Although a bunny night light will give a friendly glow, it probably wont help me much with bed-time reading. Im thinking one of these tall tab lights with its adjustable shade would look pretty sharp beside a bed or a sofa. I also really like the desk light, but as my desk is my dining room table the tall one in white is officially on my wish list.
To cheer myself up I decided to buy a little treat for the flat. (I'm always a sucker for housewares...). On saturday afternoon I found this cute old box while browsing through the fascinating Furniture Antique Market near Rope Walk in Bermondsey. It makes a great holder for my wooden utensils, and if oneday I have a garden which is easier to access than the one 2 floors below me, I could use it to carry cutlery, napkins, salt and pepper safely to a picnic table. I love the little metal straps that adds strength to the handle.
Ive been looking for a little while now for a bedside reading lamp so I dont need to get up out of bed to turn off the light when Im ready... and also something that will give off a little glow in the corner of my room so I can find my way in the dark.
Maybe its because I got mugged on the weekend when some kid tried to steal my iphone, but something about these comforting kitch glowing animal night lights really appealed.
After watching the BBC special on my street I was searching the net for more information about the Charles Booth Survey and found that the Museum of London has a whole wall to wall, floor to ceiling room covered in his maps. Something to add to my list of weekend London based excursions I think...
If you are in the UK, tune in to BBC 2 at 9pm tonight to watch the Secret History of Streets - this week the episode features Camberwell Grove!
In 1886 Charles Booth started a 17 year long project to visit every one of London's streets to record the social conditions of residents, hand colouring the maps to indicate wealth, poverty and even criminals! The BBC series re-visits six archetypal London streets as they exist today, and looks at how they have changed in the past 100 years. Last week the series looked at nearby deptford high street. (See map above)
You may remember this exciting post from 2 years ago when I found put they were filming the programme:
It has been raining non-stop since the weekend and I awoke Monday morning to discover the living room window head, the kitchen window head, and the middle of the living room ceiling all dripping water into the flat. Nice. The living room window leaked once about a year ago, but now it occurs every time there is a sustained heavy rain. I had someone in to investigate about a year ago, but no one could figure out what the problem was. With water pouring in from all sides however it was time to do something more serious about the problem. I called the builder to investigate and he removed the window heads and cut a hole in my living room ceiling while everything was still wet to best ascertain the cause. (Ouch - poor little flat!) The image above is the kitchen window head - you can see water drips on the green plastic.)
He isn't 100% certain but it appears that:
Here is a summary of most of the bathroom decisions I've made to date. Im still not sure about the floor, or the extent of the wall tiles... but Im going to try and bottom at least one of those decisions out by the end of the week. Time to hit the drawing board and draft up the elevations on CAD to test out my options.
One thing I have decided on is that I will go with a non-bevel edged white gloss subway tile for the walls around the shower area. How high I will take the tiles (picture rail height or to the ceiling), and how far around the room to wrap them still requires some further thought. At the moment I think I will just have them on the two walls around the shower and sink, with no tiles on the door or window wall as they would only be tiny slivers of cut tiles which would look fussy. And besides, those two walls are unlikely to get splashed anyway.
While looking on line for images for my previous post on floor tiles, I stumbled upon these black floor tiles. They wont work in my bathroom, but I think they look really great so Im posting them here as a reminder for next time. Love also the little medicine cabinet with the grey cross - now that is something I could incorporate.
It's been a little while since I made any progress on my bathroom planning so I figured it was time to get that ball rolling again. One of the main decisions I still need to make is whether to leave the existing floorboards and paint them with a more robust, water resistant floor paint, or install these cute hexagon tiles in matt white with grey grout.
I like the hexagon tiles for their traditional look and for their durability over a wood floor in a wet area, but have been warned about laying tiles down in old buildings with bouncy, uneven floors, as cracks in the grout can appear over time. I imagine if I took up the existing boards and installed a thick enough plywood sub-layer it would be ok... but then there is of course the threshold issue. Tiles and a subfloor will be thicker than the existing floorboards so there might be a small step on which Id likely stub my toe regularly!
All in all, I guess Im still thinking about this one!
I decided to skip out on the Flotilla yesterday given it was a chilly 12C, pouring down with rain for most of the day, all the bridges were closed to the public (access by invitation only), and the front row seats along the banks had been taken by people who had camped over night!
I am planning on hitting the baton lighting and fire works tonight around buckingham palace though....
Here are some photos from the Queen's coronation in 1953, a year after she was proclaimed Queen, when she was just 26 years old. Wow.
