An idyllic Welsh holiday cottage

We were meant to be in the Isle of Wight. But at the last minute plans changed: we were craving a holiday somewhere remote, blustery and warmed by an open fire.

So we drove for almost a whole day to spend a week on the very beautiful Llŷn Peninsula in north Wales.



After despondency at so many holiday rentals that were photogenic on the outside, but startlingly ugly on the inside we couldn't

Spotlight on... Ingela Arrhenius for kids

Ingela Arrhenius is a Swedish illustrator, who specialises in colourful, graphic and (largely) child-focused designs with a midcentury slant. 

Looking at her work makes me happy – it's got the sort of joyful simplicity of Charley Harper, and the characters she draws are friendly without being sickly.



Lionface poster, £18 from Hus and Hem (details below)

I featured some of her for-grown-ups

A radiator – remade

I've got lots of holiday snaps to share (just back from a blustery cottage break in the country, which featured some very good interiors). Haven't finished sorting through the zillion photos I took yet though. So, meanwhile...

...here's a rather unexciting photo of the radiator that used to be in my kitchen. But why am I showing you?



Because something quite unexpected happened to it. Though (

Graduate art talent to fill your walls

Fenton Art & Design has a business model I admire. The young company (it launched at Tent in 2012) was started by Cherry Anderson and Steve Chapman, who are passionate about finding and supporting new artistic talent.

Each year the pair, who have a combined background in graphics and film/ TV, scour the art college graduate shows, looking for artists to help create their designs, which include

Wishing I was here: the perfect country getaway?

No posts for the rest of this week, as I'm on holiday... on the Isle of Wight. You may have read about black leather sofa-gate the other week, when we were first looking for a UK cottage to stay in. 

Well, we found a decent place with friendly furniture – but it wasn't a patch on this which, typically, I discovered too late. But for anyone else planning a southern British break...



This is The

Geraldine James's new book: Creative Spaces

If you liked Supermarket Sarah's colourful and inspiring book about display, Wonder Walls, you might like this too. 

The spirit behind Creative Spaces (Cico Books), the final in a trio that also includes Creative Walls and Creative Display, isn't far off. It's about beautiful interiors, yes, but not necessarily fashionable ones.



Just clever, inspired and often slightly batty ones (I haven't

House porn Thursday: a space-saving NY loft with space for three generations

There's so much to love about this hallway, featured in NY Magazine's ever excellent Design Hunting section, edited by Wendy Goodman. 

The Manhattan apartment was redesigned by its owners specifically to accommodate visiting children and grandchildren. And it's done some very clever things to maximise the available space, as well as making it flexible, depending on who's staying.



Photo: Frank

The perfect Christmas present?

Oh. I know. I said I wasn't ready to talk Christmas. But I'm compiling a little gift guide for Independent (don't email me! I'm finished!) and remembered loitering in the homeware department of H&M a few weeks ago, aimlessly stroking this lovely blanket. 



A good blanket is near universally suitable gift, I'd say.

It is soft, luxurious and... machine washable. It comes in four colours. Price:

Piet Hein Eek: new wood wallpaper range – over it already?

Piet Hein Eek's Scrapwood wallpaper, which we first covered here in 2011, has now appeared in so many photoshoots and shopping pages that it's almost jumped the shark. Or has it? 



Perhaps that's just what people, like me, who spend every day poring over such photoshoots think. Either way. I still love it: I've long hankered after wood panelled walls – this midcentury kitchen still makes me

Is this the perfect modern pub interior?

Last week I visited the Etsy UK offices in London, to check out some of the Christmas highlights available from its sellers. 

But I'm just not ready for festive, so you'll have to wait for those. Instead, I want to share the beautiful pub I walked past on my way back to the Tube station.



It's nice to spend a few daylight hours in a part of town you're not usually in and enjoy it like a

Domino Magazine rises from the dead

Domino Magazine may not mean that much to British readers, but its fans in the US will already know the great news that this former Conde Nast title, which folded in 2009, has risen from the ashes.






Last week, the magazine relaunched as an independent, with former editor Michelle Adams – who founded another brilliant style magazine, Lonny – in charge.

Domino 2:0 as it was dubbed by Tech

Emma Boomkamp's wallpaper with history

What do you make of this? It's a bit full-on, but I kind of like it – but then I find anonymous old portraits are endlessly absorbing. However, I'm almost more interested in the story behind the wallpaper.





It's almost the perfect design for a downstairs loo or the loos at a restaurant, don't you think? A bit too much to have in your face in the distance, perhaps, but brilliant close-up with

Before & after: a mini makeover

It's amazing how different you can make a room feel with just a little rejigging. I've had the sideboard in the living room arranged like this for ages. But I've always felt that the print on the left, a piece I love by the artist Claire Scully, got slightly lost.



You'd be hard pushed to see that it depicts a giant squirrel climbing an urban tower block. The whole corner had also started

The Pod: New York's most stylish budget hotel?

I wrote about a few of the photogenic places we ate, slept and shopped on holiday in the US earlier this year – in Mississippi, Nashville and New York. Today, a bit more New York, as I never shared the pictures our brilliant budget hotel.



The bar/restaurant downstairs. Meanwhile upstairs, on the 17th floor...







...the incredible rooftop bar. And here's the view from the seating area

Make like an interiors magazine: tips from the pros (but don't take it too seriously)

We've covered both the pros and the cons of styling your house to look as picture perfect as a magazine shoot here before. 



While us interiors obsessives may fantasise about having our homes gracing the pages of some glossy magazine, there's always the risk of over-styling – but there are still some basic aesthetics that can make your place sparkle, without taking it all too seriously and

Ikea's new Trendig range: how long before everyone has some?

When Ikea launches a new range, the cynics among us may wonder how long it'll take for the products within it to become ubiquitous* (like these) – to be the things that elicit an "ooh, Ikea? I've got one of those" from house visitors. 

Nothing wrong with that, mind. But it can really take the shine off your spangly new bit of Scandi design, can't it?



Ceramic tableware, from £2-£8

So some

Un-country cottage furniture

What is it with British country rental cottages – and a near-universally bad choice when it comes to one particular piece of furniture? 

I'm trying to book a last minute rural escape for a few days. We're not too fussy about where – Wales, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, the Lake District. Anywhere quiet that won't take a whole day to drive to, and doesn't mind the dog coming too.





Despite the

Give good gift: featuring Beasties plates, Yoko dishcloths, monochrome letters and more

Today, just a spot of homewares porn. But since these are all things that could make nice gifts (yep, and maybe just for yourself, ahem) I'll tag them in the gifts tab, which appears on your left. By clicking there, you should see all sorts of other things that could delight your dearest as gifts. 



Rockett St George has just started selling this cake plate foursome, designed by
Carola Van Dyke

Le lovely styling of Petit Nicolas

Ever picked a film chiefly because you like the design? It's partly on that basis that I really want to see Petit Nicolas, a sweet-looking French film set in 1950s Paris that came out a couple of years ago. 



The 2009 film, which hit British screens only last summer, somehow passed me by. But it has just been on at my tiny local cinema (Whirledart in Loughborough Junction in case you are south