Our flat isn’t exactly spacious. Don’t get me wrong, it could be smaller, but the only storage we have (besides our bedroom wardrobe) is one tiny closet in the hallway.

I wanted someplace to store books, computers, cables/cords… and plants! I wanted more plants! Oh, and whatever it was had to fit perfectly between our living room doorway and TV cabinet.

I started hunting around for a perfect bookshelf – something visually open, interesting and tall. Our flat might not be big in square meters, but it has really high ceilings – why not make the most of them? Since this bookshelf was going beside the doorway, the shelves couldn’t block sight lines into the room. Hence my ‘open’ requirement.

The perfect bookshelf was the helix from CB2. But, not only did I want it to be cheaper (international shipping and all), I also wanted it to be wider and taller. I figured that it couldn’t be too hard to make something similar myself – after all, it’s just a couple of metal poles and wood, right?

Well… nothing’s ever easy, is it?

I found a website that not only supplied the metal I needed but would even cut the mitre corners for the top! Cool right? They also had metal lugs that I could get welded on as shelf supports. Now, all I needed was someone to weld those 16 joins (for the corners, and attaching the lugs).

I started asking local metal fabricators but the quotes I got were insane! I mean, the metal was going to be delivered to them, already cut to size – they just had to weld it. They were trying to charge £200 to make 16 weld joins. Bat-shit crazy…

So I put it off to the side and kind of forgot about it for a while, until I had an epiphany. There are other jobs that use welding! And, because building custom furniture or railings isn’t their 9-5, they might not try to rip me off! So I called up a local auto-body shop and managed to secure the work for only £30! Boo-yah! To finish them off, all it took was a couple coats of primer and black spray paint.

Next up, came the wood. Which threw another wrench into the works.

See, I wanted the shelves to be 30cm wide, which it turns out, is wider than standard planks of wood. I searched high and low but anything wider than 20cm was expensive. So I decided to go with plywood! I knew that I could add wood edging (which I used to make the bedside tables) to make it look like solid wood, but I kind of liked the plywood edges.

I looked around for a place that would not only supply large enough sheets of the right grade plywood but would cut it down into my shelf size. That’s when I discovered Builder Depot and boy, do I wish they had a location closer to me! I have lots of projects in mind…

The first time we went, I didn’t call ahead of time and they were out of the birch ply I was planning to use. I had already been toying with using marine grade (looked nice in photos), so figured I would just give that a shot. It ended up being a nightmare. The edges just splintered when I tried to sand them smooth, not to mention the stain looked awful. So I managed to convince Richard to drive me all the way back another weekend for the birch ply – it made all the difference.

Seriously, the stuff is amazing – it’s no wonder they use it to build kitchen cabinets etc. The edges are neat when you cut it and you can sand it without wearing away the top layer.

To construct the shelves (which the helpful staff at Builder Depot cut at 30cm x 100cm) all I had to do was cut a little notch to allow the metal to sit flush with the edge. I measured my metal posts, marked the square, and cut it very carefully with a jigsaw. It took some time to do each one, as I had to sort of cut it away in triangles a bit at a time.

After cutting, the shelves got good sand and some Danish oil! As I was worried about the colour looking blotchy, I did a couple of coats with clear oil first. I figured it could soak into the grain and ensure that it didn’t absorb too much pigment in the later oils. Then I did a couple passes with a mixture of Canadian Cedar and Jacobean Dark Oak. I tested both colours on some scrap plywood and decided something halfway between would be the best match to the existing wood in the room. Once the colour was dark enough, I let them all dry completely before varnishing.

Side note – I can’t wait to have a garage or somewhere to do stuff like this! We ended up taking them to my brother-in-law’s place, as they had some room in their garage we could use.

Now, one thing I didn’t do a great job of, was choosing the best birch ply sheet. The stuff they had in stock wasn’t the same grade on both sides (BB and C) which meant that some sheets had lots of these patches anywhere there was a knot on the one side. I hate being picky when someone has to forklift sheets down for me, going through them until I find ‘the one’, so I kind of settled on what I thought was good enough. Well, the stain really highlights those patches! It’s not the end of the world though – I made sure that they were either on the underside of a lower shelf or the topside of the higher ones. You never see them! But if you’re doing anything similar, learn from my mistake. Be that annoying perfectionist going through an entire stack of plywood!

