Happy belated new year.

It may well be early February but I would like to wish everyone a happy new year for 2014. I am more than aware that there has been virtually no activity on here for quite some time and I am planning to turn that around.

At the moment I have a number of projects coming up which I am excited about and will document here for all to see.
I am currently planning my wedding with the amazing woman who painfully endures the charm of my procrastination and so my time has been very much taken up with the endless list of tasks.
Just a little hint for anyone not yet married but considering it I must say do not underestimate what is involved. I mean this in the nicest and most sincere way as I am a supporter of marriage but man is there a lot to do. Luckily I sorted my trousers today and my olive broques which are still up for debate.

My new olive broques. I think they might be footwear marmite if you know what I mean.

There are a lot of handmade items going into our wedding which I plan to showcase on here. One problem with creativity which I am sure you will all relate to is that you never get exactly what you want unless you make it yourself.

I hope you are all well and excited for what the year has in store.

See you soon.

Bob

It's been a while.

Hi guys,

Sorry there haven't been any posts for a few weeks, I guess that's what a full time job, 2 college courses and a holiday do to you.
That said, the holiday was a treat for my 30th Birthday and it was so worth it. We headed to Barcelona where in all honesty I was not really sure what to expect but what we found was incredible.
Barcelona has massively embraced the recycling culture and the re-purposing of products.
Almost every place we ate was bathed in character and design.
They are certainly not short of creativity in Barcelona.
I could go on and on about the lighting, the reclaimed timber, materials etc etc but it is probably better so show you some pictures and to advise you to go there as nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes.

 

 

 

Floating book shelf

Being a big fan of stealthy designs whereby you get to see the end result without seeing all the other stuff like brackets, cables, wires and supports etc I decided to try something I've been wanting to do for ages, a floating book shelf.
I have seen some of these around and they look great. The idea is simple enough, use a book as a shelf but so you can't see any shelf brackets. Magic!

The first step was to get hold of a decent book and really you want to use a hardback book to keep some of the structure.

 

Next was to work out where to place the brackets and then cut the pages of the book to fit them in.

     

Once positioned I then had to cut some notches for the brackets in the cover of the book and then screw
it all together. If you use something like plasterboard screws which I did then they will bite in quite nicely and also don't need any drilling into the book for a pilot hole.

Once brackets are attached to the book it's a case of mounting it to the wall. Ideally you will want to mount to something fairly solid. Unfortunately I had to secure mine to an old wood latt and plaster wall which is not ideal but you can get around it by using more screws to spread the load.

This is my first attempt at this and I think I will refine it abit as I would like the brackets to be abit smaller but the basics are there so unless you have a fear of drilling holes then have a go at it and see what you can come up with.

Catch you soon. Rob

Festival of Thrift

Finally this weekend is the weekend I have been waiting for for months. The festival of thrift is days away. As the nights start to close in and the dust is blown off the heating thermostat it is that inevitable sign of autumn and winter being now upon us. Despite the chill in the air the festival of thrift is hotting up with more and more workshops being added weekly and some fantastic people taking part.
To add to my excitement I recieved an e-mail from the event team confirming my taking part in the blogger event where I will be interviewing the masterminds behind the uk's first festival of thrift.
Watch this space for the interview with Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway of Hemingway designs, John Orchard from Marchday and Events organiser Stella Hall.
Take care and see you soon.

Cafe Hero

Following on from my last post about pallet wood feature walls I happened upon a fantastic place where pallet wood was in abundance along with plenty of other inspirational and creative design works.

The place I found is a new cafe and restaurant in Hull, England and I have attached some pictures for you. I particularly like the bar area that has its frontage made up of a great selection of doors and drawer fronts of all shapes and sizes complete with the handles still attached.
I would be interested if anyone else has come across any places like this.

The use of reclaimed materials and eclectic decorative features and furniture have been blended together really well and this just the sort of room I wish I had designed. Topped off with a wickedly decent cup of tea and jazz music playing quietly in the background was fantastic.

Bye for now.

Reclaimed timber feature wall.

I am really interested in all the uses people find for reclaimed wood as there is so much of it around and it can be found in so many places such as skips, by the side of the road, industrial estates etc. One thing I particularly like is where it is used as a feature wall. The textures, colours and all the subtle differences in the pieces make for a fantastic feature. This is something we hope to do in our utility room so I will update with pictures when we have done it.

Re-cycled bottle soap dispensers

Hello, Just been thinking about ways that I could re-use some nice spirit bottles as I love the variety of shapes, finishes and labels that you get with them. In the past I have mostly used them for vases but recently when in one of those moments of boredom I decided to see if the plastic top off my soap dispenser would fit on a bottle, which it did. This prompted me to further prod the idea and thought about using the bottle as a soap dispenser.
I had to cut up the plastic tube from a trigger type bottle to make the tube long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle and it worked a treat. See what you think as I have gone abit further and made one for the washing up liquid and the washing machine liquid is next.