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Roses in Our Garden

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Roses in our Garden

If you follow Rich’s Instagram you have probably realised his love of gardening.  For the first time in many years we have a garden to potter about in so we are going to start doing a few gardening updates on the blog to share our successes and failures. To start off lets have a look at the Roses we have planted in our new garden.

We love roses, especially old fashioned and vintage style roses. Four out of the five roses we have chosen are English Roses from David Austin Roses. David Austin is the breeder most often associated with this style of rose.  He has bred hundreds of varieties dating all the way back to the introduction of ‘Constance Spry’ in 1961.  As we have a relatively small garden we have opted for repeat flowering varieties to get the most from our plants and in general we like our roses to have strong scents.

Pierre de Ronsard

Rose Pierre de Ronsard

We fell in love this rose when we went to the Loire Valley last summer, when we were thinking about roses for our garden we knew this was a must. Developed by the French breeders Meilland International, we found it everywhere in France but a bit trickier to find in the UK where it is sometimes sold as Eden ’88.

It is a modern climbing rose with big old fashioned flowers.  The buds are cream on the outside and pink on the inside, as the flowers open the pink gently fades to a very pale pink.. They are big flowers that sometimes droop under their own weight. It needs a hot and sunny position to get the most of this rose. We are growing this rose in a container with a support against a south facing wall, so far it is going very well but the flowers got a bit bruised by the recent rains.   The only downside of this variety is it has almost no fragrance but the gorgeous flowers really make up for that.

Imogen

Rose Imogen

Our garden’s colour theme is mostly soft blues, purples and pinks but as a counterpoint we are using pale yellow flowers, we therefore wanted a pale yellow rose to continue this theme.  We chose David Austin’s 2016 introduction ‘Imogen’ to do this job.

Imogen has very pretty frilly flowers in a lemon yellow that fade to an almost cream colour. It has a lovely fresh scent that David Ausin suggests has hints of apple (we aren’t going to disagree).  It is a shrub rose that we have planted this in a mixed border and it is working very well.  This hasn’t flowered as much as the other roses in the garden but this is probably down to the poor soil where it is located, we have been feeding diligently and another flush of flowers are on the way

Queen of Sweden

Rose Queen of Sweden

We are prone to buying roses because we like their name, which at guess is why they are named so! Our love of Scandinavia has behind this buying choice. David Austin’s Queen of Sweden was named in honour of the 350th anniversary of a treaty of friendship between Great Britain and Sweden.

Queen of Sweden has lovely cupped flowers in an apricot pink colour that fade to soft dusty pink. It has an upright growing habitat which makes it an excellent rose for cutting for arrangements in the house. It has a very light myrrh scent. Queen of Sweden is definitely the most romantic rose in our collection.

Munstead Wood

Rose Munstead Wood

We wanted a darker rose to add to our collection and a bit of research led us to choosing ‘Munstead Wood’.  Another of David Austin’s English old rose hybrids, this rose is named after Gertrude Jekyll’s Surrey home.

This rose has been described as sultry and intense. It has burgundy red colour, halfway between red and purple. The flowers are large and cupped that become shallower over time.  Out of all our roses this has the headiest scent, it really hits you when we are out in the garden first thing in there morning. The scent is describe as having notes of blackberry, blueberry and damson.

Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll

Scent is important to us when choosing roses which is why we settled on ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ one of David Austin’s best selling varieties.  Names in honour of one of the most influential gardeners of the 20th century (and one of Rich’s gardening heroes!) this is a great all round rose that can be grown as a shrub or as a short climber.

Gertrude Jekyll has small dark pink buds that open into big mid pink rosettes with a very pretty spiral of petals. The scent is very strong and described as the quintessential rose perfume.  To make the most of the fragrance we have planted this near to our back door.

Adding to our collection

Cut Roses - Pierre de Ronald

We have very quickly become ‘Roseaholics’ and we are sure to be adding to our collection as the garden develops. We have our eye on ‘Winchester Cathedral’ a honey and almond scented white rose, and ‘Surrey’ a ground cover rose with pink frilly flowers. We are also on the hunt for the perfect rambling rose, and there will no doubt be even more added to our collection! Do you have any recommendations please let us know in the comments.