Now that I had everything ready to go, it was just a matter of putting it all together. The metal supports got these plugs to go in the bottom so they wouldn’t scratch the floor and then I just had to attach the shelves.

I found screws that were short enough that they didn’t go all the way through the plywood; unfortunately, the holes on the lugs were a bit wider than the screw heads. To compensate, I picked up some washers and sprayed them black to match the screws. Then it was a simple job of attaching the shelves by screwing through the lugs, making sure to put the shelves in the right order (to hide the patches).

Finally, we stood them up, measured and marked the holes for the wall, and drilled in some drywall anchors. The studs would have been great, but the placement of the shelf didn’t line up with any. We used some spare butterfly anchors we had and I painted the heads black to match.

And that’s it! It took a long time to actually get these shelves up, what with finding the right welder and getting the wrong wood at first, but I’m so happy with them! They fit the space perfectly – adding much-needed surface area for all my books and plants. (Not to mention the booze and computers/random cables hidden in those baskets.)

What do you guys think? Feeling inspired to find a local welder of your own? Now that you know my mistake’s secrets, give it a shot!

Modern rosewood media cabinet from Swoon Editions | Hello Victoria

We finally got some new furniture for our flat! Isn’t she beautiful?

Before moving to England, I googled some alternatives to IKEA for finding affordable furniture. As much as I love IKEA, it tends to have a “look” to it, don’t you think? Maybe that’s just me (because I know their products so well), but I didn’t want an entire place that said “IKEA”.

fern, and wood planter from Flower & Glory // cement planter from the Red Mud Hut

I’ll definitely shop there (and already have for the flat), but I want to have furniture from all types of places and styles so that our flat feels like a true representation of our eclectic tastes.
One of the shops that came up in my search was Swoon Editions. It’s an online store with a cool concept – ditch the storefront, middlemen, and everything else that jacks up the price of furniture, and just connect directly with the people who make it. All of their items are online only, which poses a bit of a problem – you might end up waiting months to receive a product you have never even seen in person!

Made.com (which I also researched) has a similar concept but actually has a few showrooms in and around London, so you can see stuff in person.

Zabel media cabinet from Swoon Editions

Richard and I both fell in love with this media cabinet, called Zabel. Despite being a bit more money (double) than we had hoped to spend, we couldn’t find anything else we liked quite as much. It felt unique, and modern, while still being “warm” – I tend to find lots of modern furniture lacks warmth due to all the chrome/glass etc. The only problem was that we had to wait about 3 months (!!) to have it delivered. Some items on their website can be delivered right away, but others have to actually be made and shipped from their manufacturing country (in our case India).

As much as a nicer sofa, or bed with storage would be nice, the media cabinet turned out to be our first priority. It doesn’t take much to convince me to buy something new and nice, but Richard’s a bit tougher to crack when we aren’t exactly flush. However, he absolutely hated our former media setup and was determined to find something to replace it. (Woohoo!)

fiddle leaf basket from Homesense

Oh, and did you notice our beautiful plant in the corner? I was beyond excited when I came across this plant in our local Lidl. They had a small section of plants on sale for £9.99 and I couldn’t believe it when I found this fiddle leaf fig (the only one) amongst the rest. I cut the top off to encourage branching (and replanted the cut to make a new plant). So basically I get two fiddle leaves for the lowly price of £9.99!! And if you’re looking for your own fiddle leaf here in the UK, well you’re in luck! The Columbia Road flower market always seems to have them, and not for much more than I got mine!

But back to the media cabinet. We’re planning on mounting the tv on the wall, once we finalize exactly where we want it to go. I am looking forward to accumulating a few decorative items to dress up the top once the TV is out of the way.

my humble rendering of our planned bookshelf and wall-mounted TV

Beside the cabinet, we’re planning on building a bookshelf just like this one, from CB2. I’m thinking of making the shelves wood, and either staining them black or a mid-toned wood. I’m torn, as I love the warmth of wood, but think black will allow the items on the shelves to be the focus. Thoughts?

In other living room furniture news… we still have the same sofa, and coffee table (which Richard loathes), but they are now grounded by this awesome rug! I’ve always wanted a cool antique rug and searched for a while before coming across this beauty on eBay. It was right in my price range, and the perfect size to have all the front legs of our furniture on it.

