Corners of my home: Week 1.

I thought I'd start with the lounge because that's the first (and sometimes only) room visitors get to see. (On a side note, in Australia a lounge is what you sit on in your lounge room. In New Zealand, you sit on your sofa or couch in your lounge. It gets all very confusing when you are a new Australian and someone says they are "thinking of getting a new lounge and aren't sure what colour to go for" as if you can pop down the road and buy a whole new room to tack onto your house. Anyway, I digress...) My monochromatic shrine to IKEA. I got the sofa on sale to match my old cat so no matter what colour he shed it wouldn't be noticeable. The lamp is also IKEA but alas full price - I did, however, have to wait about 18 months to get it as they were out of stock due to some sort of manufacturing problem. Can I say now the closest IKEA is a 3 1/4 hour drive north to Sydney?

The cushions were sale finds at Freedom furniture(brown) and David Jones (cream raw silk). And the picture is a birthday commission I ordered for myself from my friend's artist hubby a few years ago - and is of Raglan harbour in the North Island of New Zealand.

This is a very fine place to read, watch movies, craft, or stretch out for a nap...... or listen to a CD chosen from some of my collection housed across from the other end of the sofa (lounge/ couch!) The CD rack was especially posted in from the States via my friend Nancy as it matches the shelves I have my TV and stereo on. The gas heater on the left is very useful in the depths of Canberra winter (the rest of the year it's home to a rotating bunch of interesting bits and pieces.) Above the heater is a groovy poster of Wellington Harbour in NZ I bought from the Te Papa gift shop on a visit back and next to the heater in the little cubby is a magazine rack for books that need to go back to the library.

To the right of the CDs is my $10 Robin Day chair (boy was I happy to find that!) and next to that you can just see my $45 sideboard.And across in the other corner is my $50 armchair next to my $45 coffee table under my $35 light fitting. And see that picture above the armchair?I bought her as a souvenir on an early trip to Sydney from Canberra and had her a couple of years before B quite helpfully pointed out she has a ferret in her hair. So she's now been renamed "Ferret Girl" and as often as B hints I haven't banished her and her furry friend quite yet.

One thing I don't have in my lounge is books. I figure they tell visitors far too much about you me so they're all stashed away upstairs. Instead I have a large Kaleidoscope House dolls house behind the sofa.