Inside: Our living room

 

  Our shipment from Australia arrived a few days before Christmas, and one of the first things I wanted to do was get the apartment looking nice. I was a bit sick of it looking like a boring old lady's house and I was really excited to get out all our stuff from back home.

The photo on the left is what the place looked like when James first saw it - nice, but not really our style. We asked them to paint the creamy-pink walls white and it makes the place look SO much brighter and more modern. Also - we didn't remove the little chandelier, it just didn't make it into any of the newer pictures. I like it, it's so sparkly!

I love the floors in this place. We definitely got lucky with those! They are also much less stress than the floorboards we had at our old place as they don't seem to scratch much at all. The coffee table above is one of the only pieces of furniture we brought with us, because the legs screw off so it hardly took up any space. I'm really glad we brought it because it makes such a difference to the feel of the place and makes me so happy! I got it about four years ago while on an antique hunting road trip with my parents - actually the purpose of the trip was to go visit my brother, but my patient Dad let Mum and I stop and look in pretty much every antique shop between Sydney and Adelaide. It was a very successful trip.

The quilt on the back of this chair (purely decorative, in this weather!) was made by my friend's mum, who I know reads this blog - Hi Andrea!
She made one for all of my friends and I around the time we were all turning 18-21. I love going to each of their houses and seeing that we all still love and use our 'Andrea quilts' despite the amount of times we've all moved since getting them. They're like friendship blankets!

 

I should have moved the dinner table away from the wall, but we keep it there when we don't have visitors because it gives us more space in the centre of the room. Any eagle-eyed IKEA fans would be noticing a lot of IKEA fabrics and other bits and pieces around the place - I used to work there in Sydney so before I left I went on a bit of a shopping spree to get fun new things for this apartment. That's the Bjornloka fabric on the chairs, and Tradklover on the table.

My Mum did the painting on the wall after a family trip to Italy - I raided her art collection before leaving so I could take some pieces of home with me. I've got another painting of hers in the bedroom and a linocut above the TV, but neither of those spaces are pretty enough to share yet!

More IKEA stuff. I feel like everyone on Pinterest has that lappljung ruta cushion cover! It used to sell out pretty much every week at our store. So of course I joined the masses and got one for myself.
My mum gave me the old map above the couch - she and Dad are both teachers and she's always finding fun old school stuff around the place. When I was living in Australia I probably would have had second thoughts about hanging a huge map of Australia on the wall but now I love it -  I'm also learning lots about Australia's exploration history. Bonus!

I'm slowly filling the place with plants. In Sydney I loved having lots of plants all throughout the house and on the balcony, but of course with the move I had to give them all to a friend and start again. Luckily there is a guy at our local weekend market who sells lots of plants for super cheap, and even pots them and delivers them to us for free! We've been getting a few new plants every week. In fact he just dropped off some plants about an hour ago, so these photos are already out of date!

Mum gave me this cute London map scarf for Christmas (we both love maps, as you can probably tell). One day, before our shipment arrived, I was talking to her about ideas for what do do with the cushions in the lounge room and she told me I could open one of my presents early. It was the perfect size for a cushion cover! I love it because you can see Cartwright Gardens on it, which is my favourite place to stay in London (it's the crescent shape just under the words 'St Pancras').
The 'magic lamp' on the side table was a present from my brother when he was in Dubai. The picture was bought at a flea market in New York and has been waiting about five years to be framed. Apparently there's cheap framing shops here so I'll have to find one!

I made this cushion cover with the scraps leftover from covering the dining chairs.

I took the instagram photo on the left the day we moved in. The room felt so... heavy. I love it now!
I'll share more interior photos as I finish each area. My work room looks like it's going to be finished up next.