{Weekend in Durham}

This post was supposed to be my Sunday Roundup, but I've been so busy I totally forgot about it until now... and it's Wednesday. Oops!!

At the weekend my sister (@the_grey_house) and I headed off on the train from Glasgow to Durham for the night for the wedding of Peter & Jenn. 

On the train! 

We stayed at Gadds Town House - a boutique hotel that was right opposite the church.

I loved the interior of the hotel... reminded me a bit of Malmaison. 

Scrubbed up and ready to rock n'roll. I was doing a reading at the ceremony and was a tad nervous! Thankfully it went well!!

The morning after... feeling a little dishevelled. My sister & I got a bit carried away at the ceilidh and I ended up on the concrete floor and managed to hurt my side. Whoops! :-(

On all the tables were charity shop vases filled with flowers. The guests were asked to take a vase of their choice home with them as a wedding favour. This was the jug that I picked.

The hotel room had a velvet curtain hiding the glass shower allowing the guest(s) in the room to peep in! We also had a bath at the bottom of the bed!! Would highly recommend it for a weekend away with someone special... perhaps not your sibling!

{image source}

Unfortunately we didn't get much of an opportunity to explore Durham, but the town was really pretty and I'd definitely like to go back. It was only 3 hours on the train, and it was a direct route too with no changeovers. Ideal!

Back to Glasgow after a lovely day - absolutely knackered!

{Smitten Saturday}

This weekend I was at my friends Jenn & Peter's wedding in Durham. I met Jenn 13 years ago when we worked at a summer camp in America together as part of BUNAC. They're such a lovely couple - congratulations guys!

Anyway, there was a guest at the wedding who was wearing a fabulous outfit... a puffy floral print skirt teamed with a bright vest and a neon blazer.

My sister (@the_grey_house) has this fab coral blazer from TopShop which I love. I've worn it once before and it's a really versatile piece. Ali wears it all the time...

And so when I spotted this blazer in Wallis today I just had to buy it:

Coral Blazer from Wallis

Plus, at the moment, the blazer is reduced from £40 to £32! Bonus!

The reason I was in Wallis was because of this recent post by Bex at The Olive Dragonfly...and I got a little carried away with their promotional discounts and ended up buying these items too... oops!!

Grey Wing Print Jumper, was £40 now £32

Brown Animal Print Dress, was £38 now £34.20

What are you smitten with right now? 

Leave me a comment below or join in the chat on my Facebook page

{Guest Post: Feature Chairs by the grey house}

I asked my little sister, Ali, to put together an interiors Fabulous Finds post for me. Here are her thoughts on feature chairs...

I’ll start by introducing myself and by putting a face to the name: I’m Ali (@the_grey_house) and am Sarah’s little sister.  Feeling the strain a bit here, nobody really reads my blog but I know there are plenty of people who read this one!

Sarah and I on my wedding day

I live in Aberdeen and write a blog about interiors and the renovations of my Victorian townhouse to a very small audience - Sarah and a few friends!

My interiors taste is on the traditional side but with a quirk, as a result Living etc is my favourite interiors magazine.  At the moment I am loving greys, clean lines and pops of colour.  I can’t stand magnolia (I feel people with no style choose magnolia); I also dislike most warm tones, red toned wood and the overly fussy and floral are not my cup of tea. (Thanks for that Ali... I'm sat here at my computer staring at a magnolia wall...clearly I have no taste?? Lol). 

{everyone needs a feature chair}

I have a vision of myself lounging in a feature chair gazing out the window with a cup of tea.  At the moment I can’t sit in mine because there is no seat pad and it's rank!  

My feature chair!

I acquired a wing back chair from a skip in Glasgow, I was there with Sarah dropping off a car load of her stuff and little did she know we'd end up bringing back a chair!  I just managed to squeeze it into my car and took it home to Aberdeen.  Shamefully it’s sat in my living room for over a year now without me doing anything with it.

I toyed with buying the tools to tackle it myself (there are some good guides online and YouTube) but chickened out at the expense of them and the fabric if it all went wrong.  A bit too challenging for a first upholstery project. I have some ideas for fabric and will pay someone to do the job for me instead!

I have been considering where my wing back chair will go in our house and think it might sit in the bay window of our soon to be open plan living, kitchen and dining space.  The colour scheme for this room is going to be white, grey and yellow / green / olive inspired by my future map which I bought as a present for hubby. This map is really cool and is a massive 2 m by 1 m. I am going to get it framed to hang on the wall.  It's also part of my 35 at 35 list to improve my geography!!

Future Map

With this in mind I have begun looking at potential chair fabrics and thought I would share a few with you.  I am enjoying stripes at the moment and would consider having the sides and the back of the chair in a patterned fabric and the remainder plain. These fabrics are from Harlequin:

Harlequin

Harlequin

I have also found a chair with bold zig zag print which I think is really cool.  This is an example of my taste exactly - traditional with a quirk.  I'd possibly choose dark grey and white fabric rather than black and white but I love both (images found via google).

Funky zig zag print chair

Grey and white zig zag fabric

If you don't have a chair to upholster a couple have caught my eye of late.  I found this one on one of my favourite furniture websites made.com.  Of course you can't go wrong with grey in my book and this has a cute little pop of colour with the buttons.  This chair costs £349 which I think is quite reasonable.

Ritchie Armchair in anthracite grey with rainbow buttons

I also love the Conran Shop and some of the Conran range in M&S.  I found this chair which I thought was simple but classic and liked the slightly retro style to the shape. Again, no surprises I like the grey version.  The different fabrics work well here too.

Conran Bainbridge Chair from £599

Do you own a feature chair? If you could have any feature chair, what would it be?

Thanks Ali for an inspiring Fabulous Finds post. I already have my feature chair (from made.com!) but I love the idea of reupholstering a vintage find... I'm thinking perhaps an ottoman for a bedroom or a footstool?