As Toronto is about to move into Phase 2, everyone and their best friend seems intent on hitting the barbershops and hairdressers. Me? I’m happy to keep on rocking my homemade haircut for a while longer.

How are things feeling in your part of the world?

Cheers, Arren

I popped by Augustus Jones this week on the hunt for garden furniture for a client, and took the chance for a masked chinwag with owner Cliff Smith.

I first met Cliff, his wife Yasmin and daughter Amanda years back, when we shot their Toronto home for Flare magazine. Back then Cliff told me about their country property, an old canning factory, that they were stripping back to bare bones. Fast forward to earlier this year, when the house was featured in Objekt magazine looking all sorts of cool, take a gander here.

While at Augustus Jones I was taken by a chair from Tolix. Nope, not the classic and oft copied A Chair from 1925. Instead it’s the Patrick Norguet designed T14 Chair, which feels fresher and more contemporary. A modern classic, if you will. Oh, and if you’re wondering, it sits like a dream, perfect for a long, lazy afternoon with sangria.

After discovering the work of artisan Amina Haswell on Insta, I’ve come to the understanding that my life is incomplete without a handmade broom.

Based in Manitoba, Haswell makes her brooms, brushes and whisks (small handheld sweeper-uppers) using a mix of corn broom grown on her property, plus some sourced from further afield. You can order her work, tied in your choice of coloured cord - Twenty different tints to be exact, including a rather jazzy rainbow dipped number.

Check out the full Prairie Breeze collection here, or shop in person at an upcoming Third + Bird urban market in Winnipeg.

I’m an absolute fiend when it comes to prints and patterns, so it’s obvious that London-based designer Eva Sonaike’s textiles give me major ooh-ooh-ah’s.

Sonaike’s ‘Bringing Colour to Life’ ethos definitely comes into play in the collection’s vibrant West-African aesthetic - Shrinking violets and nervous nellies need not apply. Get some yardage and get happy. What are you waiting for?

Peruse the complete Eva Sonaike collection of fabrics, cushions, lampshades and more here.