My Thoughts On
Buying a thatched cottage can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to with these helpful tips to consider from someone who’s been through the process and come out the other side…
Considering going to RHS Chelsea Flower Show or RHS Hampton Court and wondering which one you’ll enjoy most? Read this guide which compares the two renowned flower shows…
Not a natural camper but find yourself preparing for a family trip anyway? Here’s my really useful packing lists so you have everything you need…
Love the look of bare plaster and wondering about keeping it as it rather than painting over it? Read our experience of living with bare plaster and why we decided it didn’t work for us…
My favourite interior design Instagram accounts to follow in the UK - for people who love design by truly wonderful humans…
Behind the scenes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show Press Day, from gorgeous gardens and flower displays to celeb spotting…
Should I paint the exposed wooden beams in my 400 year old thatched cottage? Read this for the pros and cons of painting beams including some beautiful examples of both…
We’ve lived in our thatched cottage for four years and there are some important pro’s and con’s to consider when living life under a thatched roof. Read on to find out what they are…
Like many of you in a similar season of life with young kids, sleep often gets pushed down the pecking order of priorities. We’ve been the parents lying on a cold wooden floor next to the cot, willing our child to sleep in the middle of the night, we’ve been the parent relegated to the tiny toddler bed, whilst they starfish in the king size bed, and of course, we’ve been the parent who wakes up in the morning with a little foot in their face which you daren’t move because otherwise, the game is over, and the day begins well before the seven on the clock has a chance to show it’s lofty, taunting digits.
When my brother was younger, he was gifted a stash of second-hand Subbuteo from a friend. After laying dormant for a while, my Dad suggested he try selling it at our local auction house. I tagged along to watch the bidding, my eyes wide from the spectacle. A room filled with furniture telling a hundred stories, previously prized gold trinkets sparkling in glass cabinets and pictures or mirrors adorning every inch of wall space in the large draughty room. The smell of coffee and smokey bacon sandwiches from the café intertwined with furniture polish, musty upholstery, and the scent of a small dog, sitting peacefully underneath a gilded chaise longue.
AD - This blog post has been kindly paid for by King and McGaw but all opinions and words are, as always, my own.Art on the walls really does make a house a home. It's the finishing touch so to speak, and leaving all your walls empty can make your home feel stark and unfriendly.You don't need to install gallery walls on every inch of your home, but a few collections of art here and there will really bring your rooms to life and give them a beautiful and unique personality (which you can change up relatively easily as and when the mood takes you).Displaying art on the walls is also a fabulous way of bringing rented accommodation to life or for injecting colour into a neutral scheme. It can be a great conversation starter when you have friends round, it can make you chuckle, marvel, daydream, think, become pensive, nostalgic or even inspired. Art is a multi-faceted accessory in your home and shouldn't just be an after-thought.
Limepaint or limewash is a natural eco-friendly paint which, when applied with a brush, creates a beautiful textured finish and thanks to modern companies like Bauwerk Colour and Kalkliter, comes in a wide range of stunning colours. So why did it all go so wrong?I have loved the look for awhile, whether it be in Moroccan décor or in more contemporary settings and I felt this paint might just be the 'piece de resistance' needed in our bedroom. I like the calming nature of an all-white bedroom but felt by injecting some texture it would help give it depth and interest.
I am writing this in utter disbelief, with tears rolling down my cheeks, splashing the keys on my laptop and moistening my angrily tapping fingertips.Six months ago, I shared with you all how our house move had fallen through at the last moment. Whilst heartbroken and raw, I read it back now with shock at how positive I was, even then, in what felt like a very dark moment. Of course I could write then with the hope that this sort of thing never happens twice? Surely that is unheard of? Surely the next house we find will be THE one? Turns out I was wrong. I know I've lost all perspective, but honestly, right now I feel like moving house is impossible.This time around we were in a chain of six, but we'd got even closer. A few weeks ago everyone was talking about moving this very Friday (22nd June). We had a date! We had started arranging childcare, received quotes for removal men, cleared out the loft, the kitchen and the under stairs cupboard. My word, I'd even cleaned the oven in preparation!However, today we found out that #3 in the chain (our buyer's buyer) has pulled out. Our buyers are no longer proceedable. Therefore we have to put ours on the market again, which for one reason or another, will be the fifth time in 22 months. We have spent close to £2000 on trying to move and we are back to square one. Except now we lack the innocent, giddy hope we began the process with - we just feel cynical, jaded and powerless.
