It's a cover-up

Time for thank yous

I always feel like I am behind on my thanks yous - whether it's for the kids' birthday presents, or blog mentions. But the time lapse makes them no less heart felt. Here are the latest Bemz mentions out in the blogosphere, for which we are, as always, ever so grateful.

Thank you all the pretty little things, The Nugget Denver and Deep Dish Decor for loving us and all our vibrant patterns. The Yummy Mummy Club included Bemz in their list of how to decorate your home on a budget as did Apartment Therapy as a resource for non-DIYers. Brazilian I love prints featured our Coconut Grove - Acacia slipcover (right) from our new Designers Guild Miami Collection. Obrigado I love prints!

The lovely Maura of Sky Parlour Designs posted about us when she received a tote bag... Which she then transformed into a place setting including place mat, coaster and napkin ring! Maura was also kind enough to then walk us through just how she did it, right here on It's a Cover Up. Thanks again Maura!

We've had a few lovely mentions at From Scandinavia with love: for our new soon-to-be-launched beds to our chaise longue covers. Tusen tack From Scandinavia with love. A Merry Mishap and Arkansas Online also picked up on our soon-to-be-launched bedroom series, as did AphroChic and Design Evolution. The excitement is building! Thank you all.

Mummy&Monkey's Erin waxed eloquent about our Designer Collections, which we always love, as well as promoted our competition. Thanks Erin (and good luck!). And a blog fave Swedish Room & Serve for loving our new Designers Guild Collection too.  Architects and Artisans posted about how clever our CEO and founder Lesley is, and we concur.

Swedish interior magazine Allt i Hemmet used some of our slipcovers in their post on how to up the wow-factor in your living-room. They presented three different styles for the same room. Two of the three are included here, one above (dubbed yellow and graphic) and one below (floral bohemian).

Thanks also go to Evy at Home who walked us through her swatch samples and decision making process and The Crafty Bee for sharing the excitement in the potential of a new cover!

Perhaps not really a mention but still, I was pretty thrilled to see that Apartment Therapy (Yes! The Apartment Therapy!) picked up on one of my Design-It-Yourself posts. Surely that's something to be thankful for. I know we are.

Meet the people behind the mails: Bemz customer service Part III

Let's pick up where we left off in our 'Behind the Inbox' series – a series aimed at bringing you closer to our fantastic customer service team that deal with all kinds of questions and concerns – in four languages no less: Swedish, English, German and French. Today we get to know Amber Johnson a little better.

Amber's as exotic as they come: her father's Swedish and her mother part Indonesian, part Dutch. Aside from the requisite English and Swedish, Amber also speaks Dutch, which has been incredibly useful in her work as a Bemz customer service rep as we have a great following in The Netherlands.

"I started working at Bemz last summer, sending out fabric samples a few hours a week. By autumn, my tasks became more exciting and I was given the unofficial title of "swatch princess". I’ve been working part time in customer service for a while now, as an English, Swedish and occasionally Dutch rep. And, it may even be me you meet if you pop into our Inspiration Store."

At home: Amber loves her Nikkala 3-seater sofa and Stockholm armchair. Her favorite fabrics are Candy Pink (pictured left), Tegner Melange Bamboo Green (pictured right), Baronessa Pink and Green (pictured below) and Sir Harald (pictured on the bed above), these last three by Lisa Bengtsson from the Bemz Designer Collection.

Outside work: Amber studies Liberal Arts at Stockholm University, including art history. She loves music and is a regular on the summer music festival scene.

You can reach Amber, or anyone in the team, via customerservice [at] bemz [dot] com. Alternatively call +46-8-664 62 00 during office hours, Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm (GMT +1).

From Scandinavia with love, indeed

Do you ever jump from one link online to the next and the next and end up somewhere wholly different from where you started? Sometimes that's a good thing: I was doing that today and came across this beautiful shot on From Scandinavia with Love.

Nice place! Very contemporary but not without a bit of playfulness and lots of vibrant colours. I love the way the room has been built on a monochromatic palette of white with black highlights and then brightened with injections of a gorgeous sun yellow and real red. By sticking to those two colours when choosing accessories and even pieces of furniture, the overall look is a clean, sophisticated and modern one.

By the way, those two free standing Karlstad chaise longues are in Stockholm Stripe - Jet Black.

Top tips from our designers: Summer-ise your home

For many of us, summer is our favourite season, eagerly awaited with the promise of heat, sunshine and childhood memories of endless summer days.

This is a season associated with lazy days in the country, strawberries and cream, long bright evenings spent al fresco in town or in our own back gardens. And to celebrate summer in all its glory, our design team has put together some top tips to help you recreate these magical summer feelings indoors.

