When we first viewed our rental nearly 2 years ago, we were super keen to move in because it was a lovely old Victorian terrace with original features and 3 bedrooms. However, it was quite tired and dated inside which meant it was under market value. We snapped it up and our landlady agreed to replace the bathroom and kitchen over the next couple of years. The first job was the bathroom….

It is a single skin extension built to connect the original house and the old out-house. Because it wasn’t well insulated, it was very damp and mouldy and the walls needed wiping down once a week for most of the year to prevent black mould from growing. Here it is…

Last Christmas, we fore-went the traditional Christmas tree in favour of a Christmas Branch. If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you will know my love for a good branch in an interior. So a branch Christmas tree felt like a verrrryyy natural step!

If you struggle to see results with your decluttering, then I have a trick to share with you. It shouldn’t be used alone, but doing this will have the biggest impact on how your home feels when you’re decluttering. watch the video or read the content below.

If you’ve been around here long enough you’ll know how much I love the concept of ‘home’ and my conviction that what we put in them, and how we organise and style them, has a huge impact on our happiness. Part of that for me is encouraging ethical consumption where possible. Fast interiors are following swiftly on the heels of fast fashion with its impact on the environment and the fact it disproportionately affects BIPOC. Building a home (or wardrobe- two of the main ways we express our identities) on those foundations feels… not ideal. I’m not directing this at people who genuinely don’t have the funds available, and the odd piece here and there might be a good in-between option for folk who are transitioning to more ethical choices. Anyway- back to the point of this post! My favourite place to find interiors treasures could be summarised as second hand; whether via shops and markets or second hand selling sites. But more specifically, I have found lots of lovely things recently on Facebook marketplace. In the images below, the collection of vintage fans were from Facebook Marketplace last year (for £6 and a 20-minute drive, not bad eh?), and last week I spotted this framed Picasso print for £10! I couldn’t believe it and the lovely seller even dropped it to my home.

Meet the result of Lockdown and cabin fever: our new pallet seating area!

It really feels like a whole new room has been added to the house. We knew we wanted to create a seating area here but we had a few limitations. We rent so couldn’t make any permanent changes, we had a small budget, and there is a flower bed along the bottom of the wall on the left. Where possible we wanted re-use or recycle things. We also wanted it to feel really comfortable and luxurious- like a proper outdoor sofa. So here’s what we did!

This Saturday is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and it’s s wonderful thing to Celebrate. I usually suggest having friends over, and whilst this may be possible with social distancing, it isn’t for us with the kids, so it’ll just be the 4 of us. This is how we’re planning to celebrate it! My newsletter subscribers got this first (are you signed up yet?) but I wanted to put it here too.

Last week we put up a gallery wall in our lounge, a project I’d wanted to complete since January. I love a gallery wall, they work in any type of home, can be scaled up or down, and always create a great centerpiece for the room.

I have come up with some hints and tips that take the stress out of gallery wall hanging, see video below for more!

Do this for a truly unique, stand out gallery wall:

Curate a selection of objects that you LOVE rather than things that are 'on trend, then it’ll always make you smile.

Learning how to style the flat surfaces in your home will really help to pull things together and give your home a styled finished look. Here are 8 easy to follow tips for you.

I have been making surface spray using citrus peels for the last year or so. I have shared it on instagram stories and always receive questions, so I thought i’d put the recipe in a quick blog post. There is something really satisfying about recycling and re-using all the elements (apart from the vinegar!) I gather the citrus in a bag in the freezer until I have enough to fill my jar. The thyme is from my garden. The glass bottle is an old vinegar bottle and the nozzle is recycled from another spray bottle too. I buy my vinegar in 5 litre bottles from Summer Naturals which is £5 for 5 litres. I used way less than a litre here so this cost me around 30p to make.

In the UK we have had storm after storm after storm, it’s one of the stormiest winters I can remember. My toddler does not like the wind so we have stayed indoors more than I’d like. A lot more. One of the things that has kept me occupied is a thorough kitchen de-clutter. Yes, this is one of the things that brings me deep joy.🤓Downstairs is generally fairly organised (I thought) but one of the last areas in my home that was stressful to use was the spice shelf. I started sorting it out last week and it turned into a whole kitchen thing! Spring is also very nearly here and I am definitely feeling the spring clean itch. The increasing light levels are doing a brilliant job of illuminating our collection of dust bunnies. 🐰

Heres what I did, plus some kitchen decluttering, organising styling tips too! I have packed LOTS of tips in this one, so buckle up!

I was so so excited to be asked by Medina from Grillo Designs to tour my home for her rented house series. I’ve followed Medina for ages and have pored over her other home tours. Anything which normalises and celebrates renting is so welcome and necessary as far as I am concerned and I was delighted to be involved. For this tour, Medina’s usual photographer wasn’t available, so Dave stepped in. We style and shoot together quite a lot so it felt really relaxed and fun, and it was really lovely to just hang out with Medina. I wish we had longer! This was filmed in October and released in November, then i got super busy with workshops and my e-course. But I saw that today the series is back, so I was inspired to finally hit publish!

We have lived in our rented house of dreams for 2 years. We love living here and have a great relationship with our landlord and lady. We also share similar taste. We inherited a house that had White walls, stripped pine floor boards and some gorgeous antique furniture. (the dream, like I said) So our own style fit in effortlessly.

My style values are: calm, spacious, minimal, natural, fun, storied (ie secondhand or antique) and ethical. In the white rooms in the home, we have layered in our own possessions keeping things minimal and calm. I adore plants and have them in every room, and have put up art and textile pieces. Many of our possessions are antique or vintage. It’s really important to me that my home has as little environmental impact as possible; from using a green energy supplier to buying secondhand.

I love our home and try to honour it as much as possible, even though it’s rented.

I could talk and talk about it but am going to stop there! The sources are listed at the end of the post.

You can see the video by Medina at the end of the post too. There is a full interview over on medina’s blog here. All photos are by Dave Bullivant.

Ok, on to the house (and maaaaany photos!)

We have lived in our rented house of dreams for 2 years. We love living here and have a great relationship with our landlord and lady. We also share similar taste. We inherited a house that had White walls, stripped pine floor boards and some gorgeous antique furniture. (the dream, like I said) So our own style fit in effortlessly.

My style values are: calm, spacious, minimal, natural, fun, storied (ie secondhand or antique) and ethical. In the white rooms in the home, we have layered in our own possessions keeping things minimal and calm. I adore plants and have them in every room, and have put up art and textile pieces. Many of our possessions are antique or vintage. It’s really important to me that my home has as little environmental impact as possible; from using a green energy supplier to buying secondhand.

I love our home and try to honour it as much as possible, even though it’s rented.

I could talk and talk about it but am going to stop there! The sources are listed at the end of the post.

You can see the video by Medina at the end of the post too. There is a full interview over on medina’s blog here. All photos are by Dave Bullivant.

Ok, on to the house (and maaaaany photos!)

I have been promising to share more information about my kid’s bedroom for months, and here it is!

The brief: I wanted to create a shared kids bedroom that was cosy, fun, yet simple and very budget-friendly. I kept the walls white and added colour and texture in the bedding, art and shelves. Both of them love their bedroom and I love it too, it feels like a really calming space.

The original plan was to swap ALL of the bedrooms around so that they had the biggest room. But then we realised with bunk beds, their current room would be just fine. A bigger room would mean more mess! They play downstairs so it would have been wasted. Their small room feels really cosy and lovely. It meant so much less work, and also means I have a bigger room to use as a studio which is a dream. In the future, we will probably move the rooms around so that they have a room each but for now it works really well.

Siblings sharing