Do you love stylish interiors but also have kids? Do you know they can actually be compatible together?!Sometimes it's just a case of seeing how others do it, to inspire you to do the same. What hacks do they use? How do they make the shared room for the kids work both practically and aesthetically? Where the heck do they put all the ugly toys?!That's why Coral Atkinson (@coral.atkinson, founder and creator behind the beautiful Velveteen Babies) and I (@theottohouse), have decided to start a new hashtag challenge which we hope will encourage people to share, and be inspired by, stylish and creatively decorated homes which have our family lives at the centre. Our homes may not always look straight out of a magazine but they do have life to the fullest enjoying every inch of them. You will be able to find all this inspiration under the hashtag #ourkidslivehere and you can add your own pictures to the feed too by popping the hashtag in the caption underneath your picture. We would love you to feel free to include your kids in these pictures if you like, but without them is totally fine too (we don't want anyone 'styling' their kids into a shot just for Instagram!) We will share our favourites on our Instagram stories and, at the end of each month, our favourite picture will win an amazing prize from an incredible independent interiors based brand! So, be sure to follow both our accounts so you don't miss out on the news including which fabulous prizes we have coming up!
If you've been following me for a while here, or on Instagram, you'll be well aware we've been trying to move house. Despite having only lived here for just over two years now, we always saw this house as a vessel to get our foot on the bottom rung of the property market. We renovated and decorated with that in mind (the house is completely painted in white, for instance) and nearly all our decisions have been rooted in the thought that this house, although much loved, is fairly temporary.To cut a very long (16 month) story short, after heaps of house viewings and offers falling through on other houses, a few weeks ago we were finally very close to moving. A three bed Victorian semi-detached with a drive and a garden, on a quiet road in a fantastic catchment area - just what we wanted and the perfect home to (maybe, once we've caught up on sleep!) expand our precious family in. We'd had the survey done on the house we were moving to and so far, despite being in a chain of five, everything had gone smoothly. We'd had a builder friend of ours come and see the house and we'd drawn up plans to reconfigure the downstairs. I was pinteresting like MAD for inspiration, and even spent a whole evening looking at different hinges and brackets for kitchen units on the IKEA website. Our hearts and minds had already moved...
Following on from my blog post last week about what to expect when buying furniture at auctions, here are some very important tips you should know before embarking on your bargain shopping spree at your local auction house...Measure up! I have a little notebook I take around with me everywhere with all the important dimensions of our home in. You never know what you're gonna find on that day, so although you might go in thinking, I need a desk that is 'xyz', you may get there and find a gorgeous mirror and end up wondering what the heck is the distance between 'abc' instead. I asked, Catherine Hockley, director of our local auction house, Andrew Smith & Son, to share some tips on finding something that is the right fit for you: "Our salerooms are very large and so some items look small in them - always bring a tape measure, or borrow one from us, and make sure that the item you are bidding on will fit through your door or up your stairs."She also goes on to say, "Check the condition well before you buy, for wobbly legs or sticking drawers etc. Most things can be easily mended, but make sure it is within your capabilities or you will end up paying for restoration."
After my popular post last week about how we've furnished our home on a budget, I've had so many questions about all the auction bargains we've collected over the years that I thought it necessary to write up a little guide so that you can start buying amazingly priced, but beautiful, good-quality furniture for your homes too. In a poll created on my Instagram stories, 87% of you shared you have never bought anything at auction which shows it is a massively underused tool amongst our generation. Despite the gracious words of my husband... "as long as they don't all start coming to our one and bidding against us for the good stuff", I've decided to utilise that old cliché of 'sharing is caring'... so here are the basic steps for how it works logistically which I hope will give you the confidence to explore this option further...
It is certainly widely acknowledged that moving house is very stressful. Then add in the complexity of trying to sell your own home, whilst finding another appropriate one, PLUS having two little tornadoes running through the house, daily emptying the sock drawer on the floor, turning your plants upside down or throwing Weetabix at the wall like an Olympic shot putter on speed, and you're in for a fun couple of months...
There are definitely moments when you are knee deep in rubble, power tools and paint samples where you come to think this must be your life forever. Will I ever rest my fingers on a surface in this house and it not be covered in a thick layer of dust? (Probably not, actually!) Or will we ever have a house without lights hanging precariously from the walls, a rug covering up untiled surfaces, or living a life where you frequent Homebase more than your local pub?!The first birthday of our firstborn, Darcey, was definitely such an occasion. We were three days away from moving in and had so much painting to do before the carpet fitters arrived that we just simply did not have the time to celebrate her birthday 'properly'. Obviously, in a world where searching 'first birthday party ideas' on Pinterest can send you into a land of vomit inducing unicorn utopia, I found it quite sad that we weren't making much of, what is, quite an important milestone. We had been a family for a whole year! We had survived! And more importantly, so had she!
People often ask us how on earth we do it all whilst looking after the children and to be honest with you, there is no magic answer. There is no wand that turns a dingy and dated hallway into a new fresh, practical and modern entrance unless you're willing to put in the hard work (or hard-earned cash). Whilst we don't have much of the latter, we have attempted (and completed) many DIY jobs around the house so here's a few tips that we've learnt along the way...
Easy ideas to reduce visual clutter in your kitchen that’ll help create a calmer and tidier space…