 

1st August 2017
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Updating our Fireplace

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Fireplace

We have now been in out house for almost six months. We have settled into Whitchurch nicely and have started some projects around the house. This week we are going to give you a couple of little updates; the fireplace in the living room and the master bedroom.

Living room

The first room we painted was our living room. The room was previously mint green below the chair rail and white above, not really to our taste.  We decided to flip the colours to have the white below, we painted this in Crown’s Canvas White with a silk finish.  Above the chair rail we opted for Lopen Taupe from Hemsley Paint.  Hemsley paint is only available from Homebase, it is an ultra matt finish and makes a great and affordable Farrow and Ball alternative.

Fireplace

Fireplace refresh

We are planning on installing real fireplaces and exposing the brick. In the meantime we decided we needed a stopgap solution.  We look at the fireplace everyday and the dated green tile surround just had to go! We opted to replace the tile with a white mini metro tile.  This was a value option that keeps the fireplace light and clean and give it a more modern feel.  We also stained the pine mantle taking it from an orange colour to a darker shade so it doesn’t have such a 1990’s feel.

Fireplace

Plenty of candles

If we are honest nothing beats the feel of a real fire in a house. It’s one of those things that makes a house a home.  We are not going to get our fire this year so we are just going to have to improvise! We might not have a fire but we can have candles… and lots of them (thank you Ikea). The candles give a lovely feel to the room, they also come in handy when we had a power cut a couple of weeks back!

Style it out

We know this isn’t our ideal fireplace but with a bit of styling it holding its own.  We have used a mix new purchases and old favourites to soften the look. As the living room is a very bright room we also have a couple of houseplants.  One thing of interest is the the Concorde artwork – it is over 30 years old and was a retirement present to Rich’s grandfather who was a production manager on the original development of concorde in the 60’s and 70’s.

What do you think?

In total fire fireplace refresh probably cost us £30, not bad for a stopgap solution.  What do you think, do you like or should we have just waited until we could install a full working fireplace?

Read more…

12th July 2017
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Choosing a New Sofa

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Paddington Sofa And Stuff

One of the reasons we decided to move out into the country was we could afford to buy a house with more space.  We loved living in Hampton Wick, but if we were to buy there we’d be lucky to afford a one bedroom flat.  Having made the move to Whitchurch we had gained space but one downside of this is our furniture was purchased for a small flat and doesn’t fit. We have therefore decided that it is time to buy a new sofa, well actually a pair of sofas.

We are looking to buy a two seater and a three-seater sofa for the living room, we will compliment these with a couple of accent chairs so we should be able to seat six comfortably.  Having gone around several show rooms we managed to decide on style we like – a classic and mid-century inspired.  Other considerations were the fabric choices, sizes and availability.

The Shortlist

In no particularly order here are our finalists:

Sofa

Iggy Sofa Three Seater in Taupe Brushed Linen Cotton £1640 Sofa.com

Sofa.com offer a great selection with loads of fabric options.  This Iggy sofa met many of our requirements but was probably a bit over our budget.

Sofa & Stuff

Paddington Extra Large in Woodstock Linen £1123 Sofa & Stuff

From Sofa & Stuffs pronto range, this Paddington sofa is the right style and size.  The pronto range has less fabrics to choose from, but we are after a neutral finish so we managed to find something that would work. We love the style of this sofa, especially the button sofa backs.

Furniture Village

Bond St 3 Seater in Denbirgh Ecru £939 Furniture Village

The Bond St Sofa fitted the bill in terms of size and budget, we also loved the Denbirgh Fabric option.  A classic and elegant style but missing the mid-century vibe we like.

Sofology

Cricket 3 Seater in Allure Chocolate Mix £749 Sofology

Sofology was a revelation to us, they had a great range at a reasonable price.  The Cricket caught our eye with its mid-century styling.  Size wise was a touch too large for us and we weren’t massively keen on the fabric options but overall a great sofa.

Multiyork

Dexter Large 2 Seater Sofa In Oakford Chalk £1569.00 Multiyork

We are probably a bit bias as our godson is called Dexter! We like the simplicity of this style, but not as strongly mid-century as other options, and a bit over budget.

