Paint It Black

Happy Monday! I hope you've had a good weekend. Here's what we got up to.

Having plans to makeover a room seems to have a domino effect and we've been looking at other areas of the house with fresh eyes. On Saturday morning Jon decided he'd had enough of the bathroom cabinet, after shuffling around pieces of furniture from elsewhere in the house and nothing looking quite right, it hit me like a thunderbolt...paint it black!  

Sorting out the Shit Tip (aka the middle room) we rediscovered the photograph in the brass frame that you can see on the freshly painted cabinet. Back in 2011 at The Big Chill, along with 698 other volunteers, we participated in award-winning American photographer, Spencer Tunick's photoshoot (read more about it HERE). 

Jon and I were team yellow.

We made the national press (The Sunday Times & The Guardian) and the BBC news. It was such a wonderfully life-affirming experience but man, it took days to wash that body paint off!

We also unearthed this gorgeous Victorian woman's head carved oak shelf, which was my Grandma's. Isn't she gorgeous?

Leaving Jon to the painting, I rummaged through my fabric scrap stash and made some scrunchies. Yes, I know all of us long-haired lassies wore them in the 1980s but they've had a huge revival in the last couple of years and I'd forgotten how much better they hold my hair than a bog standard band (no damage or pulling, either).

If I make a few every week I should have plenty for the festival season.

The eagle eyed amongst you might spot a William Morris Acanthus print amongst the velvet and West African waxed cotton...

These pyjamas were going for a song in the Next New Year clearance sale (£10 down from £45) but they were miles too long so, rather than waste any of the fabric, the excess became scrunchies. These are for lounging in, I never wear clothes in bed! 

 On Saturday evening we headed to the Black Country Arms (the BCA) on Walsall's High Street to celebrate Tony's birthday. Liz and Al are currently sunning themselves in Tenerife so it was just the six of us.

Formerly The Green Dragon, the BCA is the oldest pub in Walsall, dating back to 1627. It has a mind-boggling array of real ales, several of which we sampled on Saturday night. 

After a couple of hours in the pub we walked around the corner to Salt 'n' Pepper on Freer Street (situated next door to what was Boy George's squat back in the 1980s),very accurately described as a Turkish Fine Dining Restaurant, the fare is mighty fine.

We ordered vegetarian moussaka, mixed grill and chicken guvec. We didn't opt for starters knowing how big the portions are and how generous the owner can be and, true to form, we were given flatbreads, olives, dips, various mixed salads and slices of baklava. The staff brought out a birthday cake complete with candles and sung Happy Birthday to Tony.

I can't recommend Salt 'n' Pepper highly enough but, be warned, it's extremely popular and booking is essential. 

We didn't wake up till gone 8am on Sunday and that was only due to a very hungry William! We popped round to Tony's with his presents - which included a freshly baked (by me) banana and organic plain chocolate loaf. I wore a vintage tissue silk Treacy Lowe Indian-printed maxi dress and a 1960s suede waistcoat along with Thursday's charity shopped El Naturalista green nubuck boots.

You've seen the dress and waistcoat many times over the ten years plus that I've owned them so here's a close-up of William on the Seat of Judgement instead.

Talking of Thursday's charity shopping, here's the haul of vintage vinyl Jon snaffled....dance classics Let The Music Play and I Thought It was You. Laxton's Superb were a local Brit Pop band (and a bunch of lovely lads), hailed as the next big thing by the Melody Maker back in 1996. 

Girl Power! Paula Abdul's The Promise of a New Day (still with the free promo poster), Zoe's Sunshine on a Rainy Day and Birmingham's finest, the legendary Fuzzbox. 

 

A limited edition of Spagna's Every Girl & Boy in lime green vinyl!

With the exception of Janet Jackson I'm not sure about this lot, I think they were just too cheap not to buy them! 

Someone's obviously fallen out with Stevie Nicks as all three of her albums were in the same charity shop. Back in 1985, when Rock a Little (the album in the centre) was released, I had an almost identical dress and was told I looked like her (I wish!) 

I managed to finish both of the books I'd started last week. Here's this weeks' reads....

More English Civil War intrigue in Bernard (Sharpe) Cornwell's gripping bestseller, A Crowning Mercy and what's been described as the quintessential guide to all things mythological, Edith Hamilton's Mythology: A Guide to Gods and Heroes, which is still in print, 82 years after it was first published.

