The Interior DIYer
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#DublinDesignNight 2016

Last Wednesday night saw Dublin’s second annual #DublinDesignNight as organised by Yelp and Image Interiors & Living make its way across the city centre. I was pretty excited as it was my first ‘night out’ since having Cora, so while I unfortunately didn’t get to visit every venue on the map, I tried my best to get to a good few places before hobbling to the bus [it can be tough to walk and stand for long periods of time after having a baby. Who knew?].

I first visited Designist, where everyone was greeted with a hot chocolate not-so-secretly-spiked with rum. If this is something you haven’t heard of or tried before, TRY IT. I may just be my new favourite hot winter drink. 

I picked up another of The Handmade Soap Company‘s candles. I bought their grapefruit and may chang candle a few months ago and loved it, so this time I picked up one of their sweet orange, basil and frankincense candles. I also picked up an adorable frog patterned Bandana Bib by Little Green Dot for little Cora [which I have yet to use because it’s far too cute]. 
From there, I quickly visited Appassionata, Irish Design Shop and Industry. All of which were packed so I didn’t stay long. I made one last stop at Article before heading home. I’ve had my eye on their swan mobile for a long time and these days I find that if I don’t get something I really like when I first see it, it’ll be gone the next time I check. So I grabbed one [seen below yet to be assembled] and think it’ll be perfect over Cora’s changing table / dresser to keep her entertained and slightly less wriggly. I also saw one of those old-school clip in letter board signs, but as it was a little more expensive, it would more so be a mini investment. Which usually means I think about it non-stop for a week then end up taking a trip into town especially to get it. We’ll see 😉

You can read my post on last year’s and first #DublinDesignNight here!
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Cora Beatrix Carberry

Thursdays have always been a special day for us. Robert and I met on a Thursday, had our first date on a Thursday, had numerous anniversaries on Thursdays, moved into our first and second apartments on Thursdays, got married on a Thursday, found out we were pregnant on a Thursday, and our latest addition [despite me being induced on the Wednesday morning at 06:00]; our baby girl was born on a Thursday. I contemplated naming our baby Thursday, but Robert drew the line at Wednesday.

After arriving a fashionable 12 days late, our tiny Cora Beatrix Carberry was born on Thursday the 20th of October, 2016, at 11:24am weighing 6lbs 9oz and Robert and I couldn’t be more in love / have more blown minds. 

It was the most surreal experience seeing our baby for the first time. Robert and I most likely looked like the dumbest couple in the hospital that morning; staring at each other saying “we have a baby … that’s our baby“. We still can’t believe we made that little face. All we know is our hearts exploded that day and have every day since.
p.s. I don’t know yet if I’ll share our birth story. I love reading other people’s birth stories and I’ve always been fascinated by them, so I might. We’ll see. For now, please excuse me as I devour Cora’s little face at every chance I can xx


UPDATE: it took me 6 months to publish, but I wrote all about Cora’s birth story and you can find it here if you’re curious / like those kind of things. 
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Nursery dresser makeover!

It  really feels like things are moving at a snails pace these days [myself included], but things are finally getting ticked off my to-do list. One of them being the nursery. Between appointments and classes and endless lists of what to do and get, there’s so much involved in getting ready for a baby. And once you get everything struck off your list, you start thinking of more things you should do. My lists are reproducing. Or sometimes you just want to lay the hell down and nothing gets done for a day or two. Do I sound complainy? I really don’t mean to, I’m just glad things are finally starting to fall in place!

Back when I first put some ideas together for transforming our spare bedroom into a nursery, I wanted to source as many secondhand items as possible. So when we were looking for a dresser / changing table, I took to Adverts.ie and found a perfect sized one for €45 …

It  was a standard dresser in relatively okay condition. I knew I’d be painting it as there were already a lot of different wood finishes in the room – walnut crib, faux pine floor, some other faux wood on the built-in wardrobes and then the chicken-fat orange wood around the windows, the combination of them all together just wasn’t working.  

Since our spare bedroom / nursery is a fairly dark room and the dresser would be going under the window [potentially blocking more light from the room], I didn’t want to go with anything too wild or dark on the dresser. When it came down to it, I wanted to keep it light and bright. I still had some leftover white Rustoleum paint from updating our bedside tables this time last year, so on went 5 even coats of plain white paint all over. I thought of doing a faux marble effect again, but quickly changed my mind as I didn’t want to overdo it.

As for the details on the dresser, I kept it relatively simple. I spent about 2 weeks looking for the perfect hardware for the drawers. I found these black rose knobs and backplates on Etsy [which I don’t think is a genuine Etsy seller and is probably a warehouse of sorts, but welp. I couldn’t find them elsewhere and I really wanted them so I got them]. I thought they were a perfect mix of whimsical, dainty and a little bit gothic. I decided to order just two knobs for the top drawers and went with very simple knobs for the rest of the dresser  as I didn’t want to overkill it [I found perfect budget-friendly untreated pine knobs in Woodie’s that I painted matt black]. 

Since getting my hands on Emma’s Tangled Hawkmoth wallpaper, I immediately knew I’d be lining the drawers of any future nursery dresser with it. Unfortunately we can’t hang wallpaper in our apartment [boo, renting], so into the drawers it went. It works so perfectly and I love seeing peeks of it underneath all the tiny baby clothes. I want to line ALL OF THE THINGS WITH IT NOW.

As for the feet of the dresser, I’ve not done anything just yet with them. I’ve left them unpainted as they were, which in a way kind of makes it look like the dresser is floating [I know, a stretch] but I’m hoping to either swap them for different feet or just take them off entirely. 

I should also say sorry for all the tightly cropped nursery pictures – it’s really to spare your eyeballs from seeing the madness that lurks to either side of the nursery. Soon, though. Soon it should be finished! Considering baby is now finished cooking and I’m 40 weeks [and 4 days], but I think [see: hope] later this week baby will make her debut. Fingers crossed – but not legs. Legs are anything but crossed 😉