Bowley & Jackson

A Monday morning in July, bathed in blue skies & glorious sunshine. 

I am a little obsessed with the outside space at the moment, from the stack of seed catalogues that are current bedtime reading to drooling over vintage pieces & garden furniture. The thing is with outside spaceis that it is soo much easier then the serious business of interior design. My garden & work have slightly blurred of late, with so many garden products in our catalogue here are a few musings from the garden in July...

So because this Saturday is Barnes Fair Saturday and we are bound for stall no 45 once again, I feel it is appropriate to dig out my blog post from 3 years ago. Much has changed since then but I know Barnes will be reassuringly the same in a very good way....

So Saturday was Barnes village fair day, my absolute favourite fair of all time and for good reason.

Held on Barnes Green, Southwest London, Barnes fair is always the second Saturday in July and the sun nearly always shines (except for two years ago when it poured and I developed trenchfoot !). Our alarm starts early at 3.50am, Dan cheerfully whistling, me monosyllabic. Apart from a few other early bird traders at 4.30am we have Barnes Green to ourselves save the first Heathrow bound planes.

October; the beginning of Autumn, dark nights approaching and for us a month deep in preparation for Christmas. Not then an ideal month to start redecorating the kitchen....

With a houseload of folks planning to descend on us for Easter I had a slight panic attack this morning when I realised that this is just two weeks away. Given that much of our entrance hall & kitchen are currently daubed in paint samples (I am so indecisive at present) I have been thinking up some vintage style touches with which to jolly things along...

Brrr snow this morning, seemingly Winter isn't over just yet. Still, after days of grey the village looks so much prettier this morning AND it has given me more time to faff over the stack of seed catalogues currently my bedtime reading.....

So in this weeks blog post I am making pine cone firelighters, just the ticket for lighting the fire on these increasingly Autumnal evenings. Not only do these make lighting the fire easier they also have the added bonus of making the room smell delicious! So without further ado....

After two manic weeks of refitting, redecorating and Christmassyfying (my word invented to describe Christmas visual merchandising) our shops are light, inviting and packed to the rafters with enticing wares. My house on the other hand is officially a tip. A perfect storm of running the business, renovating another property and a 10 month old baby has not been kind to my dream of House & Garden perfection.

Strange how what goes around comes around, as a child of the seventies no weekend was complete without my parents trundling off to our local pine strippers to have their latest purchase dipped. They filled their first cottage with original Victorian pine furniture carefully accessorised with Habitat purchases... I wonder how many  pieces of stripped pine have then been repainted during the "Chalk paint revolution"?

My Dad thinks Fathers Day is a bit corny and he certainly wouldn't thank me for a "Fab Dad" card that said I think compared to Mothers, Fathers get a raw deal when it comes to presents with lots of rather naff joke products that must surely head towards the bin within 6 months.

So with this in mind here is a small selection of things your Dad might actually appreciate...

I am still in decorating mode however gardening mode is fast approaching so I am becoming increasingly hell bent on finishing projects. And since lately these have involved various shelving schemes it seemed only right that I should photograph my creations & share the love for cast shelf brackets...