With the warm weather upon us I’ve been able to indulge my love for soft serve ice cream – hand made of course.

The girls and I eat this for breakfast every day. And every day we choose a different variety of frozen fruit for a different flavour. Some days it’s mango, others strawberry, vanilla – you choose!

Recipe at Lovely Food

A few weeks ago I received an email about Mari Vanna, a fairly new Russian restaurant in Knightsbridge. Their wholewheat pancakes looked so gorgeous I emailed right back to say so – you all know I love baking with whole grains.

Two weeks later a little surprise – they asked if I’d like to come and see their vintage Russian interior and maybe sample their wholewheat pancake. It coincided very nicely with my trip into London for The Set Table book party and off I set, camera in hand to discover the visual delights of the Mari Vanna interior.

The entire interior has been authentically done in the style of a wealthy Russian grandmother’s home. Traditional master crafters have attended to every detail from the distressed finishes on the chairs to folk painting on the dresser and serving table. The stained glass panel in the hallway is a magnificent feature as is the crystal chandelier.

Mari Vanna transports the visitor into another world. Luxurious and homely it’s easy to feel comfortable and relax here. And once you’ve sampled their beautiful infused vodkas you’ll relax even more.

I didn’t think I’d eaten Russian food before but it was very familiar, quite like my German Grandmother’s cooking. She was originally from the north of East Germany and the dark breads with fennel seed and gherkins – as well as the herbed butter reminded me a lot of her farmhouse kitchen.

Mutti was a farmer. She grew all her own berries and infused vodka in her kitchen so it was lovely to try Mari Vanna’s infusions. In order of savoury to sweet – horseradish, cucumber and dill, cranberry, cherry, raspberry, strawberry. The cherry was the winner, lovely and tart and full of taste.

I started with the Borscht, much lighter than expected – and not blended but made from fried grated vegetables infused in stock. The breads and herbed butter were gorgeous. I secretly wished I could have eaten it all.

The traditional Russian salad of peas, carrot, potato, boiled egg, chives and ham in mayonnaise was beautifully cut and very fine. Beef Stroganoff is an old favourite I haven’t had in a very long time – very creamy, it was served with mushroom and nutty tasting buckwheat groats. I would love the recipe for this.

And of course I had to try the wholewheat pancake for dessert, served with a yoghurt cream, fresh berries and chocolate sauce. The yoghurt cream had an interesting nutty texture with a gorgeous flavour.

My overall impression of the food was that it was very homemade and rustic, but the surprise was in how delicate it was. Quite like the interior. Very much created with the tender touch of a smiling, welcoming, generous grandmother.

MariVanna.co.uk

Our current bathroom must be the smallest bathroom I’ve lived with so far. You need to close the door to open the airing cupboard door, but it’s functional nonetheless. And, did I mention pretty? Because pretty is one thing our bathroom most definitely is.

In true Cotswolds farm cottage style the bathroom fittings are very traditional. The porcelain is all by Burlington and the fittings are Bristan. Baileys Home and Garden do a similar 1930s three piece bathroom set which is gorgeous.

Since my last birthday (a bit of a milestone one) I have suddenly begun to love The White Company. I always liked them but was really into all sorts of colours and mixing things up. Since we stayed at Daylesford’s Honeysuckle cottage I have grown to love everything The White Company does . You see Honeysuckle was all Daylesford in the kitchen but the rest of the house was White Company. Lovely textures and cotton and linen in different shades of white. So this month I’ve slowly been replacing the bright towels we’ve collected over the years (really good ones I must add) and the IKEA bathmats and baskets, and slowly slowly it’s becoming a White Company bathroom.

Initially it was a bit of a shock. An all white and grey room. I love it. But can it be me? Absolutely I say – let the flowers be the colour!

Where to buy: Egyptian Cotton white towels and facecloths, Grey Hamman hand towels, Toulon bathmat all by The White Company. Grey tiger flower voile dressing gown by Susannah Cotton. Cleanser and face mask by REN. Handcream, body scrub and soya candle by Karmameju. Kid’s body wash Weleda. Shampoo and Conditioner A’kin. Pink latte cup by IKEA. White latte cup by Habitat. Fleur de lis glass by Anthropologie. Flowers from our garden. Floral lei from Karangahape Road, Auckland.

When VELUX® asked if I’d look at some skylight inspiration I was happy to, because I think light is such an important factor in a home, and indeed personal happiness.

I love to sleep where I can see the sky. Especially in summer with the late sunsets, I love to watch the stars and moon appear, and the light shimmering into my room – and wake up at dawn to see the beautiful soft light outside.

