Jon & Liezel’s New Bloomsbury Home

published Aug 10, 2009

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Name: Jon Hindley & Liezel Strauss
Location: Bloomsbury, London
Size: 980 square feet
Years lived in: 5 months

With August’s Setting Up Home theme I thought it only appropriate to share my new nest! After 7 years of renting furnished apartments in the UK, Germany and South Africa, it was finally time to end the nomad life (for now!) and take the plunge into permanent residency. My husband and I have collected art, chairs and books over the years but buying beds, pots, pans and other functional items was new territory!

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Liezel Strauss)
Tretchikoff Print and Bronze sculpture by Rossouw van der Walt (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Cement Sculpture by Kenau Botha (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Grandparent’s chairs (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Traditional instruments from Marrakech (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Shy Girl sculpture by Francois van Reenen (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
When it’s party time we project films on the kitchen wall (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Dog sculpture by Kenau Botha (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Door to walk-in closet (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Liezel Strauss)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Main bedroom Art by Stefanie Schneider (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Stefanie Schneider Polaroids (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Heath Nash wire words (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
Photography Books by Sven Hoffman on top of speaker stands for bed side tables (Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Now 5 months on, we have settled in and managed to create a home that reflect our souls. We realize it is a labor of love and we are resisting the urge to rush the process. We aim to only buy recycled or ethically sourced items but every now and again IKEA or an impulse buy creeps in! We are inspired by David Michael Bruno’s 100 Thing Challenge, but it’s harder than we imagined, let’s see how the new nesting goes…

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Apartment Therapy Survey:

My/Our style: Soulful

Inspiration: Our travels

Favorite Element: The walk-in closet, the kitchen and the original doors and fittings.

Biggest Challenge: To convince Jon to turn our 3rd bedroom into a walk-in wardrobe!

What Friends Say: They like the size and the calming vibe

Biggest Embarrassment: Jon can only sleep in complete darkness, for some reason we only managed to order black-out blinds last week. For almost 5 months we’ve had bin liners in the bedroom windows! Our neighbors are suspicious by now!

Proudest DIY: The bathroom, It was not a pretty sight when we moved in!

Biggest Indulgence: The rent & our beautiful kitchen table — it is made from recycled church benches! We waited ages for it, but it was well worth it!

Best advice: Get rid of things you don’t need! My mom is a complete minimalist and it has taken me years to get my head around the concept, but now we have a new rule, for every new thing in, an old thing out!

Dream source: Anything from Haldane Martin and Heath Nash and accessories from The Conran Shop & Atelier Abigail Ahern

Resources:

Kitchen Hardware & Accessories: : Wedding gifts and John Lewis

Accessories: Bed linen from The Sleep Room.

Lighting: Disco balls from China Town.

Living room chairs: Inherited from my grandparents

Kitchen Table: : Made from recycled church benches. Eat Sleep Live.

Art: : Cement women sculpture in living room and white dog: Our dear friend Kenau Botha, Bronze sculpture in living room: Rossouw van der Walt , Polaroids in bedroom: Stephani Schneider, Albino reindeer: Frank Stockel, Wooden angels: Jackson Thembe, Lino’s in Living room: Lucas Bambo, Wire “you make it easy”: Heath Nash , Shy girl in the kitchen: Francois van Reenen, Painting in kitchen: Elwin Buchel, Tretchikoff from Spitalfields market in London and all other art from markets in Swaziland.

Window Treatments: IKEA (and bin liners!)

Sofa: Habitat

Beds and bed linen: The Sleep Room

Coffee table, blue office chairs, red locker unit and TV cabinet: IKEA

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

(Images: Liezel Strauss)

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