today’s first sneak peek belongs to the lovely zee of blog, homebug. zee lives in a wonderfully colorful home in dublin, ireland along with her boyfriend john and their fantastic dogs: a dalmation named django and basset hound, polly. i love to see a home where color and texture are used in such a fun, carefree way. too often i think people are scared of trying a bold color or pattern and thankfully, zee is not. she’s been kind enough to share descriptions of her home in her own words so just scroll down to see photos and captions in her own words. as always, you can click here to see full sized, an additional, photos of zee’s lovely dublin home. thanks so much to zee for sharing!

[image above: I inherited our sideboard from my grandparents – it's not the most elegantly designed piece of furniture ever, but I love that it lends a sense of personal history to our home. The pictures above the sideboard are by Dublin artist and friend Niamh Flanagan and Camilla Engman, as well as some great Etsy artists.]

[image above: Our house is quite small (600 sq. ft.) and we spend almost all of our time at home in this one little room. Throughout our home, new, vintage, thrift store, heirloom, and homemade pieces sit side by side. I made all the sofa cushions, except for one by Skinny Laminx and one by Lena Corwin. The tablecloth is made from Marimekko's "Mini Unniko" fabric. I absolutely love Marimekko – I made the living room curtains from their gorgeous "Aarni" fabric (see Flickr slideshow). The bamboo coffee table and matching entryway mirror were rescued from my parent's shed and painted white; those two pieces are the only things I own that have lived in every place I have. The Eames rocking chair is a Vitra reproduction – I adore the yellowy-lime colour and painted an accent wall to match it. Our dining chairs are vintage Eames which I got on German Ebay – much cheaper than buying them in Ireland. Ireland doesn’t have much of a design heritage, so vintage furniture is wildly expensive as a result. I reupholstered the original seat pads on the dining chairs in pink Irish tweed. The Bertjan Pot-designed Moooi Random Light in this room is my all-time favorite light shade. I love that it’s so big but isn’t imposing and looks wonderful in any space. It filters light beautifully too.]

[image above (and top image about intro text): My two favorite things in our bedroom informed the rest of the décor: the original 1930s fireplace and the patchwork quilt, made by Grandmother 30-40 years ago. Keeping things simple and old-fashioned was the only way to go. I got the cute vintage telephone table from a local charity shop and reupholstered it using Amy Butler fabric. The Thonet-style rocking chair (see Flickr slideshow) was an amazing find – it's so rare to come across something like that in Ireland, so I had to snap it up (even if it takes up a lot of space in our small bedroom!) The green light shade is from Habitat.]

[image above: When we moved in here our kitchen was pretty gloomy. The cabinets were dark brown laminate and the tiles were cream. Teamed with a black countertop and grey floor, it was a really depressing combination for such a small space. We couldn’t afford to do anything other than paint everything possible white, so that’s what we did! The gross floor still needs replacing, but hiding it under an IKEA runner makes it a little more livable!]

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