The Poster List, Decoylab, Monkey & Squirrel

When your passion is interior design, it sometimes trickles down to other members of your family. Whether it be a contagious need your sister has to decorate the walls of her new house, or a request by your mother for a little kitchen reno inspiration, it seems that once you start sharing the decorating love, it just keeps spreading.

I, of course, greet the requests with excitement and even relief at the thought of satisfying my personal need to decorate on someone else's penny. After all, let me tell you, decorating is an EX-PEN-SI-VE hobby to have, I sometimes wish I had actually taken up tennis. Or running (even cheaper!).

Unfortunately, my interests revolve around linen fabric, lampshades and paint samples. Oh well! I can only hope that one day I can actually make a bit of money off of this little hobby of mine. Or at least break even! In the meantime, I get to assist friends and family in the greatly satisfying task of transforming the space they live in into beautiful houses that they look forward to come home to .

Remember Thornback and Peel, the British duo of table linen designers? I wrote about them here. Well, wrapped into a big red polka-dot box under the Christmas tree this year were three little frames for my sister from Santa and we were both extremely please with the results.

It even inspired a little shopping spree to fill other walls of her living room that needed a little uplifting. Included in our shopping cart were a few posters from The Poster List (a California based company), which we immediately framed and put up. They have lots of colourful, cheap posters that will brighten up your walls...

Also making the list are a fun bottle opener that nails to the wall and a yellow cuckoo clock by Decoylab that I am very jealous about.

A few more items from Decoylab....

I may not get to see my sister very often but every visit to Montreal includes a day or two of searching for new items for her house and it is so much fun. I occasionally even splurge on an item or two for myself...this time, a lovely little cast iron hook by Monkey & Squirrel made its way back into my suitcase. I got it at a wonderful store on Laurier street called Buk Nola (one I intend on writing about very shortly) but you can also find them on Etsy. I'm still debating on whether or not to order two more and change my entryway hooks...I got the yellow one of course!

More to tell on Montreal very soon!