Yes, I really am living the dream. Not content with a black and gold tea cosy, I made myself a matching cosy for the cafetière, so now I have TWO tastefully crocheted items in my flat. Crazy, I know.

While I’m at at it, let’s talk about the furnishings. You can just see the white bamboo table which I painted. It was given to us when we moved into our last flat and we had always assumed we would get rid of it when we finally moved into our own place. But in the spirit of trying to recycle and re-use, I decided to paint it.

I made those cushions for the sofa as well. Previously, it was a very tired and old chesterfield, and a lot of the leather had begun flaking off. I bought some duck feather cushions and covered them with material that I bought on eBay. They’re not only helping to increase the life of the sofa, they’re also making it a lot comfier to sit on!

The cream scatter cushion cover is made from the bags that our organic bed linen came in. I didn’t want to waste them and they were exactly the right size for the cushions. Al thinks they’re silly, but I like them! This is what they look like on the other side.

Waste not want not!

And finally, we have the lampshade. Al’s been promising to paint bright flowers on the lampshade for ages, but after about 3 years of waiting, I finally just decided to sort it out myself. Here you can see what it looked like, and how it looks now.

The paper is from an Arts & Crafts wrapping paper book – Victorian paper for a Victorian house!