Our conversation pit!

Yesterday I blogged about visiting the very cool and retro Sam Stephenson designed Conversation Pit in Number 31

Here's our take on a conversation pit - our upholstery was completed and delivered on Saturday morning.

10 people can comfortably sit on this couch - 12 if you are feeling friendly!!

How do you think it turned out??

House pictures!

It's been a long time since I posted pictures of the house.  Here are a few that I took this morning.  I hope you enjoy them and would love to hear your comments.

Artwork in the Master Bedroom - this was painted by Ciaran

                                   The Master Bedroom

                                                         
                                          Bathroom

This is the living room:

The glass stairs leading up to the studio.

The Lucellino Wing Lights in the Guest bedroom.

Here's the bed in the Guest Bedroom.

Here's the mantlepiece in the Guest Bedroom.  I have put my Paddington Bear's on the ground.  Check out the biggest bear - he's nearly 30 years old and he is one of the original design Paddington Bears - he is a much more solid bears then the newer ones.  I used to love reading Paddington Bear when I was younger, written by Michael Bond he will always be a favourite of mine.  Here is some trivia about Paddington Bear - Jeremy Clarkson's mother (of Top Gear fame) made and marketed the first Paddington Bear Teddy!!

The picture on the mantlepiece is of Picasso, it was painted by Ciaran's Dad.

Architecture in Ireland in 1950's

This morning we walked down to Number 31,  a mid century mdern beauty designed by Architect Sam Stephenson, which was open to the public as part of the Open House Architecture Festival.  

We were meeting friends at 2pm for lunch and tours of the guesthouse started at 12pm.  We got in line at 11.30am (we were in 2nd place) as we needed to have the tour completed by 1pm or so.  

Here's some pictures that I took of the place.

Here's the exterior of the building.  It is a mews so the entrance is down a lane at the back of a building.

 The Piece de Resistance in the house - the sunken conversation pit around the fireplace

 The ground was covered in tiniest white rectangular tile mosaics.

 We got to sit in the conversation pit to fully experience it - here I am making myself comfortable!

 To the back of the room was a bar that was tiled in mosaic mirrored tiles.  Very cool!!

The tour took about 20 minutes as we only toured a few of the rooms in the guesthouse - this is a working business so obviously we could not see the whole building.

You can stay in this guest house!   A word of warning though - some of the rooms are based in the main house so make sure you request a room in the Sam Stephenson house.

More info here!

Our conversation pit being built.

Click here to view our conversation pit!

And you can see the one off bespoke coffee table designed for the space in our Conversation Pit.

Taste explosion!

My twins sister makes the most beautiful canapes - I call them "Taste Explosions"!!! Here's step by step instructions with pictures of how to make them.

1. Spread a generous smear of cream cheese on bite size 

blinis (mini pancakes)

2. Pour a few drops of sweet chilli sauce on the cream cheese

3. Top with smoked salmon 

4. Season with black pepper

These canapes are totally delicious - I recommend eating them in a single bite!!

Here are a few more canapes and nibblies that we made:
Smoked Salmon on Brown Bread with lemon garnish

Black Olives, Charcuterie of Italian Prosciutto & Spanish Ham, Cheese selection, Crackers and Red Pepper Hummus.

And here we are along with friends enjoying wine and nibblies!

Open House

Open House (Dublin's biggest Architectural Festival) is on this weekend.  We have a busy weekend planned with friends calling to us on Saturday and Sunday but we plan to take in a few tours for Open House.

On Sunday we hope to visit the former home of Architect Sam Stephenson.  It is now a guesthouse and features a retro conversation pit - and you know how much we love conversation pits!!  We love them so much that we built one in our own house!!!

In other news, our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) made the cover of Time Magazine for a feature entitled the "Celtic Comeback".  I like the way they changed the colour of "Time" to green!!

Rain, rain go away.....

I went for a walk before work today. 

It was lovely weather when I set off.  I walked along the canal.  There were loads of people out cycling and walking as it was quite a nice day.  

It began to get windy and then started to rain a little.  All of the pictured swans on the canal began to make their way under this tree for shelter from the rain.

I made my way straight to Starbucks on Mespil Road to avoid getting wet! 

It is a very small Starbucks, I think it is more of a takeaway coffee spot for all of the offices in the locality. The sit in area is not hugely attractive........but luckily for me it is not my closest Starbucks - that's the one at the Luas Stop on Harcourt Street.

You know you live in Dublin when.....

You know you live in Dublin when you can smell the hops from the Guinness factory as you drive to work in the morning!!!

If you want to experience all that Dublin has to offer (including the smell of the hops - has to be smelled to be believed!) come to Ireland in 2013 for The Gathering!!!