I’ve gone a bit Pinterest mad lately and have been finding so many amazing interiors with VELUX windows to be inspired by for next year and our new home! The house we’re aiming to buy will be a 3 bedroom victorian semi detached house. Our other option will be to buy a converted barn. I’m a huge fan of barn conversions – having grown up in big open plan New Zealand houses my parents built. Mum and Dad were forever buying and doing up or building new homes and since we sold our beautiful place in Auckland I feel a bit lost without a big house project to work on.

So instead I am working on it in my mind. Visualising our new home, happy if we go barn conversion or Victorian Terrace. Once we paint everything white and strip the carpets and wax the floorboards and put in a new kitchen and bathroom it will then be time to let in some light. I am hoping any barn conversion will already be filled with skylights. And if we do go Victorian Terrace there will be an attic conversion.

I have found some super wonderful inspiration to help me with my dreams.

The first is a loft apartment in Copenhagen done by the The Apartment. I love the dusty pinks, which fit perfectly into my muted pastels colour palette. The black floor really sets off the pale colours and of course the light streaming in is beautiful. The Apartment has an amazing portfolio of work and an incredible inventory of furniture, rugs and art.

Foster House is done my absolute dream home style. It’s rustic but delicate, all white with beautiful natural floorboards and the lovely high sloping ceilings with all that light coming in. Utter perfection for me. They have quite a few different spaces which they rent out for location shoots – as well as a wedding venue.

Middle Copenhagen loft apartment by The Apartment
Top and Bottom Foster House, film and photography location Kent

Written by Charlotte | Anknel and Burblets in cooperation with VELUX – all opinions are my own

Anna and I became friends a couple of years ago through blogging and we would, every now and again, email each other about life. Small but precious exchanges during those hectic advertising days when we were at Rona Road.

I followed Anna on Pinterest, when I had time, as she clearly had a gift for it. As Anna filed her ideas for the barn they were renovating, more and more people also noticed her gift. Anna has an innate ability to find beautiful spaces and objects. She’s the lady to go to for inspiration.

Anna very kindly said yes when I asked her to help me style our future home, the one we are buying in East Sussex next year. We are pinning our inspiration together on a Pinterest board here.

Anna also very kindly agreed to answer some of my questions about how she uses Pinterest. It’s become even more clear to me there are no special secrets to Pinterest, or being successful in general. The only secret is to love what you do, do what you love.

Anna’s love shines through her pins!

1) Photograph by Jeroen van der Spek, via style files on flickr 2) Home of emersonmade. Photographs by Amy Azzarito. 3) Red Hill property of Lucy Hill and family – photo, Lucy Feagins 4) Photograph by Birgitta Wolfgang Drejer from Sisters Agency 5) Home of tina lakkonen

Anna, when did you first start using Pinterest – what was it that attracted you to it?
I first started using it just a few months after it began and was so excited to finally have a place where I could store all of the images I’d been finding online. Before Pinterest I had saved images on various computers but they were disorganized and not easy to find or look at.

I was also a hoarder of torn out magazine pages that I’d leave all over the house — what my husband called my “little rat piles” — and now, instead, I have a nicely organized collection of ideas on Pinterest. For this reason he’s a big fan, too :)

How much time do you spend pinning? 
It depends on how much I have going on in other areas of my life and whether or not I have a particular project that I’m thinking about — a design project for the house or for the crafty sessions I have with my friends most Sundays.

I can spend hours at a time going through pins and following them to their original sources — discovering all kinds of wonderful stuff — or I might steal a few minutes between projects at work when I need a blast of inspiration.

Where do you get your inspiration?
I am inspired by the beauty of Vermont, where we’ve lived for the past four years.  I’m definitely inspired by cities, although I don’t spend nearly enough time in them.  I’m inspired by the creative people around me — I have some wonderfully vibrant friends whose creativity is a constant source of energy and ideas.

I’m inspired by our home, which is an old, renovated barn;  sometimes I’m overwhelmed by all I want to do with it, but that’s just because there are so many different options and I have a hard time picking just one!

Where do you find things to pin? Are you a re-pinner or a new discoverer?
This also depends on what’s going on in my life;  if I don’t have a lot of time on the internet then I tend to do a lot of repinning.  I really enjoy repinning because while the images are inspiring, it’s also really wonderful to get a sense of people through their pins; of course much of what we pick up on is a pinner’s aesthetic, but it also feels like I’m getting a glimpse of who they are as people.

There’s one pinner who I started following early on, Kate Lyden, and I fell in love with her visual sense;  I later discovered her blog — she’s a wonderful, wonderful writer — and it became clear that her pins were an echo of her overall sensibility.  I love that.

How did people hear about your Pinterest? Did you do anything to get the word out?
To be honest, I have no idea how people found out about my board — I haven’t done anything to get the word out at all!

What are your top three Pinterest tips and tricks?
As silly as it probably sounds, I don’t have any — Pinterest is, quite simply, a visual filing system for me — I pin what I love!

pinterest.com/anna_h