Posh prints, swish wall stickers and affordable art

Maybe you can afford some serious one-off pieces of art for your walls. Maybe you can afford one or two. Maybe you're broke and your walls are bare. 

Either way - why not brighten up that blank space you're staring at with one of these tasty bits of design. The first in a series of three... 

This retro-style double decker bus print, 50 x 70cm, is just £15 from the V&A shop and designed by Japanese illustrator Takashi Furuya. You can find more of his lovely work at this online shop and, if you can read Japanese, learn about the artist on his personal website. Even if you can't read Japanese, it's a very sweet site and still worth a glance.

This pretty 1880 Yellow Bird print, by the Edward Lear, who is perhaps more famous for his crazy limericks, is quite weeny, at just 20x25cm, but costs just £10 and is one of a series of six from the V&A shop. Random Lear facts (if Wikipedia is to be believed): he was employed by the Zoological Society to draw birds, and briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria.

I want one of these Moose-heads from the Keep Calm Gallery. In fact I might want at least six of them for one big, bare and perplexing wall in the sitting room. I love, love, love them. But I also love the donkey wall sticker that I'll come to next time. And the idea of a whole wall of Penguin Classic postcards (see below), or some more of the garishly brilliant John Hinde prints from the incredible Martin Parr edited Butlin's book that I have just realised I really ought to blog about... But back to the Moose: he's £18, measures 546mm x 349mm and comes hand-printed on brown recycled kraft paper. Not sure what that is but it looks nice. 

Purchase this chirpy poster and When life gives you lemons you'll now know what to do. This uplifting old-school looking print is designed by Douglas Wilson (check out the very chirpy portrait of the typeface-mad artist on his own site: bold outfit!). The posters are hand pressed using an antique wooden type, making each one unique. They're £30 unframed and also come from the Keep Calm Gallery

Got a big wall to fill? Make a gallery of as many Penguin Classics postcards as you can muster (there are 100 in the box) and stick them in post-card sized frames (Ikea's cardboard ones are good for mass framing and don't look like cardboard if you squint - or even if you stand quite close). Or just pick your favourite jacket and stick it in a dinky-sized spot in a more extravagant frame. Staggeringly good value at just £14.99 from the Penguin online shop.

If, like me, the brutalist concrete archictecture of London's Southbank makes you go a bit oooooh, then this limited edition Southbank Centre graphic print by Paul Catherall, which measures £40x80cm, might be worth forking out £180 for. It's a lino-cut print, something Mr Catherall has become rather famous for, and there's also his take on the Hayward Gallery and several others to peruse. For more of Paul's prints, featuring other parts of London (and New York) in colourful and monochrome graphic form try the Paul Catherall website. I love his version of the Barbican Centre.

My big bro's cool home

A corner of one of the Sydney siblings' homes

While on the topic of the far-flung relatives with style - thought I'd finally post up a couple of snaps I wrestled out of one of my (two) brothers who live in Sydney. 

I think that Anglepoise came from the house we grew up in in south London. Aw. Nice things. Hoarding and compulsive arranging of piles of stuff, also passed down from mother.

The kitchen/diner. Nice.

Real homes gallery: we need YOU!

I'm putting together a Your Home Is Lovely gallery - of your lovely homes. Want to be part of it? Send photos to kate_burt at yahoo.co.uk

I know get heaps of inspiration from looking at how other people have made their places sparkle - whether with car-boot treasures, clever use of colour, or brilliant on-a-budget ideas that I'd never have thought of.

So you don't need to have a super swanky designer-y house: I'm simply after real homes with nice touches that might inspire other people.

So what should you send? Photos of whole rooms or just details or objects - along with a bit of information about where you got it/did it/came up with the idea. What are you waiting for: show us what you got!

More sexy stuff from the seventies

Check out 70s Style and Design, the lush, glossy and brand new book all about 70s style by my deeply stylish friends Kirsty 'the lady in the red coat is not allowed' Hislop, and Dominic 'architecuture/interiors supremo' Lutyens.

Sexy seventies living on a shoestring in NY

Oh my. I want to live in this place.

Featured recently in the NYTimes, it is the Brooklyn home of the American furniture designer, Jason Miller. Incredibly, because he rents rather than owns it, Miller forked out under 5000 dollars for the sexy retro refit. Check out the slideshow for full impact.

Is it all over for the bachelor pad?

Rob Pope's has a remote control shower, a leather-padded bar in the hall and an integrated sound system... but is the bachelor pad poised to become a thing of the past. Read my piece in today's Independent

A woman's touch: the joy of old photos

The idea of moving from a flat to a house for some reason got me fantasising that I'd be living a new life in the style of a 1950s housewife (all about the baking, perma-glamour and vintage kitchen, btw, nothing about the domestic subjugation). God knows where it came from - Mad Men was then but a twinkle in my TV set and interiors scrapbook.

I had, however, been listening to a LOT of Doris Day (and perhaps childhood memories of watching the cabin makeover scene in Calamity Jane - minus the lesbian undertones - had made its mark, see below). I, too, dreamed of breezily doing the housework while wearing a floral day dress (also below). Anyway - when I spotted this cheap print of Doris with Cary Grant on a stall in Greenwich Market for about £2, it made the perfect house-warming present for myself.

After something similar? Try typing "vintage photographs" plus the name of your favourite old movie star on ebay. Here are the search results for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers... Let me know what you bought.