Retro light shades

More on the old skool tip. Here are some lights from Salone - I know, I know… getting to schlep around a massive furniture fair when in the midst of a house renovation is just a tad convenient - that reminded me of the plastic 1970s versions. These are made from super fine strips of wood though, so of course they have much better 'green' credentials. Not sure which design I like the best of the red/green ones at the back, and would I get sick of looking at it month in, month out? There will be very few opportunities for a pendant light in our house. Currently in fact I think there's only one - over the kitchen sink. The three in the foreground remind me of home-made Christmas card lanterns. They're made by a company based in Valencia called Luzifer Spain.

The lights below are by Tom Dixon and look super cool. They're very similar to a lampshade from the 60s that a friend of mine bought. When I look at these I think of Jane Fonda in Barbarella, the mid century house in a Clockwork Orange and my shiny new set of petanque balls...

Wacky wallpaper

Apologies for the rubbish quality of this photo. It's a snap of a bit of wallpaper designed by Scottish duo Timorous Beasties. I'm not really into wallpaper per se (it dates, I doubt I could hang it straight, I might get sick of the design, I'd feel bad about paying someone else to strip it off because I'm too lazy to do it myself etc etc) but if I'd had a boy then I'm pretty sure this would be going up in their bedroom.

It's a great urban scene featuring a skateboarder, BMX riders, TV antennae, road barriers, CCTV, a lamp post, and more. It's familiarity is kind of soothing and pleasant to look at. I'd feel nauseous having to live with a pastoral scene or somesuch, but this I could tolerate.

Garden furniture & Metrosnapshot

I'm getting way ahead of myself even looking at garden furniture, but it was gloriously sunny in Milan so I found myself hanging outdoors quite a bit. In Superstudio Piu I was quite taken with this ingenious design: you can unclip the covers, roll them off and stack the chairs. The furniture comes in a plastic or wood finish. I've managed to tidy away the brochure so can't tell you the name of the manufacturer, but will endeavour to do that at a later date. It's such a good idea to have furniture which is easy to store in winter - and I'm not a fan of ye olde wooden country style garden furniture (but you knew that already, right?).

A few minutes after taking this photo I met up with Andy Wang from Metrosnapshot for lunch in via Tortona (below). I met Andy at last year's Salone (well, actually we were both in the immigration queue at Heathrow. I'd lost my mobile and he was transiting on the way back to San Fran…) Andy has got the work/life balance thing absolutely nailed - he works for three weeks and then has a week off to go travelling, mainly to design festivals all over the world, which he then blogs about on Metrosnapshot. I can't complain as co-incidentally I'll be in NYC for the ICFF next month but still, a whole week every month… now that would take some beating.

Peter Jansen sculptures

Human Motions, Thomas Flair Runner by Peter Jansen

I have a funny relationship with art, and hubby and I often argue over what goes up on our walls (subsequently, not a lot). We hardly have any photos on display in our home and admittedly, the white walls do look a bit blank. Not that it matters as we'll be moving out in the foreseeable future (Ha! Still no building quotes, it'll be mid May at the earliest before we appoint a builder… I could cry).

But in Milan last week I found myself completely enamoured with these polyamide models made by Dutch artist Peter Jansen. Aren't they just the most fascinating objects? The actual size was probably not much bigger than a 1.5L bottle of Evian yet the detail and absolute perfectness meant I could quite happily stare at them time and again. Can't find out how much they cost, but I'm guessing it would probably be my entire kitchen budget. For now, I shall settle for these snaps…

Charles and Marie in real life

Oh quelle horror, still nothing to report and as at last count we had only found two builders who were available and happy to submit a quote. This is making me nervous because unless one of them can do the work for our budget, the process could start again (ie finding more builders and waiting another 3 weeks for more quotes). We can't carry on paying two mortgages and waiting. I'm feeling a tad anxious.

On the good news side, I've just spent three days in Milan hanging out at the Zona Tortona which is part of the Salone del Mobile ("the world's most important industrial design and furniture fair"). I spent many hours walking around via Tortona, taking over 200 photographs of various products and I still think I missed half of what was on show. When you've looked at so many products it's hard not to feel inspired/excited/broke.

I'm going to post various photos to catalogue what I liked for future reference. I may as well given that there are no new pictures of the actual renovation project to share.

So, on day one I went to the pop-up shop of one of my favourite websites, charlesandmarie.com at 12 via Tortona. The shop was filled with a selection of the witty and clever objects they sell online. I particularly loved the subversive pot plant ceramic holders featuring urban park scenes (eg the pregnant woman being flashed at, someone getting mugged, and a bit of boy-on-boy Hampstead Heath action…)

I was planning on going back to the pop-up shop to buy the Moose trophy hangers by New Zealander Phil Cuttance, but as I wandered along via Tortona a taxi beeped at me, and inside was an old colleague who I hadn't seen for nearly a year. I got in the taxi and was whizzed off to the B&B Italia store, it would have been rude not to go, when in Milan etc etc.

It was great meeting Marcus (one of the owners, pictured below) as I'd been emailing him fo many months (work related correspondence, not fan mail). He's planning on opening five C&M stores around the world by the end of the year. Hopefully one will be in London as I'll need to decorate my house by then.