When we bought our house last year a sizeable chunk of garden was taken up by a mysterious circle of paving slabs in a sea of golden gravel. Not a druidic ritual site, but rather the footings for a 15ft trampoline that the previous owner – I am delighted to say...
Televisions have come a long way in the last decade. We have progressed from gigantic plastic sets that dwarfed the living room to wafer-thin sleek metallic models. However, our desire for those fantastic large screens remains as strong as ever, and thus the dilemma...
This wooden crate is made out of 12mm sheet plywood. It is dead-easy to build and the size can easily be varied to fit any space. I made three of these to fit inside a bench unit I built. Here’s the list of tools and materials: Tools Circular Saw Clamp...
The first brass bed washed up on England’s shores about 200 years ago. People were amazed. Is this what the French are sleeping on! Seriously! What the hell! Lords and ladies raced to their boats, invaded France, and soon golden beds were gleaming from every...
Remember imagining your dream house as a child? I am guessing that – at a minimum – it included a secret bookcase door, a slide to get downstairs, and voice-activated lights. Well people, I have discovered that with minimal fuss and little cost, part of...
Our dining room is a windowless dark place, a netherworld of shadows. What little natural light there is has to fight its way through from the kitchen. This is a space ill-suited for organic life. Yet what is this flourishing on the sideboard? A healthy fern with lush...
Source: Pendleton USA This week we look at a seriously cool heritage product from the USA, The Pendleton Blanket. My sister-in-law hails from Portland, Oregon. As a wedding gift she and her husband gave us an absolutely massive woollen blanket. Now I have to confess...
Period Piece #4: Fiskars Kitchen Scissors Back in 1649 a Dutch bloke called Peter Thorwöste turned up in a tiny hamlet in Southern Finland and set up an ironworks. The hamlet was called Fiskars Bruk and lent its name to the company Peter founded. Fiskars duly set...
Period Pieces #2: Royal Doulton Bunnykins Nurseryware Our toddler receives all his meals on colourful plastic plates from Ikea. They cost something ridiculous like 6 for 90p. We have a basket full of them. They are cheap, stackable, dishwasher-proof, and can be thrown...
Our dining room is dark. It has no windows to the outside and the only natural light comes via the kitchen. The gloominess is compounded by the back of our house being east-facing and receiving little direct sunlight. I’ve wondered how best to tackle this shadowy room...