Eventually, we’ll have a side table or two and will pull the rug out from the wall a bit. I’m thinking of doing a modern box frame coffee table with a couple poufs tucked underneath it. Maybe DIY something like this coffee table from West Elm? I was first inspired to do this after seeing the living room at Orlando Soria’s condo – he even has the sort of pouf I have in mind!

doesn’t his place look amazing?

Richard is dying for something to put his feet up on, but I don’t think a sectional will fit in here. So poufs it is! (Or is it poufs?) Maybe light grey ones like these? I’ll DIY them if I can make friends with someone who owns a sewing machine… I really love those French seams.

Oh, and you can’t really see in the photos, but our living room window is currently home to a lot of plant happenings.

Richard is trying to grow more Nepali chili plants, from cuttings of his two larger plants, and I am still trying to propagate succulents! I Instagrammed about these ages ago, and they are finally starting to do something. Just when I was thinking about getting rid of them…

On the other side of the room, we have our mini dining space. In the corner by the window is our freezer (not shown) which we plan on eventually building a cabinet to hide. But beside it, we have our new, wee, farmhouse table! I found this one on eBay, and then we went to pick it up. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit through our front door (too sharp a turn just inside the door) so we had a friend help us get it through our second-floor window!!

I still want to replace the knob on the tiny drawer with a smaller wood one, stained to match. I even have the knob and just need to find some stain. Procrastinating – 1, Amy – 0…

Our chairs are old church seats but are missing the bible holders on the back. You can see where they used to live, and I kind of wish the people who had these before us didn’t remove them. I want to stain them or possibly use some Danish oil on them to darken the color a bit. Make them slightly richer in color than the table? I’m still not sure.

don’t you just love those legs?

The room is still so far away from being anywhere near done – curtains, lights, artwork, side tables, sofa, freezer cabinet, accessories, bookshelf, etc. are all still to come. However, I am very pleased with the things we have bought so far.

Hopefully, it’ll all come together before the year is up?

the hallway before

So, when Richard and I were both off for a couple weeks, we decided to tackle painting the hallway and living room. To be fair, we had aspirations to paint the bedroom as well but just ran out of steam. While all the moldings and trim in the apartment add such wonderful character, they also add an insane amount of time to paint. The trim and door color in the apartment was a gross yellowish cream color (hard to capture in photos, just trust me), so we decided to paint everything, doors included, back to a nice white.

look at all the trim we had to paint… yikes!

After researching colors for a few days, and even getting some swatches mailed to me, I was having a hard time picking. From my limited experience, painting in the UK and North America is very different. Back home, the hardware stores carry a huge assortment of swatches and tend to have other color brands on file to match. But in the UK, color matching is a bit more new, and the brands they carry offer a limited selection.

the living room before

I finally settled on a couple Valspar colors that I found in our local B&Q, and two Farrow & Ball paints I had matched to Valspar paint. For all the trim in our flat, I chose Farrow & Ball’s All White, which is a very true, soft white, without any blue undertones. The living room is Valspar’s Shetland Sweater, which I chose by name alone because it was such a lovely soft grey that looks neutral in some light, and with a hint of blue in others.

The living room initially had a sort of greige color, which was okay, if a bit darker than I wanted. The only window in the room has some lovely stained glass, with very true/bright colors, and I thought that a more blue-grey would complement it better.

our lovely stained glass window

After painting, it just feels so clean and fresh – I love it!

The hallway has been the biggest improvement. The colors that it started with were just oh-so-dark, that it made a tiny, cramped, windowless hallway, seem even tinier and more cramped! It was in dire need of some lighter colors.

I decided to paint the chair rail and wall below with All White and used Valspar’s Sheer Shadow for both the wall above the chair rail, and ceiling. My original plan involved adding more wood trim to panel out the wall below the chair rail, but without limited time, we opted to save that for a later date.

What a difference some white makes! We ended up having to use a primer on the lower half of the wall, to save wasting our white paint as it wasn’t covering the mauve very well.

(ignore the old dresser and picture frames)

As much as I love the new paint, I still think that adding some wood trim (painted white of course) would add great depth and character to the walls. A project for another time!

All in all, despite taking waaaay more time than we thought it would, I do love these colors. It’s going to take eons to paint the other rooms in the flat, but I do look forward to having this fresh feeling in every corner.