Snuggling in for autumn couldn't be a better time for replacing your worn out sofa for something stylish and cosy from Arlo & Jacob who have a huge range of sofa designs in a wide selection of fabrics.
From deep squishy sofas to modern day Chesterfields, you will find a style to suit your home and your budget. Arlo & Jacob are a British company with a team of specialists who make each sofa and chair by hand - hardwood frames which are then upholstered in a choice of 120 high quality fabrics. They also produce footstools and scatter cushions to complement your sofa and will send you free fabric samples so you can perfectly match to your colour scheme.
The Helena sofa with its timeless elegance is a favourite of mine for fireside reading comfort and the Pembroke Corner Group would be fantastic for the whole family to cuddle up on. The fabrics are wonderful and it would be so hard to choose, classic greys or striking limes or maybe even a fabulous check or pattern.
Arlo & Jacob are a family run business and pride themselves of craftsmanship, offering a lifetime guarantee on their designer sofas. Which do you like? You will certainly be spoilt for choice.
For some inspiration, have a look at these interior designs from around the world.
*Collaborative post*
This week has been noticeably darker much earlier in the evening and somewhat colder. Waiting for the dogs to come in from the garden, cup of tea in hand, I can feel the damper, chillier air. Autumn is here to stay now and it is time I start to hibernate and transform my home into a cosy den.
When night rolls in well before teatime, out come the candles. Twinkling and flickering, curtains open a little to create a soft ambiance for the outside world hurrying by after work. On the mantelpiece burn perfect ivory beeswax candles, a little bit of me time listening to music or reading a book, magical.
I have a love of candles in the home, they provide a peaceful look and I enjoy styling them for the season. Vintage candle holders picked up on my travels or as gifts are perfect for my new handmade Church Candles from Watts & Co, natural blended beeswax made in England by the traditional methods since 1874.
Arriving wrapped in brown paper and tied with raffia, wonderful packaging that speaks of the home made crafts ethos of the company. It almost seemed a shame to unwrap them but there inside were 12 perfect candles that I then was keen to show off. The candles are unscented so ideal for a natural feel, just exquisite pure light and no overpowering scents or unwelcome chemicals. There are many candles to choose from, Watts & Co pillar candles in different sizes and also classic church candles.
Watts & Co are a company with an interesting history, its founders were three notable architects - George Frederick Bodley, Thomas Garner and George Gilbert Scott junior who designed some of the countries buildings that are part of our heritage - Battersea Power Station, the red telephone box and the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. The founders moved into providing ecclesiastical textiles and with this the company moved forward through the generations until the current day.
The candles would make a super quality gift or a treat to yourself for the home, to style on the mantelpiece, dinner table or side board. It is a clean flame and is burning really well so look like they will last a long time - plenty of quiet, relaxing evenings ahead by the gentle light of candles for me. As always with candles, do be safe and don't leave unattended.
Styled with my found autumn items from country walks- amber coloured leaves, moss fringed twigs, shiny conkers and then my home grown mini pumpkins, I think they look really special and just the seasonal look that I enjoy to make me feel all fuzzy.
I was sent candles by Watts & Co for the purpose of the review, opinions are my own honest words.
Diary of a Church Mouse
by John Betjeman
Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.
My favourite poem and very fitting what with exploring harvest festival churches this week.
