I'm back !

And it's good to be back, let me tell you ! Got distracted there for a few months with school work, an internship - or 'work placement' as my purist Brit brother insists on calling it -, meeting a certain someone I really liked (which let's face it, doesn't exactly happen every day)... In short, just life doing its thing.

Ok, if I want to make it to at least three posts this year, I'd better get on with it. Because distracted as I was, I've still been thrifting, flea market haunting and generally spending the last of my hard earned cash from my legal secretary days.

So here are a few glimpses of what I've been up to decorating wise.

My most expensive West German pottery buy to date. Ehem. 50 eur at the Brussels flea market, but - in my defence - I haggled this down from 60 eur, plus I got a second vase for free. But still, after spending that much dough, I ended up eating spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino for the rest of the month. These things happen...

See the tall brown fat lava vase to the right. That's the freebie I got with the first one. Pretty cool, huh ?

The seating area. I have been talking about replacing my old battered Habitat couch ever since I started this blog. Well, I finally did it.

This was a total impulse buy. I saw it in a shopwindow, had a chat with the owner, agreed on a half-way decent price and free same-day delivery. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes. And voilà. New (old) sofa !

And on sunny days, this happens... He loves it as much as I do.

On a totally unrelated side note. I also finally solved the mysterious case of the stunted rudbeckia growth.

A little of this, a little of that

Apologies for having gone AWOL for so long ! Although I've continued dabbling around the flat over the last couple of months, I just haven't been inspired enough to take pictures and document anything on this blog... Winter, the last weeks of school, sending out applications and going on interviews for an internship have drained me of most of my energy.

Ok ok, I'm gonna stop whining now and let you discover the changes - big and small - that have occured around here.

Yeah, I simply can't get enough of Jason Munn's posters ! And added a third one to the bedroom display. The Walkmen - fantastic band btw. Go check them out.

My neighbours can't no longer play peeping toms... I finally hung some curtains in the bedroom. Ikea ones, what else ?

And there's definitely some hippie vibe going on in the bathroom. Macramé and plants galore.

Of course, I also keep adding to the West German pottery collection. Now also taking over the kitchen window sill.

And last, but absolutely not least, let me introduce you to my newest 'roommate' - little Wally, who has been living at the Fat Cat residence since October. Hyperactive when it comes to playing, voracious when it comes to food, very shy when it comes to humans, she's been shaking things up amongst the cat herd...

Bedroom, all done

Remember the bedroom ? On a good day, it looked something like this.

And on a bad day ? I prefer not to show.

Mostly I managed to fill it up to the rafters with all sorts of stuff. Not that I actually own any rafters, but you get the picture. There's only so many sunburst mirrors and West German pottery vases you can display before it gets too overwhelming. And I passed that point a long time ago.

So over the last couple of month I've been a busy bee - decluttering, cleaning, dusting, repainting, selling crap on ebay, shopping at Ikea... And now I've finally got something to show for my troubles.

Yep, bye bye vintage wardrobes and highboards! I've gone rogue and gave in to the Ikea Pax appeal. 

Sleek, tall, white and 3.5 meters of incredible storage space. Honestly, they were a real pain to transport and assemble - and I could not have done without my incredible patient and determined brother and equally helpful sister-in-law (Thank you so much guys !!!). But they are so worth it !

Of course, getting these cupboards implied moving everything else around. Which gets me to the fun part - rearranging my belongings. It's a never ending story...

I also invested in some additional Tomado shelves. A girl can never have too many of those... 

Some new plants (I'm afraid there have been some casualties to the great bedroom remodel of 2011) and some new additions to my West German pottery collection. As you can see, I'm now also collecting the neutral coloured ones. I'm beyond help on that topic...

Verdict ? Ok, it's less retro and colourful than it used to be. And definitely more grown-up. But I can finally breath in here and get some work done without being distracted by the accumulation of clutter.

Of course, I still got some details to take care of. Don't know if you noticed, but I need to get some window treatments. I'm still debating which kind to choose. In the meantime, I'm just hoping there aren't too many peeping toms in the neighborhood.
I also started painting the trim in black. What a stupid idea ! Turns out I don't like it at all. So now I need to do it all over again - in white. And there's also the window frames and the radiator that need a fresh coat of paint. And I need a new overhead light. And I want to replace all the green and blue binders with white ones... And so on and so forth.

Which brings me to my final part of today's post. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy 2012, full of fun and exciting home projects. Happy decorating and thrifting all around. It's gonna be a good one. I can feel it :-)

Sneak Peek

In between Christmas preparations, cooking and cleaning, I managed to take a couple of not too grainy pictures of the bedroom. Really just a tease, because the rest of the room is still pretty much a complete mess.

As you can see, the new bedroom styling involves lots of Tomado shelving and West German pottery. So far, I'm not straying too far from home.

Oh yes, and I thought I'd give a chance to the whole "neutral and tasteful" vibe that all the cool kids are devoted to nowadays...

Ch-Ch-Changes

Big changes indeed ! Which for the moment mostly involve making a gigantic mess...

... moving out furniture and selling off a whole bunch of stuff on ebay (and still finding the time to flip through Design Sponge at Home ) ...

... and blogging on the coffee table while od'ing on coffee... How 'à propos'.

Yes, you guessed it, I had the brilliant idea to tackle a complete overhaul of my bedroom right before Christmas and the end of year marathon to get all the school projects in.

I'm pleading the temporary insanity card and blaming flipping through too much 'Design Sponge at Home' for all this foolishness.

So how are you guys getting on with your Christmas preparations ?