Made.com

Halston 3 Seater in Pebble Weave £599  Made.com 

The Budget option from Made.com.  In many ways, this could be a good option, but is only available in limited sizes and fabric options so not quite right.

Our decision

After looking at lots of options we think we are going to go with the Paddington from Sofa & Stuff. It is the right combination of Price, Size, Style and fabric choices.  We will probably buy the sofa soon, although having said that our dishwasher has just given up the ghost that is a priority first!

What do you think, what is your favourite sofa?

21st March 2017
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Bathroom Renovation Plans

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Current Bathroom

As promised we are going to take you around our new cottage to have a look at the rooms and share some of our plans.  We are going to start with the Bathroom as this will be the first room for us to tackle.  The bathroom is on the ground floor which although common in victorian houses is not ideal. There is the potential to put an extension on the side of the house that would allow the a family bathroom to be upstairs however this would be quite an investment that we wouldn’t be in the position to do for a couple of years at least.  Although the current bathroom is fine there are a couple of serious issues which means we need to look at this room first. An immediate problem is the shower, it is a fixed shower head and unfortunately it has been fixed far too low for us (Rich is 6″1′ and Calum is 6″6′). The second problem is the placement of the loo.  The last major issue are the windows, the are single glazed meaning the room is much colder than the rest of the cottage.

Current Bathroom

Our plan is to install a new L shaped shower bath and install a new shower that we can both fit under. We will also replace the toilet and the basin at the same time to allow more room to use both. We like the idea of a patterned floor tile with white metro tiles on the wall. We will add in recessed spot lights, and some wall likes around the mirror. The windows will be replaced and we also need to add in some extra storage.

Bathroom Inspiration

fig. 1 |  fig. 2 |  fig.3 |  fig.4 

We want the bathroom to have a crisp and classic look, mixing traditional and modern fixtures and finishes. We will use wooden accents to bring some warmth into the room, along with plenty of fluffy towels and some plants.  We are not entirely fixed on the sink, toilet and towel warmer yet, we need to visit a couple of show rooms to finalise. This is the style board we have put together so far.  Once we finalise the refurbishment in a month or two we will come back and share our progress.

Bathroom Style board

fig. 1 Wall Light Garden Trading
fig. 2 Wall Clock John Lewis
fig. 3 Mirror Cabinet Victoria Plum
fig. 4 Cavendish Toilet Victoria Plum
fig. 5 Shower Victoria Plum
fig. 6 Taps B&Q
fig. 7 Ladder Shelves Garden Trading
fig. 8 L Shaped Bath Victoria Plum
fig. 9 Cavendish Sink Victoria Plum
fig 10. Towel Radiator Victoria Plumb
fig. 11 Floor Tile Topps Tiles
fig. 12 Metro Tile Topps Tiles
fig. 13 Oak Stool Garden Trading
fig. 14 Plant Pot Ikea
fig. 15 Towels John Lewis

2nd March 2017
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Getting Settled

Posted in Dwell, News by
New Home

So as per our last update we finally found our new home.  Since we shared that post we have moved in, begun to get to know the town and have started planning how we are going to improve and decorate the house.  Our house doesn’t have a name, but in honour of our blog we will informally refer to it as Orchard Cottage.  We will be using a blog for a place to share updates with you.  There is plenty to be getting on with, and we will be starting the projects soon. Before we get started on anything we’ll share with you room by room tour and share our current thinking, keep checking back over the next few weeks.

We have already had our first dinner party at the cottage and have more planned so there will be plenty to share with you.  We are also busy planning our holidays for this year.  With so much to do at the cottage we won’t be getting out and about as much as we used to but we love our little adventures.  Its going to be a busy and exciting time for us, we can’t wait too how you what we get up to.

We received lots of lovely housewarming cards, we particularly loved this card from Rich’s cousin Catherine. She obviously knows us well as we have already started lots of new pinterest boards for the different rooms, go take a look and let us know your thoughts.

Best wishes for now,

Rich & Calum

New Home

23rd February 2017
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Our New Home

Posted in Dwell, News by
Orchard Blog | Our New Home

Since we started this blog we have been looking for a new home, we have been living at Rich’s folks cottage whilst we carry out our search.  We are very excited to to tell you we have finally found somewhere and will be moving in next week.  One of the reasons we started this blog was to share the development of our new home, it has just taken a little while longer than we anticipated.