Daybeds: bed and sofa in one

Daybed covers from Bemz are a clever and simple solution for a stylish sofa where space is at a premium and maximum number of beds essential, which is often the case in summer homes.

For a romantic cottage look, stick with a light colour palette as a base and complete it with soft pastel shades. Pictured are cushions in New Baroque - Pale Turquoise, Gotland Stripe - Silver Grey and True Rose - Caffe Latte on a Soft White Belgian Linen slipcover. Ornamental detailing like embroidery, tassles and trim, make the look all the more reminiscent of a sweet past. For more inspiration and ideas, please visit our Country Romance lifestyle.

To see all daybed dimensions available as slipcovers at Bemz, please click here.

Soaking up the seaside

Vacationing on the coast is an integral part of the Swedish summer, as well as an excellent source of inspiration for interior design.

Essential to successfully creating a classic nautical look are bold, crisp stripes like those found in our Stockholm Stripe series: available in Real Red, Deep Navy Blue, Caffe Latte and Sand Beige. Pair them with a solid coloured fabric in a differing material, such as Deep Navy Blue.

To get to the beautiful feeling of azure seas, opt for a base palette in Light Denim Blue and complement with the pixilated True Rose, or colourful Static Stripe, in Light Denim Blue and Caffe Latte.

Why not dip into our Archipelago Lifestyle for more ideas?

Simple Life inspired by nature

This third and final tip on how to create your summer decor comes directly from the sun bleached Swedish coast.

Let nature lead the way with faded, neutral tones. Wind swept whites, stone washed beiges and sea worn greys are all present and accounted for with Unbleached Linen and A Paler Shade of Grey as daybed covers, and cushions in Zinc Grey, Caffe Latte, Bolster Stripe, Soft White and Sage Brown.

Need inspiration? See how you can introduce nature into your living and dining rooms from our Simple Life lifestyle.

What is summer to you? Inside or out, we want to know. Write and tell us, or better yet, send a photo: to customerservice [at] bemz.com or put it on our Facebook page.

And while we are on the topic of bedrooms...

I came across these 11 before-and-after bedroom make-overs on Real Simple. Great for a little inspiration in the run-up to the launch of the bedroom series at Bemz. Exciting times. Enjoy!

This bedroom is taken from dark and drab to light and bright thanks to a lick of paint, a mirror to reflect light and stunning bed make-over with all white cushions, bedding and box-pleated bed skirt.

Again, thanks to a mirror that reflects light, the introduction of bright, upbeat items, like the bolster stripe cushion, as well as a solid coloured rug, this room goes from drab to fab.

The addition of a headboard in a beautifully subtle yet sophisticated bolster stripe gives the bed centre stage in the room where it was previously a bit lost. By painting the night stands in a matching white, they no longer work against but rather with the rest of the room.

By choosing space saving alternatives such as medicine cabinets for night-stands and wall mounted bedside lights the bed can be moved out of the corner giving the room a more spacious feel.

A taller bed with a substantial headboard is in scale with the room, and the infusion of colour on the wall and on the dramatic bed skirt, gives character without sacrificing on sophistication. In this instance the mirror works to draw the eye up, making the ceiling less intimidating.

New bedding, bed skirt and curtains transform the room. Repeating the stripes in the curtains on the rug holds the look together.

From mishmash to class: introducing a headboard in beige coloured linen along with matching cushions and chocolate brown walls makes this room unrecognisable.

By using storage bins and a pretty candy pink striped curtain to hide and organise all the toys and books, this room goes from chaos to calm.

Clearing out the clutter and injecting colour from a set palette has transformed the messed up to the dressed up.

Although the room previously worked from one colour palette the room was drab and needed storage solutions and organising. Introducing a more dramatic black and white colour scheme brings character to the room and new shelving solves the storage issues.

This motley room is taking eclectic to heights it was never meant to reach. It needs unification and a bit of calming. Using white slipcovers for the daybeds and walls brings a sense of serenity to the room.

Why not be the first to share your Bemz bed make-over with us? Send me a photo to blog [at] bemz [dot] com or upload a photo to our Facebook page.

Credit and photos: Real Simple

Lucky Karlanda has summer and winter wardrobe

Bemz Facebook fan Hilde, uploaded these photos of her Karlanda sofa to our Facebook page, and wrote: My Karlanda sofa has two covers! One for summer, in Plum... And one in Graphite Grey for winter! A woman after our own hearts...

This is the summer version. The Plum paired with the white Flasterbo footstool and Lillberg rocker gives the room a definite light and airy feel, with a vibrant contemporary edge. 

And in winter, Hilde's Graphite Grey slipcover, along with well chosen accessories, like the sheep's skin throw, the black candles and the black frame on the wall (just seen) transform the space into a more suitably sombre winter mood. Hilde then takes it up a notch with the punchy fuchsia cover on the Falsterbo footstool she uses as a coffee table. Kerpow!