To mix things up a little we popped down to the clearance charity shop on Monday morning rather than our usual Sunday. I wore my Levi's denim shirt (the sleeves are very Poor Things), a Dilli Grey block printed maxi skirt and Thursday's charity shopped Fly London black leather biker boots. Following our ruthless sort out of the middle room, we had several bags of donations to drop off (mostly books) and, very unusually, I didn't find anything to buy!

But never fear, I still managed to add something different to my wardrobe, this navy velvet military dress which I'm sure I was only admiring in Monsoon a couple of months ago, it was inexplicably listed on Vinted as "suede dress", it was mine for £2 (RRP £75!)

Thanks for reading, see you soon! 

Sweden Comes To Stonecoft - Our Bathroom Makeover in Collaboration with Photowall

 

Of all the rooms in our house, the bathroom is the one our visitors (remember them?) say they love the most. Originally a toilet in a room the size of a cupboard, Jon knocked the walls down and started from scratch, creating a bigger space by utilising a third walk-through bedroom and partitioning it off with stud walls and glass bricks.

Whilst installing the walk-in shower he discovered this fireplace, hidden away for decades under a sheet of plasterboard, a surprise to both us and to Mum, who grew up in the house and had no idea that it had been in her bedroom for most of her childhood. 

The natural light in the bathroom comes through the landing window and filters through the glass bricks directly opposite. We painted a feature wall in a deep chocolate brown but, concerned that it would make the room too dark, went for white on the remaining walls.

This has irked me for a while. Whilst the white paint does bounce some light back into the bathroom, the walls look cold, clinical and - to be brutally honest - downright boring. No amount of interesting framed pictures or houseplants improve the overall effect.

Shortly after posting our lockdown kitchen makeover post (HERE) I received an email from Swedish company, Photowall, saying that they loved our interior style and wondered if we'd be interested in choosing a piece of wall art from their website in exchange for a review on my blog. A quick perusal of their site and I was beyond excited, I'd found the perfect solution to our boring bathroom wall dilemma, a mural called Old Paint Cracked Wall, perfect for a couple as passionate about damaged, decaying and derelict buildings as we are. Who wants pristine white paint when you can have an atmospheric crumbling plaster wall (minus the mess)?

SOURCE

Our mural was printed to order in Stockholm and delivered by DHL less than a week later. We opted for the premium quality paper which was anti-reflective and extra matt although both the standard and premium are supplied with wallpaper paste.

The mural comes on a roll with each section numbered and referred to as tiles, each tile goes up in sequence and has to be lined up accordingly with the last piece you put up. Jon says that if you have a perfectly straight wall, installing the mural would be a breeze, the quality of the paper is astounding and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Of course, our 270 year old house is wonky and uneven so it wasn't quite as straightforward but, even so, Jon managed to get it done in a couple of days and we absolutely love it!

It was hard to tell by looking at the roll but in situ it does look exactly like an aged plaster wall. From being a bit echo-y and cold, the bathroom now feels warmer, atmospheric and more intimate. The pink tones in the mural complement the Jacobean Oak floorboards and chocolate brown paint beautifully and, unlike when they were backed by a white wall, now my Victorian tiles really stand out.  

The new radiator looks really good against it, too.

My only issue is that the wooden loo seat now looks very orange, we need to invest in a darker one.

In addition to producing some truly beautiful wall art, Photowall have an excellent environmental policy. All production is done to order, no products are held in stock or discarded unnecessarily. The printing ink used contains no solvents or hazardous chemicals and is biodegradable. Any waste material generated by the production process is recycled. Each purchase from Photowall supports the company's work with Swedish development company,  Vi Agroforestry, planting over 5000 trees a year in the area surrounding Lake Victoria in East Africa.

 

As I mentioned before, I get lots of invitations and offers to promote stuff on my blog but it nearly always gets dismissed. I loved Photowall's professional but friendly approach (they actually read my blog!) and the quality of their product has blown me away. I think I want to move our bed into the bathroom so I wake up facing this wall! 

Photowall are offering all my blog readers a 25% discount on all their products, available until 20th January, 2021 using this code: vintagevixon25