, classic Duck Egg.

I was really surprised Matt picked this shade out of the 3 blues (and one handsome grey) that I chose because originally I'd dreamed of a Duck Egg Blue room and put it away in the "He'll never agree to that" pile...but look! He picked it himself, woo!We're going to add a long shelf just above the bed to act as a bedside table, as the current bedside tables are our drawers and that makes the whole closet duo look a terrible mess. Unfortunately we also have to have the computer desk in the room too but I'll look into minimizing that too, its such a space hog. I'm thinking laptop myself. Then we could have a nice reading chair in the corner with a side table.The whole room will need repainting and a lot of the plastering will need touching up. New curtains and hopefully a new pendant light will make their way into the budget along with more pictures. Luuuuverly.

Here's a bunch of shots I've been using as inspiration, they're from my tumblr lookbook so I'm not sure where they are from, apologies.




My dad described my style today as luxury and while I can agree with him (what is better than good linen and plush settings?) I'd like to move into a more handmade style.

We're either going to ikea this month or next so doing the bedroom has been put off for a couple of months, but either way, I can't wait to get started on my first room...

As promised, our house, the 'before' pictures....

The backyard facing towards the house...

The yard

The kitchen, ho hum!

The lounge, complete with horrible beige heater...

The lounge corner, showing the unmistakenly uuuuugly lamps.

The bedroom, complete with teenager curtains and dull wall colours!

As you can see, our humble home is suffering from a bout of beige-itis. The entire thing is painted magnolia (shudder) and the trim is done in, what I can guess was white, but is now old-lady-teeth-yellow. The first thing we did of course was clean! Then we took stock of what was wrong/broken...have a page of writing left and we had a couple things that would be actioned by our landlord and a dozen or more that would be left to us.

Can I reiterate now, how much I love this house? Truly. It's sweet and unassuming, hardy and very old. It may have many scrapes and bruises but I still love it. I have high hopes for it and next month we get to really dig in and start on our journey of renovating!...well, cheap as chips renovating.. :) Can't wait!

Life as we know it.

Hello.

My name is Emily and I live, with my boyfriend of 1 year and 4 months, in a 1 bedroom 2 storey terrace at number 22. I currently work as a bartender and my boyfriend is a chef. I studied English Literature, Classics, Religion and Fine Art at university. My current career aspirations are to become an interior decorator. I live in Sheffield in the United Kingdom but was born in New Zealand.
I'm setting up this blog to chart the development of both our house, my design knowledge (which will hopefully expand) and also to cover our combined kitchen creations. I adore sharing a home with such a talented chef and I must admit, I'm a little bit proud of what he can do.

Matt's chicken & prosciutto salad

We moved into number 22 in April 2010. April is also our Anniversary so of course, this month is very special to us. When we moved in the positives about the house were thus:

- It was cheap
- Location: We live in the beautiful Sharrowvale suburb of Sheffield, full of independent businesses and parks. More on this later!
- We were given free reign by our landlord as far as decoration. Literally, when I asked the agent what the 'House rules' were she looked at me blankly and said "No smoking?" Pets? yes. Painting? yes. She even mentioned that the previous tenant changed the bathtub!

Basically, it's a do-er-upper. And oh how we will have to do it up. Talk about cutting edges, the ceiling isn't level! We're pretty sure we want to live here for a couple of years (until we can either a) afford our own house or b) afford better accom) so I'm planning on redecorating. This will be both my first real experiment in redecorating (work on my parent's homes don't count I figure) and my first real experience with English housing in all it's complicated glory (our house has a coal shoot for godssake!). I want to repaint all the rooms and renovate as much as I can afford. We've also started work on reworking the small back garden. I will hopefully use some of the work as a portfolio and fingers crossed, will learn and grow from this experience.

At the same time we are both actively trying to challenge ourselves in the kitchen. When I first met Matt he was very ho-hum about his abilities and his creativity in the kitchen. Oh what a difference a year makes! Now he's still ho-hum but he relishes every new recipe he takes on. His 'originals' are becoming more and more breathtaking to me and his enthusiasm is truly catching. I wanted to document these experimental dishes for both reference and to of course cause extreme jealousy in the eyes of my family and friends (ha ha! I wake up to a chef every morning!)

My next post will have the 'before' pictures so you can really see what we are dealing with. I hope you enjoy the journey!