Thank you Hilde for sharing you home with us. you have done a wonderful job on it!

If you have a Bemz cover, we'd love to see it. Send a photo of it to me at blog [at] bemz [dot] com or upload it directly onto our Facebook page.

Bemz Inspiration store needs to lie down

The Bemz Inspiration store tends to get a facelift to mirror the latest trends and any new products with each changing season, but this time around I think it would qualify as an extreme make-over. Here are pictures from the way the Inspiration Store looks now, taken at a press event for our upcoming launch.

With our imminent, very exciting move into bedrooms, a completely new area for Bemz, the sofas have had to take a backseat (see what I'm doing there!) to allow beds to take centre stage.

As outlined in an earlier post, we're now introducing a series of bed skirts and headboard covers in a variety if styles, sizes and designs opening up a whole new variety of options for personalising your bedroom.

The really unique aspect here is the fact that these bed covers are made to fit certain IKEA models but also to suit standard bed sizes, opening up the Bemz collection to those who do not have IKEA furniture.

Any princesses out there?

This has left me wanting my bed... Available from the end of June 2011.

More on pastels: a beautiful example

While perusing the web, I came across these photos. They are from a real home that is available for photoshoots in London and a great follow-up to our recent posts on modern vintage design. 

The owners have done a wonderful job of encapsulating that modern vintage look; a little bit 'house in the French countryside', a dash of shabby chic, injections of contemporary and very, very sophisticated.

There's always room for an iconic piece or two - straddling eras is a wonderful way to make the modern vintage look work.

That looks like a Swedish antique grandfather clock! And what a striking entrance area, not to mention great use of the space.

Completely different window dressings but each as beautiful as the other.

We've covered the importance of pastels in a number of posts recently, both how trendy they are right now as well as the new line of pastels at Bemz. They've done a superb job of using just the right amount in the bedroom above.

EVen the outdoors is breathtaking.

Have you seen a home that inspired you? Send me the link!

Serious love for Karlanda in Graphite Grey

Fellow blogger and Facebook fan Dana, was so pleased with her sofa make-over that she wrote about it on her blog, The Wonder Forest. She was desperate for a new cover for her Karlanda corner unit, and so tired of the old worn out one. Here are the before pictures:

Doesn't look too bad right? Here are a couple of close-ups.

And that's after a wash!

Yes, Dana has a cat...

Dana chose a Graphite Grey slipcover and the transition is remarkable.

Here's what Dana had to say: I don't think you understand how happy I am with this!!! It's like we have a brand new sofa, for a fraction of the cost!(...) I LOOOOVE my new couch! Everything fit perfectly, and I was surprised at how well made everything is!!! Seriously, if you're in the market to dress up your Ikea furniture, even if you just want a little update, check out Bemz!!

Thank you Dana - for the kind words, the photos and the blogpost. You've done a wonderful job with your place and I feel safe in saying that we are all thrilled you shared it with us. 

If you have a Bemz cover, share it with us! Send a photo to me at blog [at] bemz [dot] com or upload it to our Facebook page.

Design-It-Yourself: Ten crafty ideas to Modern Vintage your home

Inspired by our recent review of Katherine Sorrell's The Vintage Modern Home, I took these ten craftty ideas for things to make yourself at home to continue our focus on vintage modern design and style but add an ounce of personalisation to it:

Knit or crochet squares in different colors. You can use leftover yarn or unravelled old sweaters. Stitch them together to make a throw. (An afghan - like my old aunties used to make! I'd love one now but sadly none of said aunties are with us anymore).

Photo c/o Vintage Ramblings

Use broken crockery or tiles to create a mosaic splashback for a basin. I have a friend who used the base of old bottles (not broken obviously!) to create a glass feature in her garden.

Turn an old tablecloth or pair of curtains into a smart roman blind.

Update a tired pair of plain curtains by stitching on a narrow border of contrasting fabric.

Potato-print (yeah, just like when we were kids) a design with fabric paint on to plain cotton and make it into dining-chair seat pads.

Cut out a large stencil and print the design on to lining paper for a lovely home-made alternative to wallpaper.

Jazz up a plain lampshade by gluing ribbon or ric rac braid around the edge.

Crockery c/o Esther Coombs

Personalize white crockery with ceramic paints.

Give new life to a drab plastic or timber chair by decorating it with cut-out paper (maps, sheet music, magazine pages, wrapping paper, etc.) and sealing with a layer or two of clear varnish.

Cut any pretty leftover fabrics into squares for patchwork or triangles for bunting.

Credit: The Vintage Modern Home