This week MADE.com announced it was launching a collection of 8 prints in collaboration with the Natural History Museum. It’s something very different, a little bit vintage (some of these drawings have sat in the Museum’s archive for decades) and felt quite special, so I wanted to share it with you on the blog today.
Read MoreI’ve recently decided to swap around some furniture in my home, which has led to some space becoming available for decorative shelving in an alcove. I have shelves made from marble off-cuts in my bathroom and I love them, so I decided to go down the DYO (Design Your Own) route again and have more marble shelving made (I just amble on down to my local stone yard, flick through their worktop off-cuts and choose a couple of pieces which they cut and polish up for me for a small fee). Marble shelves are definitely a show-stopper, so they need the brackets to not let them down in the style-stakes. I’ve been hunting high and low for the best shelf brackets for sale in the UK the past week for these shelves, so here are my top ten picks!
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[AD] This post is part of a current working relationship with Grand Illusions. A styling, images, thoughts and opinions are my own.
The Celeste design has a casual blue floral pattern on a white background, while the Florido bowls are a deep, inky blue base with a white floral pattern. Even though they look like they cannot go in the dishwasher, they are all dishwasher safe (as washing up is the last thing you want to be doing on a warm summers day!)
The woven shopping bag below is not a new product, in fact, I’ve owned this from Grand Illusions for a while, but I’ve been using it all summer. It’s completely lightweight, but the boned structure of it means that it better supports picnic items than a tote bag. I chose this Paris shopper in yellow because I’m all about colour, but you can also get it in beige and black.
New build vs period property - it is one of the many decisions you may need to make when you consider buying a home. Older buildings, with their funny layouts, wonky walls, cracks and problem areas often have character and charm due to original features like detailed plasterwork and iron fireplaces. New builds can often appear to have a lot less character in comparison and may at first feel like an empty white box. Yet, by using lots of pattern, colour and texture, it is possible to create an inviting, warm home full of personality, as well as having all the benefits a news build offers such as energy efficiency and a great location (often being near great transport links.)
Read MoreIce-cream and sorbet shades are the key colours in interiors for summer 2019, with minty hues really making my heart flutter! Mint is a really retro colour, so it works perfectly on fun, accent furniture such as drinks cabinets. Both Anthropologie and John Lewis are currently selling mint cabinets and even though I really wanted one for summer cocktails, I couldn’t justify spending a few hundred pounds on a non-essential piece of furniture. Instead, I decided to DIY one using a basic wood IKEA cabinet, paint, some MDF and my trusty Gorilla Glue products.
Read MoreWhen you are passionate about interior design, it can take over many areas of your life. My husband never ceases to be amused by the fact that my restaurant decisions are determined by the decor and never the menu. Holiday and hotel choices are decided by the interior offerings. It would therefore come as no surprise that my choice of motor vehicle would be heavily influenced by the way it looks, both inside and out. So, when Citroën contacted me to tell me the interior of their C4 Cactus Hatch had been inspired by well-designed furniture and did I fancy giving it a spin for a few days, I was intrigued to try it out.
Read MoreWhen we moved into this house four years ago we inherited what I called ‘The Most Boring Bathroom In The World’. This en-suite was off a room in the basement that we use as my office / guest bedroom. It was adorned in the most basic, large white tiles and had an ivory window. I tried to add a large picture and a few accessories in here but it didn’t really make much of a difference to how good it looked! The ceiling constantly peeled even though the shower was only used about twice a month and when all the tiles started to crack it started looking even worse!
Read MoreIf you take a quick scan of my Instagram account you’ll see that I do not shy away from using colour in my home. You’ll find doors painted in teal blues, upcycled cabinets painted pink and a bright orange chesterfield sofa. I wasn’t always this confident with colour in my decor choices. Like most people, I was afraid to paint a room a whole block colour and I shied away from making furniture purchases in bold hues in case I regretted it (always going with the safe, grey fabric option.) It took time to build the courage to become colour confident with my interiors, and the first step to doing it was by introducing colour in my home via bold prints and striking framed art.
Read MoreFor the past two days I have been in attendance at the Chelsea Flower Show: the world-renowned, quintessentially British, annual celebration of all things horticultural. It has been a delight. As a lover of colour and a pretty flower, there is nowhere better to soak-up a sunshine filled day. The show is also attended by the creative elite - from interior and furniture designers to actors and musicians - the show provides incredible inspiration and sows the seed (if you will) to many new designs and ideas. This year there were a few key themes, messages and colours which I think will infiltrate the way we design and style our homes, plus affect the purchases we make.
