A New Look for a New Year

I decided to switch things up for the New Year and give Ladles and Jellyspoons site a little face lift – with a new header drawn by Minty. Amazing don’t you think? She has always impressed with her drawing – especially of Manga characters (Japanese cartoons) and so this week I commissioned her to draw a new header.

It shows her and Rémy doing what we do best over here at Ladles and Jellyspoons – cooking, eating, singing and having lots of fun, regardless (or maybe because of) the mess. Don’t you just love how splattered everything is and how happy they look – and those perfect pink jellies? She has really captured each of them – Rémy with his baseball cap, her with her ponytail and over-sized ribbon. I feel I must step up with their cooking – it’s been too long since we made a video, learned something new in the kitchen or even practiced our knife skills. Mainly because their other passions in life – gymnastics and horse-riding have taken over.

As well as the site we have been doing a little decorating at home in the last couple of months – with a lot of help from Walnut. Until I visited Walnut I had always been rather skeptical of using wallpaper in the house and focused my attention on chosing all those funny names for paint from Farrow and Ball. All that has changed. I’m now of the mind that a room without wallpaper is rather underdressed, naked in fact.

Rémy decided he wanted a ‘Science Room’ theme for his room – this would need to incorporate his growing fossil collection, a laboratory based on Fantastic Mr Fox (he actually specified a Bunsen burner, Magnesium and a fire extinguisher!) and a loft bed.

So this was one source of inspiration – I sourced x-ray images on line and put together a collage in Photoshop which I then printed out and framed. I found various vintage science poster images and printed these out for his wall. Before, walls of Farrow and Ball Borrowed Light – a very pale blue:

During painting – it was all I could do to get Rémy out from under Memo’s feet:

And after, with the chalkboard paint and the framed science pictures inspired by the science lab in Fantastic Mr Fox:

We painted the walls with chalkboard paint – I was a little nervous that this would result in a very dark black box so I have white blinds, white trim and I painted one wall Farrow and Ball Lamp Room Gray. I also painted the ceiling silver – this is awesome – it reflects a lot of light and gives the room a modern industrial vibe – it also ties in nicely with the silver loft bed.

Finally I converted the original silver Ikea bunk bed, we simply removed the lower mattress and metal bar – it’s not as high as Ikea’s loft bed and it will serve Rémy well for a few more years. This has created a lot more space in the room for some much needed extra drawers to store toys.

Rémy loves fossil and so we included an accent wall of Fossil wallpaper – I love how the red of his chest of drawers ties into the red dinosaurs – a total piece of luck! The top of the chest of drawers serves as a great area to showcase a few of his fossil collection.

When Steve was installing the wallpaper I asked him not to cut the head off the brontosaurus at the top of the wall – once the ceiling had dried I glued him on – a quirky little detail that makes me smile!

Minty opted for a more traditional wallpaper to cover her new closet doors – with Chinese lanterns and nasturtium leaves. I have yet to install the red silk blinds on her French doors and window and I’ve also got to find cute handles for the doors at the top.

And after weeks of weighing up my decisions and going back and forth on Timorous Beasties wallpapers I opted for the green butterflies for the hallway – or as I like to call it my library!

The small transition between rooms is now one of my favorite places at home and not just because it houses all my books. It makes me smile as I walk out of the bathroom and see the butterflies – like a secret garden, for a fleeting moment.

There’s just about space for a comfy chair – not to live there for anytime – you couldn’t walk around it. However, now that the kids are back at school I’m very tempted to drag an armchair in there, relax with a good book and sip my morning coffee – I’m sure that when I emerge I will be inspired, rejuvenated and ready to face anything in 2013.

The kitchen walls are now looking rather sad and neglected in comparison- next up more bookshelves for all the cook books and perhaps this wallpaper – my bestfriend Charlotte, who inspires me daily with recipes, knitting, clothes, books, movies – not to mention wallpaper, has it in her house in London. The always stylish Lisa Borgnes (with her great blog A Bloomsbury Life) has it in her cosy kitchen – so I’m a follower of fashion rather than a trendsetter. I’m off to drag that chair into my library for a few moments of peace.

And please don’t tell Didier about my dreams for the kitchen, he’s still getting used to my previous home improvements!