Reading corners

Alongside the need to get an alphabet poster for Hannah now, it's also time to set into motion a plan I've had from the day she was born...

A Reading Corner!

I blogged about the above reading nook space way back and the image has been seared into my brain... but no corners behind our doors to create a private, magical world for her escapes up the Faraway Tree. And she's too young to want to read on her own for hours like I remember doing when I was about 7.

So I Flickr-ed for inspiration....

Flickr sewinsight

Flickr moline

Flickr Vintage Pleasures

Flickr Two Straight Lines

Flickr cawalla1

Flickr RoegersSofierik

Flickr Veronica TM

Or you can go all out and create a special (expensive project) for your precious ones, like what Flickr: frecklesreggie did:



But with a budget of $0.00, I wanted to create a special place for her in our study. Previously her Step 2 table just kinda sat nowhere. After sleeping on the idea for 2 days, working out placements and trying out one other arrangement, I hit on an idea which I put into place last night and am reasonably happy with it. I dragged out her bookcase from her bedroom (she only ventures in there to sleep) and stole her foam sofa from the living/TV area (gotta replace it with something else)...

Before: (quite an old shot)


After:


She's outgrowing that table, so I'd really like to get her a desk... but the table's nice for when her friends come, although that's not frequent... Anyone got a secondhand/used Step 2 Master Activity Desk to sell? (I'm in Melbourne, Australia...)

Update since writing this: The next morning, the first thing Hannah did was drag that foam sofa out back to the TV area... which was okay since I'd just scored an Ikea Egg chair... and I like the look of it now :) Also dragged out an Ikea lamp from the recesses of our storage...



What about a bright round rug huh?

Mouses in childrens books...

Hope you had a good weekend! Ours was relaxing and then busybusybusy!

Scanned from Autumn Story, Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem.

I can't help it. It started around 1995. I blame Brambly Hedge for this malady.

Malady: I LOVE vintage books on mouses and their houses.

Cure: Collect them!

I wrote about my absolute treasure and favourite, House by Mouse (Also known as Need a house? Call Ms Mouse in the US) by George Mendoza. Discovered in 2007 at a Salvos for $1.99.



But here are others in my small collection:

Scanned from Teeny, Tiny Mouse by Laura Leuck.

Scanned from The Brown Mouse Book by Alison Uttley.

Scanned from The Rats Came Back by Ross Seidel.

Scanned from Peterkin Pollensnuff by Jenny Partridge.

Scanned from The Mice of Nibbling Village by Margaret Greaves.

What books do you collect?

Domino: the Book of Decorating

I had to choose an affordable "something I'd like" for our Christmas gifts to each other (husband and I). Now with a mortgage, 10ft luxury ebony wood yachts or mountain-top Swiss chalets are out of the question (they were never in to begin with)...

I finally chose. (He chose a good quality coffee grinding kit (the Coffee Been's kit) and I am getting:

The MUCH talked about and MORE MUCH longed after Domino Mag's new book, Domino: the Book of Decorating.



Can't wait to get it!!!!


(Btw, we're not precious about not revealing our gifts to each other. I *HATE* getting gifts I can't appreciate so we have decided to make our gift list known to each other so we can truly appreciate what we give each other -and family members-)

A note to Australian readers/longer-afters-too, Amazon beats ANY price offered by Australian retailers (online and otherwise) for this book.

Giant Bookshop in colour

"I was thinking a lot about places I've been inside dreams, where I'm familiar with a building or a room, or like when I'm in a house in a dream and there are combinations of things in the house that don't exist in reality" Chris Cobbs



You know the recent trend of interior designers and inspired ones among us of arranging our books according to colour on our one or two bookshelves?

Chris Cobb, back in 2004, did this ... in a scale that defies all our meagre attempts. He took over a friend's giant bookshop (Adobe Bookshop, San Francisco, CA) for a week. With 20 people, he organised the books according to mind-bogging colour, instead of the normal, sensible way, topically.

"to change the entire space into something that you would see in a dream"



He and his team did this, just in a night. Imagine the surprise of the patrons! I hope they had plenty of computers directing poor book-buying folk to the right bookcase and row!


This of course, comes as a boot-up-the-bum for me to get a project done on my way-overdue to-do-list... reorganise our books by colour. (I have plans to one day paint the bookcase -left by previous owners- white gloss and the walls some other colour too, but that's for another day.)

The before:


The after:

Quotes taken from an interview with Chris Cobbs.
Images taken from Conversational Reading