Our new home is a Victorian semi-detached house in Whitchurch, Hampshire.  The house was built in 1897 as one of a row of about a dozen houses, it was probably intended as a farm or mill workers home. The cottages were originally known as Jubilee Cottages due to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in the year the houses were completed.

Our New Home

We have 2 reception rooms and 3 bedrooms, and plenty of space for us to grow into.  The house has potential to extend into the loft and to the back and side if required. Over the years a lot of the house’s character has been removed, we will be looking to adding some of this back in.  The garden is mainly on a steep hill, with just a small section being on the flat, this will prove a bit of a challenge but we’ll figure something out.  Rich’s garden design education will come in handy!  The house is in perfectly good working order but we will no doubt redecorate throughout to our tastes, we’ll of course be sharing the progress here.

Our New Home

The house is on the edge of Whitchurch in North Hampshire. The nearest big towns are Andover, Newbury, Basingstoke and Winchester. Whitchurch itself is proud of its town status but in truth it is more akin to a village.  There are a handful of shops, five or so pubs and a selection of restaraunts and take aways, so we are not entity cut off from civilisation. It also has a train station with direct trains to London.

Whitchurch is famous for being the home of Richard Adam, the author of Watershed Down. The down itself lies not far from our new home, on the edge of the North Wessex Downs area of outstanding natural beauty.  The house is not far from the River Test, a beautiful chalk stream which is apparently a very good for trout fishing if that is your sort of thing? Of more interest to us is just up the road (and river) in Laverstoke.  Housed in an old paper mill is the Bombay Sapphire gin distillery, we are very excited about this, they doing guided tours and special events there, we’re sure to become regulars at their on site bar!

We are looking forward to doing into our new home in Whitchurch, and excited to join the community.  The hard work starts now!

Our New HomeOur New Home

Images courtesy of Graham & Co

18th January 2017
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Book Review | Winter Living by Selina Lake

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Winter Living by Selina Lake

It might not quite be winter yet, but it is close enough! We thought it would be a great opportunity to have a look at Winter Living by Selina Lake a book we bought a few weeks back whilst bed bound with illness (the amazon app is a dangerous thing!).  In the summer we bought our first book by Selina, Botanical Style and we loved it so with thought we’d give this a go.

Winter Living offer inspiration for making you home stylish through winter. It is stuffed full of gorgeous photography and countless ideas showing you how to turn your home into a romantic winter haven. This year there have been published countless books on Hygge, the Danish art of cosiness, this book has a broader scope but it definitely fall is into this category.

The book starts off by looking at winter inspirations before guiding through various winter styles. The first is ‘Homespun Charm’ a colourful style full of craft and vintage finds to create a warm and welcoming look. Next, it is onto ‘Faded Grandeur’ all about turning the tatty into the tasteful using rich textures and tones.  The third style is ‘Rustic Retreat’ an earthy simple and natural look inspired by old barns and log cabins. Lastly is a look at  ‘Winter Whites’ a clean and classic look inspired by snowflakes morning frosts and pale skies.  The book finished up by taking a look at festive celebrations, after all, winter is party season! There is some great inspiration here on different styles to decorate for christmas, along with some great ideas for parties.

Our favourite look is definitely ‘Rustic Retreat’ but there are plenty of other ideas for us to steal once we find our new home. Winter can be a depressing enough time of year but this book reminds us that being inside can be cosy and snug, to create a haven at home to forget about how horrid it is out! It is a great addition to our book collection and we will no doubt be referring back for many winters to come!

You can buy Winter Living by Selina Lake here

Follow Selina’s Blog here

Winter Living by Selina Lake
Winter Living by Selina Lake
Winter Living by Selina Lake
Winter Living by Selina Lake

Winter Living by Selina Lake
16th November 2016
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Our Favourite Finds from the 2017 IKEA Catalogue

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IKEA Catalogue

We love a bit of IKEA here at Orchard Blog. The combination of Scandinavian design, good value and meatballs is a winning combination that keeps us going back for more. Whilst we are not super close to a branch we do have the option of driving to four different locations all withing an hour of where we live. Every September we love flicking through the IKEA Catalogue to see what is new. We have gone through with a fine toothcomb to come up with 12 of our favourite new finds. AS it happens we have ended up with a monochrome scheme that would work well in an office or studio. Let us know what you think? what are your favourite products in the IKEA Catalogue?

