The Nest - Bedside Tables and Dining Room Chairs

In an effort to keep costs down for our new home, I decided to upcycle some old dining room chairs given to me by my parents, and to create two beautiful bedside tables from very basic £9.00 IKEA Rast bedside tables, which are effectively 4 bits of wood screwed together!

Bedside Table:
First (I haven't taken many photos of this process, it's pretty self explanatory!) sand down the wood using glass paper, you want to smooth the wood grain not get rid of it completely, then remove any dust using a dust brush. Next you need to prime the wood using a special indoor wood primer. People always forget about primer, but it stops your lovely expensive paint seeping into the grain and you have to use twice as much to get the colour you want. I use Diall from B&Q that you can pick up for £10.00 per pot. A little does go a long way though, it's definitely worth it! After the first coat, leave it to dry, and before the second coat, give it a light sand again. The grain will have raised after the first coat, so this is to smooth it down again. Once the second coat is dry, sand gently again, and add the first coat of paint. Then wait, sand and paint for the second coat of colour! There, you should have beautiful bedside tables now.

Dining Room Chairs:
First of all remove the seat pads (we'll get to those later) and and any old fabric you don't want. Unfortunately, the backs of my chairs do not come off, so we had to remove the fabric and leave on the old one. Don't worry if you get paint on it though, it will be covered.

Next, sand down the wood with the glass paper. If the wood has been varnished, be sure to get all of the varnish off or the primer and paint wont stick to it and you could be left with patchy areas. Then prime, wait, sand, prime, wait and sand. Then you can start to add the first layer of colour.

If your chairs are hardwood, you shouldn't need to sand in between coats of the colour, but if you do, go gently and don't rub too hard. Pay particular attention to the areas of the chair that will get the most wear and tear, and use a little extra paint here.

The Nest - Colour Scheme

The next very exciting step in my life is the fact that I have just bought my first apartment! In a gorgeous sought-after village location, two bedrooms and all brand-spanking new, I'm very excited about getting creative and making and decorating all the little bits and pieces that take a building from a house to a home.

The first and most important part of any project is the mood board and colour scheme. From when I first started looking at houses and mentally decorating the minute I walked inside, I realised that the space, the light, the shape of the rooms and the location all had a huge bearing on how I wanted my home to look. The builders had painted the majority of the walls a beautiful buttermilk colour, and this formed the basis of my scheme from the start.
I wanted it to be in-keeping with the style of the country surroundings, but the more I looked at fabrics and colours, the more I realised it was heading in a beachy / countryside direction, which I was very happy with!

Colours and Paint:
I was happy with the buttermilk colour the builders had used on the walls, so to compliment this for the woodwork and furniture, I chose Swedish Blue by Craig & Rose. I seem to have developed a huge aversion to shiny paint, especially gloss, over the past few years, so I chose an acrylic eggshell finish. For furniture paint especially, I would always recommend going for the top range that you can afford. Craig & Rose is the oldest independent paint manufacturer in the UK, and as such have a beautiful range of Period colours to choose from. The Swedish Blue comes from the Georgian and Regency period, which was popular in the Baltic states in the 18th and 19th Centuries when they were under Sweden's control (just in case you were interested!) Visit their website for more information and their complete range of colours and finishes, plus an excellent complimentary colour picker.

www.craigandrose.com

Fabrics:
When you think of the seaside, you think of deckchairs, and traditionally deckchairs were made of a stripy canvas. To continue this theme, I decided that ticking stripes would be the perfect choice. I visited Sinclair Fabrics in Bozeat, Northampton, who have an excellent range of fabrics to choose from. (Visit their website for more details www.sinclairfabrics.co.uk) I looked through many books before I found the Sanderson Home range. Much cheaper than the traditional Sanderson range, Country Stripes was perfect. I selected a gorgeous stripe in blue and cream which will be used for the dining room chair upholstery and decorations on the roller blinds.

I have always highly rated Dunelm Mill for their fabrics, especially how reasonably priced they are along with excellent choice, and  it was here I found my curtain fabric. Another blue and creamy yellow ticking strip, this will be used for the curtains and the Velux window blinds.

www.dunelm-mill.com/shop/decor/fabric-and-haberdashery/

Soft Furnishings:
When I knew my offer had been accepted on the apartment, I headed off to DFS to look at a sofa I had seen on their website. Not only was it lovely, but it was the perfect size for the wall, with only 4cm to spare! I wanted to go with a pale blue, but practicality took over and I decided to go for a chocolate brown.

If it had been in my budget, I probably would have chosen furniture from the Country Living range offered by DFS (The Gower is my favourite - In the stripe of course!) Not only are they beautiful to look at but they are supremely comfortable, and would have looked perfect in my living room. I strongly urge you to have a look if your budget stretches that far.

Visit www.dfs.co.uk/country-living/results

I had also been looking at the Sherlock style chair in Next, and decided to go with two in complimentary fabrics, one in Versatile Check Henshaw Green and the other in Versatile Check Lawson Dark Natural. Both of them wont fit in the lounge, but hopefully one in the bedroom will the the perfect compromise.

Visit www.next.co.uk

A Weekend of Baking...The Ultimate Chocolate Easter Cake and Cupcakes

To continue with the Easter tradition of far too much chocolate and not enough time, I made a gorgeously gooey chocolate cake for the family and some cupcakes for work.

The Ultimate Chocolate Easter Cake

The recipe I used for the cake calls for buttermilk and 200g of melted 70% chocolate all swirled into the mixture, which makes for a rather wet batter. This, combined with a slow cooking time and a fairly cool 140C oven, gives a dense and fudgy texture to the cake.

Tip: When mixing this cake, it's a bit like a muffin. Mix until everything is only just combined and smooth and get it in the oven as fast as possible, otherwise the bicarbonate of soda will start to react and  all the raising action will have finished before the cake gets into the oven.

For the chocolate ganache filling and covering, I used a simple recipe again with 200g of 70% chocolate, cream and a little golden caster sugar to take the edge off the bitterness. I made mine the night before and covered the bowl with clingfilm ready to use in the morning. To decorate the cake I cut it in half (This is where you need a good rise as a fudgy cake such as this is difficult to cut if it is too short) and filled it with some of the ganache, then using a star nozzle I piped little rosettes over the top to make it look like a nest. Finished with a couple of little fuzzy chicks (peep peep!) I think this makes the perfect easter cake to be enjoyed with a cup of tea. (Or if you're like me and it's Easter, for your lunch!)

Tip: If you return to your ganache and it is too hard to pipe with, put the bowl over a saucepan of just boiled water and stir gently until you have the required texture. Don't heat it up too much if you want to pipe with it as you'll only have to wait for it to cool down again.

Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes

Everyone needs a little pick-me up returning to work after a couple of bank holidays off, and what better way to cheer people up than with cake! I made some lovely chocolatey cupcakes today which came out very well. Decorated with mini eggs (or maxi-eggs as shown by M&S!) and fluffy easter, they will be the perfect way to start a short week at work.

Tip: As with many english cupcake recipes, the numbers that the recipe states are always a little over enthusiastic, especially if you want a larger mouthful. Traditionally, cupcakes are American and as a result, are bigger than the English version of a cupcake. If I'm using an english recipe, I always make a quantity and a half, and use what we would probably call muffin cases to bake them in. These always result in bigger, tastier and all-round better cakes in my opinion.