Read MorePaint is a powerful tool. With paint, you can make a smaller room feel much larger just by choosing the right shade. You can also ‘hide’ ugly items such as radiators by painting them in the same colour as the wall behind it. In my hallway, I wanted the reverse side of my front door to feel much grander. It’s a beautiful door and I wanted to draw as much attention to it as possible! Apart from just painting it an attention-grabbing bight teal, I also tricked the eye into thinking it is bigger by painting over the door frame and onto the wall.
Read MoreHaving previously painted the back of my front door this vivid turquoise colour, I really wanted to make the most of this attention-grabbing entryway so decided to create a dried flower wreath that would stand out against the bold hue.
Read MoreClear acrylic or Perspex furniture and home accessories are brilliant if you want your room to feel spacious, uncluttered and airy. The fact that you can ‘see-through’ the piece means that it does not feel bulky or chunky in a space. In my new home office, the room is quite small and my new desk is so beautiful, the last thing I wanted to do was cover it up. I did, however, require a few organisational desk accessories, so decided to create this DIY acrylic tray.
Read MoreTwo years ago I wrote a post on this blog all about a kitchen company who had blown me away when I had seen their kitchen unit drawer and door fronts used in projects across Pinterest and Instagram. I’d never seen anything like it - there were baby blue doors with polished gold handles, scalloped cloud-front patterns and deep green units teamed with gold metal splashbacks. The company was Naked Doors, a Norfolk based kitchen supplier and part of the Naked Kitchens group, who have since been featured in every decent newspaper ‘Home’ supplement and interiors magazine going. Yet, it wasn’t just the interesting designs and coloured fronts which made Naked Doors so appealing, it was the fact that they sold good quality replacement cabinet doors and drawer fronts for existing kitchen units (or, off the shelf IKEA unit carcasses). You didn’t have to purchase a whole new kitchen to achieve the very desirable, contemporary kitchen you’d pinned to your ‘kitchen inspo’ board.
Read MoreI’m delighted to reveal my mini home office makever today on the blog! On my previous post, I talked about how the shared home office I had with my husband wasn’t panning out, while at the same time, the ‘guest room’ in the basement was hardly being used and had turned into a dumping ground. With the help of some amazing and generous companies, especially West Elm, I have now turned this space into my own home office and I LOVE IT!!
Read MoreIn recent years I have really taken to having a little bit of Easter decor around the house to celebrate the season. Rather than a lot of Easter bunnies and chicks, I prefer to create something a bit more grown up to place in the window. These 3D paper decorations are cheap and easy to make, plus they are really effective when hung on blossom branches (real or faux) to create a decorative spring scheme in the home.
Read MoreSo it might seem like it’s all talk and no action round these parts - my last post was on a home office and en-suite makeover yet to be revealed - but sometimes projects and opportunities just overlap! Today, I want to talk about my plans for a makeover to my hallway, which has never had much attention and has therefore never really worked. As I have decorated around the house, the hallway has become more of an issue as this is the space that flows between each of these new rooms. Each room feels unrelated and disconnected from the hall, when really it should be an introduction to each separate space.
Read MoreTwo years ago I did a ‘before and after’ blog post on creating a home office that both my husband and myself were going to share. As a musician, he was often away travelling and I had only just started this blog, so just blogged as and when for fun. Fast forward two years, he is working from home most of the year and I am running a design consultation business alongside this blog. The shared space was just not working for us anymore. He filled the room with musical paraphernalia and it became a shotgun game to who got to use the desk. I started to think we might be outgrowing the house, when it occurred to me that we had the space, we just were not using it efficiently.
Read MoreMarch is usually the month when new pieces from the spring/summer home collections start to become available online or in-store to purchase. I’ve seen quite a few interior bits and bobs this season that I’ve really liked, so I thought I would share some of those ‘must-have’ items out for SS19….
Read MoreThe unseasonally good weather we have had this February has made me languish for spring even more than normal. When the New Year begins I always feel that I am just waiting for new buds on the trees, for daffodils to push out the ground and a sign that warmer times are ahead. One of the best ways to anticipate for spring is by freshening up your home with a few new decorative pieces that can help you embrace the season via your decor. All the colour and scent of spring is so enjoyable, why not bring it indoors?
Read MoreIf there is one thing that I love just as much as interiors (not counting my child and y’know…gin..) it is fresh flowers. My home does not feel complete without fresh blooms perched in the middle of the table or presented on the mantle. People often ask me what is the quickest and most budget-friendly way that they can make a room feel inviting and homely and I always tell them to invest in a beautiful vase brimming with blossoming new stems. What is even better than buying your own flowers is having someone gift you them, so I was delighted when Marks & Spencer popped round with a number of their new gifting bouquets for me to review, as well as give advice on what bouquets are perfectly suited to certain celebratory occasions throughout the year. It is important to remember that flowers are very personal, so you should always pick the right bouquet that will match your recipients personality as well as the occasion. If this all sounds very confusing then don’t worry, read on for my top tips for picking the perfect bunch….
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