New Finds from IKEA Catalogue 2017

IKEA Catalogue 2017 | What to buy:

fig.1 Kullaberg Swivel Chair £49
fig.2 Lagrad Lantern £22
fig.3  Ranarp Work Lamp £29
fig.4 Kullaberg Desk £99
fig.5 Moalie Throw £39
fig.6 Härliga Glass dome £10
fig.7 Ändlös Candle Holder £3.95
fig.8 Rörd Decorative Animals £6.95
fig.9 Avatal Leaf Art £5
fig.10 Vardagen Glasses £3.50/6 pack
fig.11 Sockerärt Vase £10
fig.12 Stenstorp Kitchen Island £250

 

23rd September 2016
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Design Inspiration | Back to School Office

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Back to School Home Office Scheme

Despite not having been in education for over a decade now, each September we definitely get the ‘back to school’ vibe. Most years we would just go out and buy armfuls of stationery to keep us content, but this year we’ve developed a Back to School office scheme.  Grab you packed lunch, an apple for the teacher and head back to school! Details are bellow and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments.

Back To School Office Styleboard

Back to School Office | Where to buy:

fig.1 British Isles Map John Lewis
fig.2 Wall Clock John Lewis
fig.3 Granville Shelf Unit One World Trading
fig.4 1227 Desk Lamp Anglepoise
fig.5 Macbook Pro Apple
fig.6 Mid-Century Desk West Elm
fig.7 Granze Rug Wayfair 
fig.8 Eams Chair Nest
fig.9 Preppy: Cultivating Ivy Style by Jeffery Banks 
fig.10 Squared Notebook Moleskine 
fig.11 Areca palm Ikea 
fig.12 Storage Boxes Wayfair 
fig.13 Mute Shadow Colour Courage 
fig.14 Vieux Bordeaux Colour Courage 
fig.15 Le Chat Gris Colour Courage 

6th September 2016
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Book Review | Botanical Style by Selina Lake

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Book Review Botanical Style by Selina Lake

We spend a lot of time planning home decor, it doesn’t matter if it was our rented flat or for our ideal future home.  It is one of our passions and, in part the reason behind this blog. As well as almost single handily keeping the magazine industry going and a healthy pinterest/instagram addiction, we do love a good interiors book to scour through and find ideas that we can us.  We also like to have a stack of beautiful books on the coffee table to delve into every so often.  It is the little things in life that makes us happy!  With that in mind it brings us to todays posts, a brief review of Botanical Style by Selina Lake, our latest interiors book purchase and a goldmine of stunning inspiration.

Selina Lake is a freelance interior & lifestyle stylist (that might be Rich’s dream job!) and Botanical Style is her seventh book. We first heard of the book when Selina did a book signing at Anthropologie in Guildford, being local to us we picked up the event on social media. We were’t able to make it along but our interest was peaked and we wanted to buy a copy!

Botanical style can mean many things to many people, and to this end the book is operated in to five separate styles: Vintage Botanicals, Boho Botanicals, Industrial Botanicals, Tropical Botanicals and Natural Botanicals. Different chapters will appeal to different people. Rich loves the vintage and natural chapters, Calum like the tropical style and we both love the industrial industrial.  As well as explaining the styles in depth there are also individual style tips and little make projects. Reading the book we were itching to get out to the local garden centre to add to our already healthy supply of houseplants!

The key to a good interiors book is plenty of great photos to illustrate the ideas, the photographer, Rachel Whiting, does a great job at bringing the style to life. We’ve already spent hours pouring over every gorgeous image for inspiration, and I am sure this is a book we will return back to time and time again.

There is so much inspiration packed into this book, from romantic summer houses to tropical glamour.  For anyone with green fingers (or wishes they did) we thoroughly recommend this book, it has made us very happy!

You can buy Botanical Style by Selina Lake here

Follow Selina’s Blog here

 

Book Review of Botanical Style by Selina Lake Book Review of Botanical Style by Selina Lake Read more…

10th August 2016
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