stay home & feather
The devious side of us wants to pass these off as a collection of wares lugged halfway across the planet from our latest exotic jaunt, but the know-it-all show-offs that are will be unable to resist blabbing that these are from IKEA…
(left to right) pre-cut fabric / cushion covers / side plate / pendant lamp shade / cushion covers / flatweave rug
Does your pulse pound for pattern? Do you heat up for hues? IKEA’s new Jassa collection will tick all your print-obsessed colour-craving interior design addicted boxes…
IKEA must have known that the cure for belated winter blues was to shine an array of brilliant, beautiful and hot-climate-inspired vibes directly into our design eyeballs, thus delivering the message that spring will come, and it will be followed by summer.
The new Jassa collection is a heavy nod to the handmade furniture and textiles of South East Asia and from ink-splatter tableware to rattan furniture (for inside or out), the collection oozes relaxed style.
And it’s the textiles and soft-furnishings in particular that so brilliantly celebrate the marriage of pattern and colour.
Any single item would inject a dose of dazzle to a room, and combined – instead of being a potential disparate riot – the design DNA allows every member of this colourful family to sit side-by-side in harmony. Glorious.
Jassa is a limited collection, so stock is unlikely to be around for long.
No room for a bar cart and a lamp and a side table? Cheers to a hybrid of all three! We Frankensteined together a collection of parts to solve the a lack of space issue while turning the home bar into a beacon…
It started with the beautiful plant stand (below, far left) from Hook & Stem… We knew we wanted it but secretly we also knew that we needed a plant stand like a moose needs a hatrack. So it was destined for an alternative purpose.
The pink wire basket (far right) was a Homesense find that smacked of the Ferm Living basket tables we longed to own but are way out of the price range.
The IKEA Sekond cord set came next – again, purchased without a final use in mind, but destined for greatness, especially surrounded by a vintage-look wire bulb cage left over from a previous project…
In the centre (above) are a perfect wooden circular platform and an embroidery hoop – both from Michael’s – that were morphed together to create a lid that fit snuggly into the rim of the wire basket. The embroidery hoop was trimmed to size and glued securely with Goop to keep the makeshift lid from sliding around.
We then covered the top with a bright and brilliant floral scrap from our stockpile and secured it with Mod Podge…
And then it was literally a series of slotting things together:
The legs of the plant stand, the cord set through the basket, the basket into the plant stand, the lid onto the basket and another wireframe basket that was holding our booze stash on the credenza, now sitting atop the whole thing.
And on or off, this takes up the perfect cozy corner of Social Nesting HQ…
Embrace an easy, damage-free way to get more wall art space, without a wall! (And use leftover IKEA hardware while you’re at it!)
Sometimes the solution you have been waiting for does pop out of a sealed plastic bag at the bottom of an IKEA garden chair.
But we get a head of ourselves…
Long have lugged this wooden chair around –
…found on the streets of London and, though seatless, sturdy and perfectly (naturally) distressed.
This beauty has served as a makeshift shelf and home to books and objets. The intention was to weave a new seat, but then our intentions sometimes get put on hold.
We always knew, though, that there was more to the chair than a simple shelf life.
We loved the simplicity and strength of the back, and tested ways of putting it to use beyond the ordinary, but nothing stuck.
And since moving into the new HQ, this wonderful James Larsen painting has been kicking around looking for a home.
James Larsen is a talented Australian artist who we first met in Spitalfields Market circa 2002 and took to following around London until his departure for Germany in the mid-2000s. We collected as much as we could afford before James left, but this painting – the first we ever acquired – is a treasured piece that needed a cool spot.
And then last week, our IKEA garden chairs arrived and included is this bracket (for bolting two chairs together) and we kept thinking that it would come to use somehow.
Then we realised that the bracket, if screwed to the right thickness of shim, would fit over the chair back, where the shim could support a painting…
Maybe this is easier to show than explain…
And now our James Larsen painting magically hangs from the chair back and looms lovely over the chair seat tableau.
A shelf with a shady past gets a new life when wrapped in designer duds…
For years, Ikea picture ledge shelves have held prime positions on the walls of Social Nesting HQ.
Tasked with holding up all manner of knick-knacks and objet trouvé that haunt the halls, they have been the perfect partner in our functional adorning strategy.
Currently known as RIBBA, we first invested in these beauties when they were Stripas, and it was during the big move that we rediscovered the original name and it made us giggle at that age-old story of a stripa changing her name to Ribba and leaving her old life behind…
It was also during the move that we discovered how shabby she was looking, and so there she and her sisters (we have three) sat waiting to be made over.
And much like Julia Roberts in that scene (you know the one), a simple ensconcing in designer gear was enough to kick this girl from sass to class.
Ralph Lauren wallpaper, left over from a previous project, was measured and cut, and a liberal coating of Mod Podge was applied to keep it all in place…
…and there we have it! The perfect (packed) shelf for the Social Nesting HQ stairwell.
Narrow enough to let visitors pass but wide and deep enough to make that instant statement that says “this is just the beginning…”
