The Insider: what you'll be seeing in Habitat this autumn

First up, let's just talk about these rugs, shall we?

I was transfixed by them on my whizz around the Habitat Autumn/Winter 2014 collection preview last week, which took place in a big old warehouse on the Southbank, in London.



I'm eyeing that two greens and white one, the Cortez, £95, to brighten up my kitchen floor (though I know opinions run high on rugs in kitchens... not least amongst

#cheaphometricks: table pimping for less

Last week I wrote about the new Pretty Pegs table legs that you can buy to transform your ordinary Ikea table into something extraordinary. 

This week, it's still my most read post – and the legs are lovely, clever things. The downside? They aren't cheap. So if you're cash-poor but DIY-enthusiasm-rich, here's some inspiration for taking on the home-made version of that project.







Despite

The Insider: Pretty Pegs does table legs

You may recall my previous posts about Pretty Pegs, a Swedish company that ingeniously makes gorgeous, unusual replacement legs for Ikea sofas.

It's a sort of interiors perfectionist's version of the classic fashionista trick of buying a high street coat and replacing the buttons to designer-ish effect.



Well if you liked those, you'll be excited to know that the company has just launched a

Spotlight on... drinks trolleys

Drinks trolleys are having a bit of a moment right now. 

And hurrah – as there's just something so glamorous about devoting an entire piece of furniture to stiff liquors, sweet liqueurs and fancy cocktail stirrers...



After an extended hankering, I finally got a drinks trolley. But then impractically positioned it by a radiator (useless for the fantasy ice bucket) and turned the bottom part

#Cheaphometricks: when is an Ikea sofa not an Ikea sofa?

When Saustark Design has been at it. This Munich-based company has taken the Ikea hacking trend to a clever, commercial level.

Now you can pimp your Swedish buy by adding a customised loose cover in the fabric of your choice (as well as colourful new legs), to take the edge off the ubiquity of your purchase... I wonder how many of us do have an Ikea sofa? (And you can check the rest of your home

Object of the day: DFS does good

I've got a DFS sofa, but still have never been a big fan of the brand. 



Largely, I chose DFS because I found one lone design out of all of the ones on offer that I almost liked, and I chose it because John Lewis don't do interest-free credit. (I'll probably be paying for the sofa in £10 instalments for about the rest of my life – it wasn't cheap).





That said, It's not a bad sofa at all –

Real homes... kitchen trolley suggestions?

The top of this kitchen trolley in my house has been a design conundrum for years. It was originally acquired to provide a side table for the kitchen bench. 

For various reasons that never happened, and now – since the dramatic kitchen table relocation – it isn't really necessary either.





The trolley, due to its generous surface area, immediately became a dumping ground for downstairs

The Insider: inspiration from the interiors of Les Trois Garçons

If you've ever eaten at A-lister repository and east London restaurant, Les Trois Garçons, you'll recognise the style below. 

Even if you haven't (and it isn't cheap), the place is well-known for its interiors and a favourite with art directors and photographers, so you'll have almost certainly spotted it as the backdrop for countless glossy magazine shoot. Either way, feast your eyes...



Why

The Friday edit: the week's best bookmarks

I'm dabbling with making this a regular Friday regular: a round-up of some of my favourite stories from around the web, the homes and design-y things I've bookmarked in the last week or so. 

Let's give it a go.



Clockwise from top left

1. Donna Wilson has designed the interior for the remote Fogo Island Inn, off the coast of Newfoundland. There's a lovely story behind it and the building is

The Insider: The best Ikea hacks ever?

"Things are not always what they seem," state Elia Maurizi and Francesco Pepa, the duo behind Italian design company, Teste Di Legno (which means, by the way, "blockheads"). 

"Ask yourself: is it possible to revolutionize the furniture of Ikea, the company that revolutionised how millions of people live? Yes, it is." And thus they explain the thinking behind their incredibly brilliant new range

Freestyle Thursday: colour me good

Colour inspiration can come from all sorts of places. 

I've found it before on philosophical book covers, on the Berlin U-Bahn (scroll about half way down), on necklaces and always inspired by the vibrant combinations the excellent Out of the Dark team come up with.



And today, I'm feeling inspired by the Autumn lookbook from Sofa Workshop. They've taken some very beautiful shots of their new

Can't afford the new Sheila Bownas sofa?

What do you think of this sofa/daybed, designed using fabric from the Sheila Bownas archive and created in collaboration with furniture-makers, Parlour? 

It's called the Edwin, and I think the shade of blue, the smooth solid walnut, 50s-ish legs and back and the classic, boxy shape make it very good indeed.



Alas, thanks to rather beautiful details like these...



...it costs £2400. But if

Kitchen table traumas

OK. So "traumas" is way overstating things. But I'm currently mildly perplexed about the kitchen table situation round my house.



The kitchen, along with most of the rest of the house, is undergoing a gradual upgrade (which I touched upon after Massive Wardrobe-gate a couple of months ago). 

 


The kitchen is where it's all happening right now. All over the house, we're trying to finish all

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 (

Herman Miller, an animated history

Essentially this is a 108-second marketing video for Herman Miller. 

But when your marketing video is also a beautifully animated 108-year history of your iconic design company, and name-checks mid-century legends including Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Alexander Girard and Isamu Noguchi – well, it's kind of worth watching.




And if you like this, you'll probably love the Eames

Ikea's old new table

The first piece of flat-pack furniture Ikea ever sold? Right here.

And now Ikea is reissuing this 1956-designed classic, and selling it again in stores for £40 from next month after designers there recently found the original drawings for it in the company's archives.




The new table, renamed the Lövbacken, is almost entirely faithful to the original design, with its classic midcentury

Some nice old green, blue and wood things. All together.

I've written about this spectacular secondhand and architectural salvage shop before. And a new Retrouvius stock list is always a cause for visual celebration.

And this lot features a favourite colour palette (green, blue and wood), so I am now mentally refurnishing my house.



And as my home is about to change quite a bit, because my boyfriend is moving in, I'm in the mood for switching things

I heart Maria Westerberg

It's a couple of years since Swedish designer, Maria Westerberg, launched her brilliantly clever T-shirt chair – where recycled textiles are woven onto the frame, rag-rug style, that she designed especially for that purpose.


But this colourful version of it just popped up in the spring round-up from E-Side (an excellently stylish shop with impeccable green credentials, if you don't know it