Four black and white pictures

I’d been at a loss for some artwork for our bedroom wall. We had one picture on the wall in our previous house, and that wasn’t right for here so I needed to come up with something else. And I really wasn’t sure.

In the end I took inspiration from an existing picture we had - remember back in March 2020 I shared a photo of mine that finally got on the wall with some help from Photowall?

But I wasn’t sure if where I had in mind would work, so I mocked it up.

And so for the next few weeks or so, I tweaked their positions - up a bit, down a bit, together a bit more and so on. Finally I was happy and then my attention turned to choosing the images.

We had the rocks from our holiday in Cornwall back in 2014, and I knew I had a picture of storks nesting from a holiday in Portugal. But what else? The good news is I found some.

And I used Photowall again, this time paying for my additional three images to be framed.

The service was still good, and it was easy to upload my images and create my artwork, though I hadn’t realised that they’d changed their frames so the three new frames are a slightly different finish to the one I already had. I was disappointed that the frames and pictures came separately though, and I had to assemble them myself once they arrived - not a huge thing, but a definite difference to my previous experience.

That said, I’m still very happy with the end result. Of course when they arrived I spent more than intended on their layout - thankfully for MOH on the carpet rather than the wall (as there was also a difference in the positioning of the sawtooth picture hanger).

I decided on this layout.

And don’t they look great on the wall?

MOH did a great job, under extreme pressure to get the gaps right!!

And as you’re wondering what the images are, they’re (clockwise from top left):

• A view towards Greenwich from the Thames Path

• Storks nesting on telegraph poles in the Alentejo in Portugal

• A flooded field in Elston, one of the villages close to our new home

• A rock formation from our trip to Cornwall back in 2014.

And all are photos we’ve taken ourselves, and there’s nothing better to have on our walls - our memories captured by us - at some point I’ll do a post about each of the four photos we chose and why.

Hooks with a difference

As I’ve said in previous posts, the obvious thing about moving into a new build is that you’re the first people to live there - and that means things like shelves and hooks just aren’t there. And you don’t realise just how much we take these kind of things for granted, until they’re not there.

I know that not having hooks isn’t the biggest issue in the world, but a hook-less cloakroom wasn’t going to be viable long-term so a solution - and hooks - needed to be found. It wasn’t right at the top of our list, especially as the cloakroom was initially a handy store for a few moving boxes that we hadn’t quite worked out where their contents should go just yet, but with friends and family visiting we wanted to be able to have somewhere to hang their coats, and also we wanted somewhere for ours too.

MOH was keen to just get something on the wall, but I know that game - once there’s something up that you may have compromised on, then it’s up and in use and it could be a while (if ever) before it’s addressed ‘properly’.

But I wasn’t keen on any of the hooks, or racks of hooks he kept showing me, and nor could I find the right hooks. So we remained hook-less for quite a while.

The issue for me was I’d seen some lovely hooks, that were quite distinct but couldn’t remember where I’d seen them, and so until I’d found them again I couldn’t move forward. Luckily my Google-search skills are quite advanced and I did find them again on the Nkuku site - along with many more decorative hooks (I’ve just looked again whilst writing this post and let’s just say it’s a dangerous place for my purse).

By this time of course MOH was ‘just buy the hooks’. So that’s exactly what I did, well after a bit of measuring, checking where pipes and cables might or might not be, and some soul searching on the price, but fortuitously all this meant I managed to time my order with their sale.

And the hooks arrived, three of them. Each with three moveable hooks, which required three screws for each wall mount. MOH regretted his stance when he realised that meant eighteen holes to make, but thankfully he agrees it was worth the while - and of course the first thing hung on the hooks was a cycling helmet!

And since then a lot more coats, fleeces hats and scarves. It’s quickly become a very usable storage space as we also store (amongst other things) our garden seat cushions, the internet router, umbrellas, our current go to everyday shoes - and our bottle bag for our empties ahead of recycling in here.

Though I’m hopeful that soon we’ll be able to put our winter coats away!

Getting organised with pegboards in my craft room

I’d had my eye on some pegboards for my new craft room since the room itself was a glimmer in my eye! Initially I thought we would make them up ourselves so that they could be truly customisable for whichever space I chose, as it really couldn’t be that hard. And if I had a truly awkward space I don’t think it would be that hard, but once I’d worked out where I wanted to put my fictional pegboards, and once I’d seen the IKEA Skadis pegboards and how flexible they were, there was no other choice for me.

I decided that my pegboards would make the best use of a blank wall inside the small walk in cupboard in my new craft room, which would also be the ideal way to store my quilting rulers. Since we’ve moved, and I’ve unpacked my craft room, they’ve not really had a dedicated space and nor were they all together. But that soon changed!

What I chose: pegboard size and accessories

Our house is a new build, which means there’s a lot of white - and for a self-confessed colour addict, surprisingly I’m ok with all the white, so for me it was always going to be the white version, although the black colourway would also have worked. I opted for two 56x56cm square pegboards, while I did have room for one of the larger size I wanted to keep some space clear, as that’s something else I’ve come to appreciate with our new house - we don’t have to cram it full of stuff, and the same goes for this small walk in storage space.

As I was ordering online I was keen to get the pegboards and accessories in one shop, however I didn’t really know what would work but given that the accessory pack prices were under £5 I decided to chance my luck.

The accessories I opted for were:

• Two packs of Skadis shelves, £4 each

• Two packs of Skadis clips, £2 each

• Three packs of Skadis hooks, £2 each

• A single Skadis hook rack, £2

• A pack of 5 Skadis push in hooks, £1

The final addition to my basket was the connector for Skadis pegboards, which was recommended when hanging two pegboards side by side (or in my case top to bottom!).

So for just under £50 I was able to bring a whole lot of order into a space which would otherwise have little use - and now that it’s finished it’s not only useful, but it’s a pretty and practical addition too.

MY SKADIS PEGBOARDS BRING FUNCTIONALITY TO AN OTHERWISE UNUSED SPACE

Even better though I guessed just about right on the accessory front. I used most of the ones I bought - though I did have a few challenges along the way. I naively assumed that all of my acrylic quilting rulers and templates would come complete with a hole to hang them from. That wasn’t the case, especially for those which came as free gifts from magazines, and some which I’ve had for a long time (I reckon I’ve had my Fiskars ruler - the one bottom right in the photo above - since the early 1990s), so the hooks weren’t going to work for those, or at least not in the same way.

Thank goodness for creative thinking though!

I was able to position some of the hooks so that the templates could balance on top of the hooks, and used the clips for the long Fiskars ruler, which I still probably use the most. I realised I had little use for the hooks on the hook rack, but the rack itself was useful to hold more templates.

The trays bring a 3D element to the pegboards, and while I’ve used them to store smaller templates and the hooks I’ve not yet used, I’m not sure if I’d opt to buy these if I were to do this again.

I’m glad I opted for two of the smaller sized pegboards - and the connectors were an absolute gem according to MOH who was tasked to put these on the wall for me. As well as the feeling of space, I can use the whole pegboard making use of the space below as well with the rulers, templates and metal rings I bought to make some crocheted mandalas (one day!) hanging off the bottom.

I’m so pleased with how these turned out, and how it’s made a space that usually wouldn’t be used into a functional feature. And yes, I’m using the rulers and the space is still this tidy!