Oh how I wish I had Pearl Lowe's magical boho touch ...

For most of this week our lil island in the land of Brit has seen a reprieve of relentless and very un-British baking hot sunshine and we have been adorned with rain, rain and more rain.

This rain is very much needed and for once us Brits are glad of it ...

  

Umbrellas at the ready and goooooo!!

 

Despite there being torrential downpours galore, as soon as there is a break in the cloud we have grabbed kids and dogs and quickly headed out to the nearby countryside (thus giving both kids and dogs a good airing before the next cloud bursts upon us).

Traipsing through the countryside gives me the opportunity to pick an abundance of hedge and field ~ yay.

I love our home being filled with lil vases of wild flowers, they perk up even the greyest and wettest of days :)

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Unintentionally this has been my forecast for this week!!

When is a bargain not a bargain?

When it presents you with more problems and costs than you can handle, especially in one week!

Problemo #1

Lovely old, original lamp costing £3.00.

Can't believe my luck...

Get it home realised the cable has been cut.

Think "Meh, how hard can I be to repair"?

Failed on the thinking part :/

Five electrical stores later I manage to find gold cable.

(Which cost an arm and a leg I might add as oppose to the plethora of industrial looking black or white) ...

Eight electrical stores later (yes, eight very dull trips inside electrical superstores, wholesalers, builder/man type places and desperado 'they might just sell them' places) looking for a gold lamp switch and each one told me

"Nerh luv, you can't get gold lamp switches"

"I'm sure you can coz I've got some at home" was my reply ... eight times, urgh ~ sigh.

"Nerh luv, we've been in the business donkeys years and we ent never seen one of them"

Urrrgggghhhh!

Doubting my own light socket knowledge I came home and ... Voila!

Three gold sockets dotted hither and dither no less. In the interest of my sanity and not having to visit another electrical shop for a very long time we are going to rob the switch from the caravan lamp.

Man, how hard does buying a gold electric cable and lamp switch have to be??

Problem #2

My gorgeous mirror bought at auction for £23.00 came crashing down from the wall taking with it everything on our mantle piece and smashing into a gazillion pieces ~ sob.

After much debating we decided to repair the damaged frame, replace the glass and add new board to the back.

Sounds easy when you type it!

Not so ... to have a replacement piece of mirror cut cost an absolute fortune.

So did the two pieces of board which we had cut to size. One sits behind the mirror in the recess and the other goes over the top of both covering the back completely ...

Then two heavy duty mirror hanging thingies, one each side along with extra strong wood glue, black and gold paint and way too much time and ...

... we're back where we started!

One very expensive mirror that looks exactly the same(if not worse)as the cheap one we had before!!

Problem #3

Our Hermie caravan home on two wheels is exposed to many a campsite peeping Tom (and believe me there are loads where ever we go and it's mainly you men)!!

A lucky charity shop find later, a black lace door curtain/type/dangly thing.

Now how to put it up?

As we cant drill any holes, urm?

Just buy some net curtain wire ~ easy.

Phah ... not!

This stuff is sold for a minimum of £4.99 for 1.5 meters ~ I'm not paying that, that's daylight robbery!

After wasting too much time looking for a 'cut to length' supplier I had almost given up and wished I'd have just spent the £5.00 and been done with it. Then, a friend suggest a small local and independent DIY store that has been owned by the same family for generations.

Oh my word ~ they sold anything and EVERYTHING.

Hallelujah ~ joy of all joys ~ thank the lord ~ yippee :)

So I bought net curtain wire cut to length for 75p in total ...

Two hooks for 15p each ...

and two rings to go over the hooks (I thought the fastenings may not be wide enough to reach over the hooks)

Where is this magical place that puts Aladdin's Cave to shame?

Here folks ... Eynsham DIY

Sooooooo finally, after much travelling around the Oxfordshire countryside and faffing about my bargain door screen type thing was able to be put up ~ phew, what joy.

 

Now, while on the subject of said door screen I think I may have got slightly over enthusiastic over Pearl Lowes love of all things black lace (seen here). This smacked of Pearl Lowes boho lace heavenly decor mix when I snapped it up ...

Sadly though, once up my version of Pearl Lowe has more of a Mystic Meg look about it. I think I may have inadvertently made our Hermie look like a place to have your tea leaves read/some kind of fortune telling parlour. Damn, oh how I wish I had Pearl's magical touch :(

  Still, whilst inside Hermie caravan I took a few snaps of recent Hermie purchases.

I love this, I bought it for £1.00 at a car boot sale. I did have three neon pink candles in it ready for our next weekend away but the intense heat actually melted them!!

This lil poster sums up our British Isles this week ...

My boho den where I take to my bed and get eaten by beautiful cushions ...

A tray ready for transporting cuppas ...

I don't think my husband has noticed that I am rapidly filling Hermie with more and more furnishings of all shapes, sizes and uses (to be fair, most actually have no use at all ~ ooopsie).

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Well that's it for this week folks, until next Sunday ~ bye y'all

xx

 

 

As seen on modvintagelife