Non writerly Post

Having already mentioned my love of decorating my home, I thought that those of you who share my ‘desire to redecorate’ might be interested in a small project in which I am currently involved. so I’m starting up a page on which I’ll post from time to time about my various projects – not all of which are successful, it has to be said.

In common with most of us these days I have to ’watch the pennies’ so I’m putting my own stamp on my home as and when I can afford to do so.

As a Sagittarian I love strong colour, so I’ve opted for off white painted units in my L shaped kitchen with black granite worktops (Oh how I wish I had waited though because then I could have had the wonderful new glass worktops that are coming in), my idea being that I prefer classic styles to modern, these colours won’t date, and the units can be repainted.

However to brighten things up I’ve gone for lots of touches of red – including see through red plastic chairs which I saw in a local shop in Nantwich and fell for big time.

My kitchen has to be accessed from inside the house via a door in what in effect is a long corridor wall. This wall runs into the inner corner of the L shape, whilst the opposite wall which is shorter opens out into the kitchen. The passage thus created is too narrow for furniture or even anything hanging on the wall, but for me it also creates a very dull experience.

I like to experiment, so I approached a wonderful firm – Digetex -www.digetex.com who transpose pictures/photographs etc onto blinds, fabric and into wall murals. I first came across them in a house décor magazine when I fell in love with a wall mural taken from a photograph in an architectural images book.

This same mural now decorates the facing wall of my stairs and is much admired – I can’t post a photograph for you to see because of copyright laws, but with the kind permission of Digetex I am posting an image of what is going to go on my kitchen wall, which is in effect a photograph of my existing shelves and wine rack,(taken with great difficulty by my business partner because of our inability to get the photograph square on).

I contacted Digetex with my ‘idea’ and supplied then with two photos – one of the unit and another of a glass fronted bookcase, - fully expecting them to laugh and say that it would be impossible to create the effect I wanted – which was to fill a space 250 cm by 200 cm with a four times repeat full size image of the image shelf and wine rack combo.

To my delight they emailed me back with the image posted here – which is exactly what I wanted.

Now I can’t wait to see my mural in place – the fact that the corridor is slightly dark will hopefully add to the ‘wine cellar’ effect.

I have added the web site address for Digetex above, for anyone who is interested – and no I do not have any financial connection with them or incentive to mention them – but I do love sharing information that I’ve found useful.

Next step will hopefully be a half wall mural of Venice for my bathroom, plus I’m mulling over the wisdom of putting a toile paper on the walls of my downstairs ‘loo’ featuring cows – as a sort of joke. Mmmm – maybe not?

Another site I love btw is Juliette’s Interiors – when I get time I must email Juliette to ask her if she will allow me to post a photograph of the mirrors I bought from her. They are totally over the top and a real conversation stopper.

When I sold the home I shared with my late husband the buyers also bought most of the furniture much of which had been especially chosen for it, so I had to have a new start (oh poor me!). I’ve had to budget though and I have had and am having terrific fun finding ways to put my own stamp on my home and keep the costs down.

I’m now wondering about a cream, grey, and black sort of striped silk fabric for my own bedroom windows – with diamante in it. How old am I? Well certainly Sheba and I (my dog who is also these days my one and only ‘significant other’ are both agreed that we are way toooooo old for diamante, but on the other hand we are also old enough to go ahead and choose it anyway.



Penny Jordan