Three from the Design Arcade

* I was provided a pair of press tickets to the Grand Designs Live so I’m marking posts from my visit as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

One of my favourite parts of Grand Designs Live is the Design Arcade. Last year it’s where we met the Card Boys and where we bought our new light so it has pretty good credentials!

Though the show overall seemed smaller than it had been in previous years, and (sob!) there were no room sets, the standard in the Design Arcade was as good as ever. Like any show the participants vary year to year, but noticeably this year at Grand Designs Live there were less ‘big’ and well known companies and more new to us brands, which is not such a bad thing.

But back to the Design Arcade, and what caught my eye this year:

1 Luxury Wallpaper by Avalana Designs

It was the swan wallpaper that caught my eye, and then the wallpapered background of the stand. The detail, the colours and in the case of the flowers, their size. Aren’t they fabulous?

On their website there’s also bedding and furnishings that complement each other, and while once my thing for bedding was ‘crisp and white’ over the past few years I’ve definitely changed my style to incorporate much more colour, so there could be the very real chance of a purchase in the hopefully not too distant future.

And it’s still the swans that are calling me…

2 Scented Candles by The Wick & Wax Co.

I love a candle or two, but it was the ‘Made in Stamford’ that caught my attention as that’s one of the places we’ve been visiting more regularly in our house search. Even though we’ve ruled it out as somewhere to live, it’s very much still on the somewhere to visit regularly list.

On their website there’s information about the luxury candles which are handcrafted in small batches and promises a ‘touch of luxury with a clearer conscience’ - I’m looking forward to seeing more of this company, and smelling their wares at shows which I hope will soon be classed as more local, and exploring their scents to work out which to buy. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the choice is just overwhelming - and not just for candles.

3 Door Signs by These Fair Hands

Now you might be thinking these are like any other door signs you might have seen, but they probably aren’t. These ones are made by from Corian, which is stone like and hard wearing, and you’ve most likely heard it used for kitchen worktops. But it’s also weatherproof which makes it ideal for door signs, which by their very nature are outside and subject to the elements.

On their website you can see the full range of door signs and more - and on the intro page, they say they don’t do standard - every piece they make is different, but beautiful.

This is another future potential purchase for me, and it’s the more modern designs, such as the 93 Lakewood Road sign, that appeal most, but the work in all of them is exceptional.

So some great finds, and some potential future purchases from me which is ok as for the first time ever I think, we left the show empty handed but armed instead with buckets of inspiration.

The working from home project: cork pinboard panelling

I’m not sure where the time is going at the moment. It’s over a month ago that I shared the first room set from Grand Designs Live at the start of May, so it’s way over due for me to share another. This one was my absolute favourite, and I’ve already earmarked the main design feature as something I want replicate in my craft room of the future.

I spent some time looking at the panelling and cork tiles in some detail, working out how designer Danielle Reales had put this together. The (most likely) MDF panelling was cleverly spaced to be the width of a cork tile. The lower section was painted pale green and it was finished off with a narrow shelf, which also allows for additional display space. Great for an office, and even better for a craft room.

And did you spot the artwork? How many times have you also found your lost pen on your desk. Yes, me too.

Behind the desk area, is a touch of tranquility for mid morning coffee breaks. The whole space is definitely the functional, attractive and fun work area that the designer wanted to create. She also wanted the space to encourage good mental health, comfort, sustainability and uplifting humour - and the artwork definitely made me smile.

I also liked the noticeboard with its roll of paper on a rail above. Another simple idea which can be easily replicated.

I loved this, and even MOH was impressed - and didn’t flinch too much when I said this is definitely something for our new house.

A new light

Last month at Grand Designs Live we found another light to admire and lust after. And this wasn’t any old light, though it probably is a pretty old one. It’s a style of light that we’ve looked at for a long time, and always put on the ‘one day’ list. Turns out the one day turned out to be last month, and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ve said before, and I stand by it - the Design Arcade is one of my favourite areas of the show. It’s a single walkway, a corridor through the show which is jam-packed of great stuff. There’s inspiration each side of you, and we often walk up and down here at least a couple of times, each time seeing something new.

Therefore at the show in May, it wasn’t unexpected for us to stop and admire the lights on the Albert & Edward stand, in fact I’d have been more surprised if we didn’t stop and linger for a while. Many of the customised lights caught our eye, and I’ve a feeling at some point we’ll be looking to buy a memory wall light, and actually it was that which got us talking to Duncan.

One of the memory wall lights included an old metal boxed puncture repair kit, similar to one that we’d come across whilst sorting through my FILs garage recently. I’ve a bit of a thing about tins, and knowing that MOH doesn’t share this, I’d slipped the old-fashioned tin into one of the boxes we brought home. He remembered the tin from his childhood and wished he’d kept it - ta dah - good news, I had. These memory boards won’t be for everyone, but when they can include your own memories, then that would make them even better.

But anyway, our new light. It’s the one on the right above. We admired it and carried on wandering around the show, but this time knowing that if we get the place we’re after it will fit perfectly. It’s dangerous to make purchases for properties you don’t yet own, so we needed a plan b - and with viewings on our own home continuing we needed somewhere for it to go that made sense.

We pondered it some more and realised with a bit of light rearrangement we could make this work, so headed back to the stand again and made the purchase. Duncan kindly agreed to drop the light off either on his way back or soon after, which MOH was very happy with as carrying it back on the Jubilee line didn’t really appeal.

It’s been in place in our conservatory for a few weeks now, and it looks great.

Thanks Duncan, it was great to meet and chat with you. I’m pretty sure we’ll be down to the shop at Whitstable at some point, especially now we have a potential customised memory wall light vacancy on our ‘one day’ list!