Cushions and firewood

I've made some more changes to the living room today. I found a pretty grey felt cushion at Ikea (I went looking for something completely different of course - storage jars). It's hand stitched with multiple coloured wool, in a very simple style, and finished off with two wooden buttons. I wasn't sure how it would work on our dark brown leather sofa, but it looks very fine. It's also soft and squishy, and therefore perfect for cuddling up to.

And I solved a very old problem today. Our house has only one fire place, and when we moved in, it housed an extremely ugly electric heater. We had it removed when we did our renovation a few years ago, but since then we've had a big gaping hole in our living room, so we placed an old 1940s firescreen in front of it. But it's continued to be a problem, as heat has been escaping up the chimney, and, well, it was pretty clear that we had a big hole in the living room.

Thanks to one of my favourite magazines - Living etc, which is British - I got the idea of filling the gap with firewood. I went to an old fashioned timberyard today and bought two sacks of firewood, and plugged up the hole. It was like doing a big three dimensional puzzle.

It now looks terrific. And it only cost me $28 and 45 minutes of effort (I had to plug the base of the hole up with some leftover bricks first).

So the livingroom is really coming together. I still want to find a lamp, and we need a coffee table (I never see reasonably priced ones that I like). It's my favourite room right now.