And we’re back! I hope everyone had a splendid festive season – I sure had a smashing time. To ease ourselves back into the blogging groove and to kick off the new year, we’d like to share with you some stats on our blog’s activity in 2011.

Did you know that we wrote 109 new blog posts this past year and uploaded a grand total of 707 images – not too shabby! Rose and I watched with absolute glee as our blog following and interaction steadily grew this past year. Our busiest blog day of 2011 was the 14th of December which was the day we posted our Christmas greeting (you must have liked seeing our faces, lol)! We are happy to see that most visitors came from South Africa (thanks for representing Mzansi, local is lekker), and interestingly enough the United States and United Kingdom were not far behind!

The stats indicate that the most popular posts that got the abounding views in 2011 are…

1.  Décor Diva: To Paint Or Not To Paint in which Rose discuss the current trend of painting vintage furniture pieces.

2.  Design Indaba 2011 Through Rose Coloured Glasses where Rose recaps her visit to the 2011 Design Indaba and lists the products and designs that impressed her most.

3.  Décor Dictionary: Recycling & Upcycling attempts to define the rather elusive terms, recycling and upcycling – specific to the design industry.

4.  In Tretchikoff: The People’s Painter we pay tribute to the “king of kitsch”. Rose and I really enjoyed the Vladimir Tretchikoff exhibition in Cape Town.

5.  In Spice Up Your Interior With Some Quirky Stools I selected a handful of awesome locally designed South African stools. These babies are stunning feature pieces.

Rose and I also sat down and discussed our personal favourite blog posts of 2011…

Rose said:

“I guess that this “looking back” should actually have been a task undertaken at the close of 2011. But as with every year, buy the time we hit December, the days just melt one into another and before you know it the doors of the business have closed for that well deserved summer break.

Besides for which, it is just so much better to sit down and take your time browsing through the posts of the past year with a clear and fresh mind.  I have to say that I found it difficult to narrow my choices down to 3 – 5 posts, because there were quite a few that really caught my eye again. There were a few topics that did however jump out at me as having been noticeable for their own reasons.  Here goes:

Marica’s “Get The Look“ articles are always such a pleasure. Two tickled my fancy – the Industrial Chic and the Nautical Bedroom. Somehow or other, that just manages to stir up that “lust-have” feelings within me.

Naturally, I thoroughly enjoyed the Décor Diva posts – I managed to sprout off my opinion on a few décor issues that niggled at me. Some topics I thought worthy of putting out there for comment and input. There were three in this category: 1. “Wallpaper – To be or Not To Be”;  2. “Damask is Dead”;  3. “Décor Diva: To Paint Or Not To Paint“

Two others that struck a cord with me – The Royal Wedding and all those totally gorgeous goodies that came onto the market as a result and the article on our own popular artist, Tretchikoff. Marica and I attended that exhibition. It was a real “call back the past” experience for me as I grew up with Tretchikoff being a household name, a bit of a mysterious figure, who managed to get the locals talking about his particular lifestyle.” 

On my part – like Rose, I also enjoyed the Get The Look posts as well as the Colour-Coded Inspiration posts – they are tremendous fun to put together. I also really like the Design Indaba 2011 report back – loved writing about local talent like Design Kist and Raw. 

I generally enjoy all our Décor Dictionary posts, it’s such fun to hunt down décor and design terms and definitions to share with you – always short and sweet!

However, my favourite post of 2011 would have to be our report on the beautiful Cuvée restaurant at Simonsig wine farm. I was almost giddy with excitement when I came across this breathtaking beauty design by Neil Stemmet of Koncept Design.

As we attempt to build on the strong foundation of last year, we intend bringing you more opinions, people, tips, dictionaryterms, places and interesting goodies.

We will look at trends, expo’s such as Design Indaba & Decorex C T; additional info on wall finishes and plenty, plenty more. Rose will also dish the dirt on her favourite interior hobby horse: hotel interiors (mainly local). Also keep your eyes peeled for a feature by one of our favourite contributors, James Russell on “toile” design (COMING SOON)!

Thanks for all your wonderful support during 2011 and STAY WITH US, we promise to deliver the goodies.

Is there anything design and décor related you would like to see us writing about – any local person, place, space, query – let us know – WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!