How To Hang A Large Mirror

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For the past 6 months I’ve been completely obsessed with circular mirrors! I’ve replaced every non-circular mirror in my home with a circular one and I’ve loved the effect it creates in the room. The round shape is so pleasing on the eye and it feels a much more contemporary design to whatever I had there before. In my last blog post I talked about how circles in the bathroom are a trend that is here to stay, so I was delighted when online bathroom suite retailer Soak.com gifted me their Iris bathroom mirror to hang in my home.

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6 Bathroom Trends That Are Here To Stay & How You Can Create The Look In Your Own Home

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As we are now well over half-way through 2018, it is interesting to look back at the key trends predicted at the start of the year to see what has moved over from being seen as a 'trend', to cementing itself as a key way to successfully design your interior scheme. What on-trend design looks have moved away from being 'fashionable,' to now be seen as classic, sophisticated interior design? Today I want to delve into recently popular bathroom styes that I love and I think have longevity. I'm delighted to be collaborating on this post with bathroom specialists Kohler(who I also love!), looking to how you can create these gorgeous design schemes in your own home with their range of taps, sinks, baths and other fixtures and fittings.

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A Visit To Copenhagen To View The New Furniture Range From Umage (Formally Vita Copenhagen)

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If you don’t already have an iconic feather lampshade gracing a room in your home, chances are that you have pinned or screen-shotted at least one interior scheme featuring the Eos feather shade in recent months. The popular, unique design is the biggest seller for Danish design house Umage, who have recently undergone some major changes resulting in a complete rebrand of the company. The most considerable change has been their name - they’ve bravely got rid of their long-standing, well-known name of Vita Copenhagen and are now known as Umage, which means ‘extra effort’.

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Behind The Scenes On My Video for B&Q!

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If you had told me two years ago (when I started this interiors blog) that it would lead to me presenting some video content for B&Q to be hosted on the Mail Online, I would have laughed you out the door. Yet, a couple of weeks ago that is exactly what happened! A full film crew from The Mail rocked up at my house, and we spent the day filming a short video all about how the viewer can inject some colour into their home with a few selected products available to purchase at B&Q.

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How To Easily DIY Wall Panelling In Your Home

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In the first few months of starting this blog I attempted a little DIY of adding some home-made wall panelling over a damaged wall in my hallway. Fast-forward a couple of years and this blog post is still my most popular post ever. Even though I look back on the whole post (the terrible photography, the over-linking, not to mention the shoddy DIY job itself!) and cringe a bit, it points out that loads of you actually want to DIY wall panels in your own home, and are seeking out how to do it online.

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How To Choose A Modern And Contemporary Neutral-Coloured Carpet

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I definitely think we have moved away from being scared of bold, patterned wallpaper. As the dedicated House Of Hackney devotees flood Instagram with their wallpaper statements, it is now seen as something much more on-trend and desirable than something we associate with 'granny's house'. I don't think the same can be said about carpet. A heavily patterned, bold carpet choice is still something we flinch at and attach to a comedic period in interior-trend history, like avocado-coloured bathroom suites. I'm sure this will change going forward, yet for now, the neutral-coloured carpet is still king.

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Composite Deck With Trex Pro Installers & Landscapers The Greenkeeper

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So, our new composite deck is complete! Landscapers The Greenkeeper spent two weeks dismantling our rotten timber deck, building new framework and installing Trex deck boards and accompanying railing. If you missed the big reveal then you can find it here. If you want to see the build process then click here. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time chatting to The Greenkeeper during the deck build and it was a real eye-opener to how the innovative product of composite deck is revolutionising our exteriors. With its zero-maintenance appeal and eco-credentials, it is the perfect product for the time-poor consumer who would prefer to invest in sustainable materials within their home. I thought it would be interesting to do a Q&A with The Greenkeeper to find out all about how they came to be Trex Pro installers, and why they think that Trex is the future of decking, especially in the UK....

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DIY Kitchen Splashback With The Syren Tiles by Topps Tiles

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There are a few reasons as to why I decided to attempt a DIY kitchen splash-back, even though I had never tiled before in my entire life! The main and most obvious reason was of-course money. Our old cooker had died a very sad death the day before Christmas and we couldn't get one the same size, so we had to have someone come and cut away the worktop and a section of the units to fit in the wide new cooker. We then had to have a joiner in to re-build part of the base units once the installation was complete. The wall tiles also came a cropper as part of the switch-over, but I just did not have a spare £500 to give a professional tiler to come and sort that out aswell. Yet, another reason apart from money was that I had discovered the new Syren range of wall tiles by Topps Tiles.

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My Garden Overhaul: The Trex Transcend Composite Deck REVEAL!!!

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I am SO excited to finally reveal on the blog my brand new decking area, made from Trex Transcend Composite Decking and Trex Signature Railings. If you’ve been following our garden overhaul progress you will have seen why I had given up on our traditional timber deck, as well as a progress report of the build. This post is all about how the finished decking area now looks and how I have styled it so it is perfect for alfresco dinners and summer parties. So, without further delay, here are all the final photos of my finished raised decking area in my garden. As you can imagine, I am delighted with how it has turned out!

