Flying Ducks and Floating Shelves

Today I visited Gleaners Inc, the wonderful new store run by Liz of Betty Jo Designs and Lino Forest fame. If you're into handmade and vintage thingamabobs and fancy something truly unique, head straight to Gleaners Inc in Brunswick. Liz has curated a very special range of vintage items and goodies made from vintage materials and I can't wait to see it grow.

While I was there I ordered a custom set of flying ducks, made from vintage linoleum, buttons and doilies. Mine will look something like this:



A beaut addition to my bird-themed loungeroom wall!

Speaking of that loungeroom wall... I have decided I hate picture rails. Writing a whole blog entry about them really turned me off.

Now it's all about floating box shelves, like these ones in the home of designer Mariana Garcia-Katz (via The Design Files:



These ones were made by the homeowner's dad from plywood. I reckon I can make them myself. But how to combine them with wallpaper?









Tell me which arrangement looks best if you like, but I'll probably have a thoroughly different concept in two days.

The digitally printed wallpaper by Funky Wombat Textiles is a whopping 138cm wide, compared to the measly 52cm or so offered by most commercial wallpaper companies. This means a lot less matching up prints and wasting paper. It also happens to be exactly one third of the width of that wall, up to the doorframe. I've played with a lot of arrangements, including three box shelves with three widths of wallpaper, but most of them look overcrowded. Perhaps only having paper on two thirds of the wall is a good thing. I'd need to play with the proportional heights of the shelving to try to achieve golden ratios and so forth.

I also really like this idea of old drawers and crates lined with wallpaper, but I think it'll be easier to convince the hubby to put newly made shelves on the walls of our brand new house than salvaged stuff I've prettied-up: