10 more sleeps...

i can hardly believe it folks...10 more sleeps until herself and myself say our 'i do's...

i'll forever more put the trash out, kill spiders and whispers sweet nothings in return for the hot dinners, a few shirts ironed for me and a few sweet nothings back in my own ear...

thanks a million for all your support and kind words to date following our story, our engagement, our visa approval, and the job quest...

i'm taking a 2.5 week break from custardbydesign...my own folks arrive in arkansas on friday, followed by my brother and sister on sunday...some friends have already set out on their trips taking in the sights of mexico, la, vegas, san diego, memphis, nashville, boston, new york before they make their way to northwest arkansas in time for july 24th...

so between the airport pick ups and the last minute details we're trying to finalise, i reckon today's as good a day as any to sign out for the few weeks...

so wish us good health and good fortune as we set out on our new life together as mr and mrs custardbydesign...

see you in 2.5 weeks with a new wife, a new tan and plenty of new posts...

i'll leave you with a nice irish wedding blessing i once heard at a wedding in armagh...

"may the roof on the house never fall in,

and may the couple in the house never fall out"

is mise le meas...custardbydesign...

ceramic house...

i stumbled across this on contemporist this morning...

i really like the balanced simplicity of this interior scheme...

a white canvas, with some really interesting mid-century furniture...and the wall of mirrors does it for me...

you can read more and see more pics here...

lamped...

literally...

do you know where it's at...?

cars go beep...

beep beep...

happy independence day...

happy independence day all y'all...

just a thought...

white kitchen cabinetry, with black walls...and a burst of colour...

loony for lonny...

i'm a major league fan of lonny magazine...

fyi is all...

i'll have a dance and a stuffed peacock...

designer facundo guerra combined one things he loves about san paolo and one thing he doesn't to create lions nightclub...dancing and taxidermy...

but what a great combination...

the club occupies a space long ago used as a gentleman's club...hence the marbled columns and the parquet floor...yet mounted pheasants, a peacock, a toucan and a parrot add quirkiness to the neo-baroque decor...

a revolving door leads from the bar area to the nightclub where mesmerizing mirror trickery makes strips of tiny light reflect back into infinity...

hgtv design star...series 5...episode 3...

another strangely weirdly amusing concept/task set by the judges this week on design star...

the show opened with the contestants walking onto the roof of trump towers to the sound of a jazz band...

vern decided that the ladies needed one of the men to even up the tally on both teams and so the ladies quickly chose dan...

vern then let them know the challenge ahead...the challenge was to design a 200 square foot patio space inspired by music and the instruments they had chosen...

dan, now one of the gals, and his team had chosen the following...french horn, trumpet, trombone, guitar and the xylophone...

the spaces are amazingly blank canvases and dan his team get straight to work...funnily enough dan brought a sense of calm to the team...there was very little of the snideness and bickering from the previous week...surprisingly the girls all agreed on the furniture (suggested by dan)...

dan and the women's team won this challenge with their cohesive design...despite my lack of lurve for nona and her artfulness i thought the scheme together pulled together really well...the jazzy purple walls work really well as a bold statement, and they are set of perfectly with the calming effect of the votive candles and low slung furniture...

i think dan, once again brought much needed carpentry skills and outdoor experience to this challenge...each person managed to make their statement known and heard through the space, but everything as i said came together and read as one coherent space...

and lastly here's a before and after shot from the losing team...