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Garden Progress Update: Replacing My Old Timber Deck With Trex Transcend Composite Decking

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Last week on the blog I talked about my big garden plans and how I had given up on our rotten, raised timber deck area of our garden. Instead, it was all going to be ripped out and replaced by something called Trex Transcend - a strong and durable composite decking made from 95% recycled materials. Well, as you can tell from the header image to this post (!!) the exciting news is that the big garden overhaul has begun! Landscape company The Greenkeeper arrived to dismantle and and re-lay the deck just over a week ago. After some initial framework problems, the actual installation of the Trex Deck was pretty interesting to watch. So, here is the build progress so far.....

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My Big Plans For The Garden Deck This Summer

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Hello and welcome to my garden! I have not featured the garden on my blog in a long time and with good reason - it is a disaster that I just cannot keep on top of. Well, not the garden itself but actually the decking area. We have a really large area of the garden that is raised decking, but the truth is the past couple of years it hasn't even been used - in fact I've actively cornered it off as I feel it is unsafe for the family.

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Sprucing Up My Outside Space With Exterior Paints By Sandtex & Sadolin

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Bank holiday weekends for me, like a lot of people, are all about DIY! The three-day period just gives that extra amount of time to complete any projects both inside and outside of the home. With the bank holiday weekend just gone having been dry, warm and sunny, I used this time to spruce up my outdoor balcony. It had been a few years since I had painted the deck boards in this space and they were looking weathered and bare. The metal railings had also peeled and cracked in the sun from summers gone-by. This summer, I wanted to bring an old wooden bench that had been left at the bottom of the garden up on the balcony as a colourful seating area, so I set about transforming the deck, railings and the bench using exterior paints by Sandtex and Sadolin.

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Kohler Celebrates Clerkenwell Design Week & Chelsea Flower Show 2018 With New Floral Sink Collection

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Sometimes there are interior and home products that I see that make me elated and go "YES! That is RIGHT UP MY STREET!!" A visit to the the Kohler Experience Centre today on my tour of Clerkenwell Design Week 2018 made me do just that. In the week where London celebrates the best of horticulture with the Chelsea Flower Show, alongside the best in architecture and design with CDW, it was the perfect time for Kohler to unveil in the UK their new collection of Dutchmaster sinks. Big, bold, dramatic florals on a dark and moody background cover the entire surface of the washbasins, with two separate designs that come as a circular or rectangular model.

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Product Review: How To Stylishly Live Sustainably With The Eco Duvet

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Lately I have really noticed a shift towards people wanting to live much more ethically within their own home. Showers and white goods that save water have been around for a good while now, while the introduction of new technology has meant that we can get much more of a grip on how much energy we are using (and money we are spending). However, things seem to be taking a bigger step towards purchasing homeware products that are re-usable, recyclable and cruelty-free. Last month at the Ideal Home Exhibition interior designer extraordinaires 2LG created a 'love/work' space that encompassed the use of vegan leather and worktops made of recycled yogurt pots. The result was impeccably sexy and stylish, a million miles away from what could be considered by some as a 'hippy-chic home'.

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Blue Hues: Bringing The Inside Out With Garden Furniture From Marks & Spencer

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I have a small balcony accessed via some arched doors from my living area that is an absolute sun trap, so in the summer months I spend more time here than in the garden. Last year I created a really kitsch miami-pink style space here, which although was fun for one summer, it did not work at all with the living space and felt completely disjointed. This year I really wanted the area to be an extension of my living room as I felt it would work better than as a completely separate area to it. I wanted the furniture to be really good quality, while also fit in with the stylish pieces I had indoors. My living room is a warm blue hue, so when I discovered that Marks & Spencer were focusing on Artisan Blues for Spring/Summer 2018, I just had to check out their Alfresco range of garden furniture and accessories.

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How To Apply Window Film With The Window Film Company

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The picture below is of the en-suite bathroom off our guest room at home. It is mainly used as the 'downstairs loo' as it is right by the kitchen in the basement. It has this lovely window that looks onto our back courtyard and then over to the kitchen window, however, this view can only be enjoyed when frequenting one of two places - either using the toilet or taking a shower! Safe to say whatever side of the window you are on, no-one is going to want to see someone else the other side of the glass

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Birds, Flowers & Butterflies: The New Spring Wallpaper Collections From Laura Ashley

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Spring is the perfect time to give the rooms in your home an overhaul, and with statement wallpaper (on all walls, not just a feature wall!) being a key trend in interiors in 2018, why not update your decor with the new wallpaper collections from Laura Ashley? I was recently asked to write a guest post over on the Laura Ashley blog all about my favourite wallpaper picks from the new Spring collection, which you can read and see all the photos in full here.

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Creating A Gold & Teal Geometric Paint Effect In A Hallway

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A big mistake that people make with hallways is they think they have to keep them plain and neutral in colour. The fear is that an often narrow space will feel even narrower and enclosed if it is painted anything other than white. The truth is having a hallway in a deep colour will actually make the rooms coming off the hall feel much larger and brighter as you walk into them.

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