My Thoughts On
First up let’s get things straight. I hate camping. There I said it. It makes no sense to me to make life harder on a ‘holiday’, but for many many years it’s been all we can afford, the kids LOVE it, our friends love it, so it’s what we do! It’s what I grew up doing and what we’ve done every summer since having children.
In this sense though I feel I am well qualified to give out packing tips. We have friends who love it so much they’re like, ‘Oh, its fine, just a tent and a sleeping bag and a pocket knife and you’ll hAvE tHe BeSt TiMe.’ I wish on every level I could be this carefree but the reality is, that just ain’t me.
If you’re having your walls skimmed or plastered and are considering leaving them unpainted because you love the bare plaster look - this blog post is for you.
As a fan of muted peachy pinks, I have also always loved the bare plaster look, especially as it provides so much texture, similar to many of the lime wash paint effects that are so popular at the moment. Having had a disaster with natural lime wash paint already, I’ve never been tempted to try that again, however bare plaster felt like an achievable way to get a similar effect with minimal effort.
As the housing market remains stagnant and rent and interest rates high, moving home or upsizing has never felt so unappealing (and that’s coming from someone who loves moving house!) So it’s not surprising that we are all looking for ways to maximize the space we already have. With the cost of materials and labour for extensions also high at the moment, if you’re looking for extra room in your home - it’s time to start thinking outside the box, looking towards your garden and how you can make your outdoor space work harder to meet your needs.
If you’ve followed me a while you’ll know I am multifaceted - as we all are - and therefore my account reflects that. Whilst the algorithm may reward you for sticking to a niche and I for one ensure 99% of my content is interiors and diy based, there are some things that are too important not to speak out about.
If you’re a lover of interiors and diy inspiration but also have a heart for something more substantial too, here are my top recommendations for other Instagram accounts to follow.
This is my third trip to The RHS Chelsea Flower Show and certainly my favourite so far. Whilst lasts years gardens focused on a freer more wild meadow style of gardening, this show felt like it had an abundance of colour and spectacular flowers on display with serene water features appearing through out.
This is a controversial topic and before we begin, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in restoring houses nor am I someone who will slap paint here, there and everywhere without any consideration. However, our homes are for us to live in and enjoy. They are not monuments to a bygone era and they are not a relic of the past. Yes, we need to make wise choices regarding their maintenance (letting material breathe etc) but I’ve never been a purist and therefore the answer to the paint or no paint on the exposed wooden beams has never been black and white for me.
We’ve been living in our 400 year old thatched cottage for almost three years now, and, as it’s a relatively rare roof type for houses in the UK, feel like I can give a little insight into our experience so far.
In fact, there are only 35,000 thatched homes in the UK, of which 24,000 are listed, which means that thatched homes make up for just 0.1% (and unlisted thatched homes, likes ours, make up for 0.04%). There are many pros and cons to living and owning a home with a thatched roof, but it is undoubtedly the aesthetic that draws most people in to their charms. The unique, soft, country look, can certainly appear whimsical and romantic and the perfect backdrop for a wild cottage garden or a glisteningly white snowy day.
However, are they as magical to live with as they appear in a photograph?
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...
Buying a home with a thatched roof can feel daunting as it’s very likely something you’ve never done before, or for that matter, know anyone else who has either. When we were looking to purchase our thatched cottage four years ago, I remember spending a lot of time on Google where research can run from highly terrifying to downright silly and everything in between.
Four years on, we are very happy in our home. The renovation journey has been a bit of a wild ride but we love the space we have here and feel very grateful to call this our home. There are some things we researched a lot before we moved (ie. rodents!) and other things we should have but didn’t (house insurance!) so I hope this guide is useful to you, as I share with a little hindsight now, what you should consider before buying your first thatched home.