Flying visit

Phew! What a mad dash last weekend was... I drove to my mother's house on Friday for the evening (and stayed overnight), so that I could see my little brother and his family. They were visiting my mum for three days on their way to holiday in the sunshine. It's been about 18 months since I last saw my brother (at the memorial service for my father) and I'm unlikely to see him again for a while as he lives in America with his wife and children. It was lovely to see them all again and his children, whom I haven't seen for 6 years, have grown into beautiful, bright and happy people.

Saturday lunchtime I headed back home again via the large garden centre in Hereford. Here I spent a pleasant hour selecting dozens of annuals to plant into a 3 tier jardiniere in our front garden. For my birthday early this year, I asked for gardening tokens, so this lovely shopping spree was actually my birthday present from mum and my sister. Once the plants are all in situ I will take some pictures.


Since I got back from my jolly, Dave and I have been working together again on the new look website... I hate that it takes so long from 'can we make it do this or that?' to the finished product, but continue to be amazed that Dave will merrily work away, creating a page, changing things as I request them and not grizzle at my inability to be decisive about layout, colours etc.

I am really pleased that I have found some lovely quilt designs to add to our growing collection at New Country Quilts (our specialist quilt and bedlinen website) and some gorgeous blankets and throws which have now arrived with us. In the next day or so I will get my camera out and get snapping, so that I can put them on the website.

Thursday this week sees the start of Big Brother season, okay now I have a problem... do I admit that I actually do watch BB or do I pretend that I don't and have to keep a secret all summer? Hmm, looks like I've let the cat out of the bag already. That said, I promise I won't prattle on about it for the next few weeks.

Well, I'm off to carry on adding items into the database of the new website, it's a long, slow task but a great opportunity to review everything we sell and remind myself of how much I like them. And I think probably a cuppa is well overdue, chat soon, Liz
All images copyright of image owners and text copyright Pretty Practicals 2006 - 2008 except where stated.

French beds, french furniture

I love French beds, the elegant shapes, the carved detailing on the head board and often the foot board too. I think that the bedroom is the one place that we can let opulance reign supreme and go completely overboard with the romantic look, if that's what we want.

Having spent quite so much time in by bedroom for the last few days, it has really got me thinking about it and about how it's time for a change in here. I love our wall decor and curtains and our bed will stay (it's an enormous thing that takes up half the space in the sizable room). I've decided that I am going to make a padded cover for the headboard, so that it coordinates with our curtains and invest in some new storage furniture.

At the moment, our bed doesn't have a footboard, so I'm going to ask Dave to construct a footboard from mdf and wood to attach to the base of the bed. Then I can make a padded cover for the foot board too and we will have created our own corbiere style bed. When it's time to replace this monster size bed (and we all know that a new bed is required at least once every ten years or less), I think we will downsize a little and have a superking size bed with cream carved detailing (oh dear, I am already planning the changes after next!).

My love of quilts, patchwork, plain, feather or fibre means that I have a lovely (unreasonably big) collection of them here at home and I have now ordered a beautiful armoire in which to store them and I'm going to put fabric panels behind the wire doors. They will then be stored away safely, out of the light that could fade them where I can find them each time I fancy a change on our bed. Each of our quilts gets used on a regular basis, depending on the season, my mood, the bedlinen we are using etc. and I can't bear the thought of parting with any of them (oh no, Dave mumbles over my shoulder), but I do keep finding new ones that I just have to add to my stash.
Well it's time for a cuppa and to get on some paperwork.... chat soon, Liz

All images and text copyright Pretty Practicals 2007 and 2008 except where stated.