Hallway highlights

Today I thought I'd bring you a little inspiration for decorating your hallway by showing you some key pieces in mine. I know hallways aren't the most exciting places to decorate but we have a few cute bits in ours.

First is our arch 'window' mirror. This is from Barker and Stonehouse. I really wanted it when we first saw it so we decided to get it not knowing where exactly in the house it would go. After being in the house a good few months we got the hallway painted and had new flooring laid then finally found the best spot to put it. Matt's Dad and Uncle kindly put this up for us as we'd have no clue how. It's such a heavy mirror! This does really work where we've positioned it as it bounces the light from the front door window brilliantly making the hall much brighter. Also, most importantly, we can check our appearance on the way out of the house.

Next to the mirror, we have a little table with a phone and lamp sitting on top. Initially, I bought a really cheap phone from ASDA when we first moved in as I thought, who really uses their home phone? After a while of being in the house, we found the other phone to be really flimsy and not easy to use so we splurged on a new one. This blue retro phone was from John Lewis and I think it was the style that both of us were looking for. The little table was from a store called At Home which is local to us in Stockton. It was the last one which was lucky for us and I just think it's cute and very functional.

When we moved in there was a huge fuse box sat behind the front door. Very unattractive. Matt was keen to cover this in some way so we got a joiner in who made us this little cute wooden slide box. Of course, we had to 'decorate' this and add a few bits to it. We picked up these little fake plants and glass stopper bottle from John Lewis and they went perfectly. However the bottle was empty, so Matt took some of my dried black beans out of the cupboard and decided to fill it. Although I was down on black beans, I do think this looks really effective.

Lastly is the light fitting that we chose for our hall. It's very basic but it's exactly the style that myself and Matt like, very industrial. This was from the Portrack Lighting Centre in Stockton and it came in silver or gold but for our hallway, we thought this colour went much better. We also bought a special bulb for this in which you can see the filament when the light is on. A little like old fashioned light bulbs.

So what do you think of our little hallway? We personally love it. It's a nice space to welcome people to our home.

Have you got any home post? Link below!

Spend some time in our spare room

Ever since we moved into our two-bedroom house last year, we've had plans for the second bedroom. No, not baby plans. We're too selfish for that right now. Our plans were to create a room for both of us to enjoy our separate hobbies - gaming and blogging. When we started discussing what we wanted to do with this room I think we both got a bit more creative than we did when planning our living room. As I've said in other posts, we love the industrial style. I'm talking exposed brick, reclaimed wood, lots of metal and even a little steampunk. You'll see that a lot of that comes across in the way we've put together the spare bedroom.

So as you can see a crazy selection of furniture, little nick-knacks and a whole bunch of fake plants. When shopping for this room we wanted the items to be different. Nothing you could really get from the high street and I think we achieved that. First, we had some dark flooring put down and contrasted this with white walls and white exposed brick wallpaper. We found the massive light fitting on Etsy and knew we had to have it. It is different, so quirky and goes with the space brilliantly.

We picked a tweed sofa, a reclaimed wooden TV unit, a shipping container shaped sideboard and a 'post sorting' desk. I adorned a lot of the surfaces with fake plants, all from Ikea, and lots of pretty candles. Yes, it's a little eccentric but it's exactly what we wanted. 

We now use this room for PS4 sessions with the lads, a quiet area to blog and a room to watch Netflix in before bed. We really love this room and the way it's come together. It will be a shame when we eventually have to move.

Halloween Cupcake Decorating - That Cake, Guisborough

As my mum is a keen baker and cupcake decorator, when she spotted a session on in the local area to decorate cupcakes she was right on it booking two places for last Sunday. Now I don't ever pretend to be able to bake or decorate cakes very well, but I try my best... As I've never been to anything like this I didn't know what to expect.

The session took place at That Cake's Tea Room in Guisborough, if you are from the North East area you may have heard of them.

For £9 you received four cupcakes to decorate as well as two drinks (two cups of tea for me!). There are four tables in the tea room and they were all full of people ready to decorate their cakes. We were all given a piping bag and asked what colour/flavour icing we would like (although we all ended up having bit of each others as you can see from my cakes!). Then we were let loose with all the lovely decoration pieces we had on our tables as well as fondant, chocolate bones/skulls and sweets from the other table.

It was a lot of fun to get to decorate my cakes as usually mum does all this when she bakes so I never get a chance. I like to think I did well and that all my cakes look at least a little bit halloweeny/scary. If you can't tell what my cakes are - from left to right: a ghost, a graveyard, a cockroach and then a pumpkin.

That Cake did a great job running the sessions and I think they kept everyone very happy. After everyone had finished decorating their cakes they took pictures of each and posted them on their facebook page. The person whose cakes get the most likes wins tea and cake for two in That Cake's tea room! 

That Cake have decided to do Christmas cupcake decorating sessions due to the success of the Halloween ones. I would definitely recommend getting yourself booked up. It's something different that gets you out of the house for a couple of hours and who doesn't love cake?!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!