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How to Create the Perfect Rustic Living Room Design

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Is Your Home Life Killing Your Creativity?

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Top Ten Sites for Wine Lovers

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Bringing back brooch wearing as a trend

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Reasons to have a record player in your home

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Tales from the House Hunt: Dream Like Bathroom

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Is Your Bathroom Boring? Quirky and Creative Bathroom Ideas

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My Daddy Bakes Millionaires Shortbread

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Creating the perfect spot in the garden

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    Home

    Craft the Ideal Bed for a Good Night’s Sleep

    Craft the Ideal Bedroom for a Good Night's Sleep

    Most of us take sleep for granted. It forms a standard part of our daily lives, around eight hours of it a night. However, as soon as you start experiencing problems with getting to sleep, you’ll experience frustration like never before.

    Sleep plays such an important role in our lives that missing just a few hours on just a short-term basis can cause disruption to our daily lives. Securing a good night’s sleep every night is vital to our happiness.

    Here are a few changes to your bedroom and its contents that will help you along the way. Continue reading

    Home

    6 reasons to choose a walk in shower

    reasons to choose a walk in shower

    I once stayed in a water tower and it was a bit like a windmill in that each floor was basically a room. There was something quite magical about the giant shower room, you walked behind a huge screen of glass across the room and looked out across fields as you showered though an eye level window. There was no knocking elbows on glass doors or bashing your head when you reach down to pick up the shampoo, just a lovely feeling of space. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden, Residence

    Planning your new home interior

    living-room-couch-interior-room

    Agh so much of our furniture from the old house doesn’t quite fit in the new. It’s sad not to have Mum’s dressing table in my bedroom and gutting to say goodbye to my cast iron bed frame. The kids rooms are overflowing with books and ornaments because the bookshelves we had in our Victorian home are too tall for our country cottage. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    The secret art of choosing and arranging cushions

    The secret art of choosing and arranging your cushions

    I am a rebel, and in my own home, rules are there to be broken and my house is messy, cosy and very eclectic. But having been a chambermaid, and in furnishing our own holiday cottage I quickly learnt that when you want to make a bed or sofa look immediately enticing – and when you try to explain to your husband how the cushions need to be arranged after a guest changeover – then it turns out there are definitely cushion rules you can follow.

    Here are some rough guidelines when it comes to numbers and placement of cushions that work well. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    How to choose the right coloured cushions for your home

    Choosing cushions can be trickier than it seems. What should be a fun, frivolous task can sometimes leave me wondering how on earth I have spent quite so long pondering over images of fluffy squares online. My biggest mistake is to get drawn into trends in shops, or cushions I just love, without thinking of the bigger picture of the whole room itself. So, here are some of my favourite tips for choosing the right coloured cushions.

    First of all, take a long look at the whole room and not just the sofa, take a photo on your phone or do your online cushion shopping in the room you are looking to furnish. Look at overall colours, pictures and objects that stand out. This way themes or colours that truly work for the space are more likely to jump out at you. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    Dining Rooms For Dinner Parties: Are You Making The Most Of Yours?

    Dining Rooms For Dinner Parties: Are You Making The Most Of Yours?

     

    Do you have a dining room? We had one in our last house, but the Victorians didn’t live like we did and so it always seemed like too much hassle to carry food through to it. We ate in the kitchen, but sometimes that felt chaotic, especially if guests came over. Our dining room became a playroom for a couple of years, then a second living room nobody went in, then a much neglected place where clutter gathered. The issue with dining rooms is that many people never use them to their full advantage. After all, we eat every day and mealtimes are a really important part of home life. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    What Brings Warmth To Your Home?

    What Brings Warmth To Your Home?

    What’s your definition of the ideal home? For a lot of people, the perfect nest offers protection for their family, a welcoming and relaxing interior decor, and a sense of warmth. Home is the place that keeps us warm, from the cold weather and as an emotional space for us to let go of our everyday stress.

    Home should be full of physical and emotional warmth. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    Moving House: Crucial Preparations For All Modern Homeowners

    moving house

    Amidst the excitement of moving home, it’s very easy to overlook so many things. Unfortunately, so many of these can lead to long-term hassle. The only way to pull it off is to get organised, and creating a checklist, or series of checklists, really helps you stay sane. I also found setting aside blocks of time to do tasks like updating people of my new address, rather than hoping they will happen in time, helped massively. Continue reading

    Home, home and garden

    Bringing The Vintage Back Into Your Home

    What’s your favourite vintage? Vintage means something different for everyone. Some people like to think it’s from the 80s with crazy colours and geometric designs. Some think it’s the 50s with polka dots and hair bows. However, it can mean anything, as long as it’s nostalgic and we don’t see it much anymore in the here and now.

    I love to mix old and new and it’s what makes my house feel like home. I love things that have history and tell a story, but I don’t want to feel like I am living in the past, so my home and our holiday let is a delicate balancing act. I’m more of an Edwardian and Victorian lover myself, but it’s more about the story and whether an object grabs me and interests me.

    Last week I looked at how to bring some class back into our rooms with some simple touches; it’s now time to do the same for vintage. No matter the timeframe you want to work with, here’s some tips for incorporating some more vintage items into your home. Continue reading

    Home, Residence

    How to outsource switching energy supplier, for free.

     

    I don’t know about yours, but our energy bills have been eye-watering this Winter. It has been a particularly cold winter, but also moving to a very open-plan cottage on a hill top, with a boiler that celebrates it’s silver installation anniversary and is fuelled by a tank, rather than on mains gas, was always going to be costly.

    While we’re working on a longer term solution to bring down the costs of our energy supply, I’ve discovered I can completely outsource switching to the best energy supplier deal via Look After My Bills.

    I’ve always been wary of energy switching, because it seems like a phaff, and I like to be loyal to green energy suppliers, but I discovered Look After My Bills can do green energy too, so there was no reason for us  not to sign up. In fact The Big Deal, who provide the free Look After My Bills service, carried out the largest ever mass consumer switch to renewable energy. Continue reading

    home and garden

    Taking the Leap and Making the Move Abroad

    Taking the Leap and Making the Move abroad

    While many of us feel happiest living in the place that we were born and raised, some of us dream of taking a leap and moving much further afield. Not just across to the next city. Perhaps across an ocean.

    Last summer we made a big move to the countryside, to the edge of the Peak District, just an hour from our previous home, but closer to the town where my husband and I grew up. It’s a very different life, but one that I absolutely love. I feel like I finally found my place. I’ve never had the urge to live abroad, but often regretted not trying it at least once. Who know once the kids are older maybe we will buy a house in the sun by the sea like the couple we bought our home from. Continue reading