Choosing a Soft Scandi Minimal Neutral Colour Palette

What is your favourite colour? It feels like a question that should be easy to answer but the reality might be that you just don’t have one!  Or your answer might depend on what mood you are in, what the weather is like outside or the emotions and memories triggered by different colours? 

I discovered quite how difficult it is to choose one when in the midst of our renovation. I thought I knew what I wanted for the interior paint scheme - no surprises that it was a neutral shade - one that wasn’t too grey but not so warm as to be yellow. More beige than greige if you will! 

There followed a frenzied spell of paint sampling when I was never knowingly without a small tin of paint on my person! I thought I had finally found the one “one” when I alighted on the Portland Stone palette from Little Greene Paint Company.  Until, that is, Little Greene sent me Katy, a colour consultants from their Marylebone store, for a home visit 

She arrived, sample book in hand, and proceeded to completely change my mind! Taking a series of sample cards (roughly half the size of a sheet of A4) we toured the house - which had bare plastered walls at that stage 

We held the cards up in different rooms and different lights - front and back of the house. It quickly became apparent that in the lighting conditions of our house Portland Stone was actually a little on the cold side. What, instead, worked perfectly were colours I had previously discarded as being “too yellow” 

Travertine - in our light filled south facing house - had actually just the right amount of warmth especially when paired with a whiter shade such as Flint or Stock. When I saw the three side by side I knew I had found my palette! 

I have labelled each of the pictures below - taking you on a tour of the house so you can see which shade we used in which room and in which combination and so cannot recommend highly enough a home consultation with a Little Greene consultant to help you answer the trickiest of questions “ What is my Favourite Colour” 

In our loft bedroom the partition between bedroom and dressing room is painted in Stock from Little Greene

The walls and woodwork are both painted in Stock by Little Green in the loft bedroom

In our guest bedroom, Travertine Light from Little Greene is the perfect warmer beige for the wardrobes with Stock on the walls

I love the match between the microcement shelves and the door painted in Travertine Light in the family bathroom

The kitchen walls and ceiling are painted in Flint from Little Greene with the kitchen cupboards in Stock

Flint creates the perfect white backdrop in our dining space making this a light filled space

Woodwork, walls and ceilings in Stock from Little Greene in our loft bedroom and ensuite

This blog post is part of a paid collaboration with Little Greene

Renovation Inspiration: Transforming a 1930s House

This year we have finally started our big renovation project - transforming our 1930s Pebble Dash Princess into the contemporary Scandinavian family home of our (ok mainly my) dreams.  So on the blog, to provide me (and all the other home renovators out there) with inspiration and practical advice, I am going to be featuring some of my favourite interiors accounts from Instagram who have been through or are in the middle of a renovation project.  I will be picking their brains about their projects, how they approached them, the mistakes they made, the lessons they have learnt and their top tips for surviving a renovation with your sanity intact and some money still in your bank account!

I could think of no better person to start with than Meera of First Sense Interiors, an interior designer who lives in Nottingham with her husband and two young sons.  I have been following Meera for almost 5 years now and have watched in wonder as she has completely transformed her own 1930s house.    

The Project

The family bought their house 6 years ago and inherited decor which, whilst not horrendous, hadn’t been updated since the 1980s and featured a lot of beige and magnolia.  Having given all the spaces a quick budget makeover to brighten the house up and make it feel more liveable, in 2018 they embarked on a much more extensive renovation.

Apart from the small box room (which served as Meera’s storage and ‘command centre’ during the renovation) every part of the original house was gutted and renovated, with a double storey extension giving the family some very functional spaces like a utility and a boot room downstairs, as well as a bigger family bathroom and an extra bedroom upstairs. They levelled out the entire ground floor and installed underfloor heating. Both sets of stairs were modified to address head height issues to increase floor space in the hallway and the loft room. They also added an ensuite to the loft room which has now become a library/guest room. Meera has shared all the floor plans in this blog post - a must read if, like me, you can’t get enough of seeing another lady’s layouts!

Planning & Budgeting for the Renovation

Although it was a major renovation project it successfully passed through planning at the first attempt with their architect having insured that the design was sympathetic to neighbouring properties and Meera having reached out to her neighbours to share the plans and keep them informed. 

It was when they started reaching out to builders for quotes that things became less plain sailing.  All of the initial quotes came in considerably over their budget.   This caused the couple to consider breaking the work into phases but ultimately Meera decided it was “better for us to deal with the short sharp pain of a full gut renovation over a few months rather than have to go through building work every few years which would have resulted in us spending far more than was sensible, not to mention the stress of living through building work over and over again”.  

Reading this advice really helped me as we have been grappling with the exact same dilemma! However, to do it all in one go, Meera had to get clever with the plans and prioritising budget.  

Although the builders suggested compromising on glazing and structural steelwork (as these represented some of the biggest costs) these were Meera’s non-negotiables as she wanted to create a light, open and spacious feeling home and so didn’t want to reduce glazing or end up lots with lots of beams or columns cutting into the space creating visual clutter.

To get a grip on the budget the couple set up a spreadsheet detailing every single item they could think of. At first it was populated with ballpark figures, then refined with actual figures when Meera knew what the specific products were going to be. They added a 10% contingency to all the costs and as they had to feel comfortable with the final figure before they could go ahead. Meera says “through all the budget planning, which involved figuring out most of the designs in order to populate the spreadsheet, I continued looking for and speaking to builders. The 7th builder quote was finally at a level that worked for us!” 

The Renovation Process

A slipping schedule is a common renovation problem and so it was for Meera.  Their builder had optimistically predicted it would all be done with 4 months but Meera admits she was skeptical of this timeline given the size of the job and she was proved right with it eventually taking closer to 9 months! Whilst the first three months progressed quickly it was once their builder started work on other projects, that progress significantly slowed with his use of sub-standard contractors adding to the delays and tensions in the couple’s relationship with him.

Because the budget was so tight, the family lived in the house through most of the building work. Something they initially thought would be achievable having agreed with their builder that he would start the work top down so that they could live on the top level whilst the ground floor was completed.  However, as building work progressed, he changed approach stripping out and skimming the house all in one go.   

I really felt for Meera hearing her describe a how, after the knocking through for the first floor extension their bathroom was left open to the elements with the loo being held in place by a piece of timber!  Things eventually came to a head and they decided to temporarily move out after weeks of feeling that “everything was an utter mess. There were holes in floors and ceilings, and to get clean each evening, we had to shower in a dirty cold bathroom, only to feel dirty again moments later as every single thing around us was dirty. We were at our lowest point emotionally”.

Moving out improved living conditions for the family but meant the builder took his focus off their job meaning a projected 3 weeks of living in an Air BnB turned into 8 , taking a chunk out of their budget and, at times, exhausting their patience with the project!

Moving back in meant they were able to push the project across the finishing line by taking control of some jobs themselves rather than waiting for their builder to complete them. In total the project ending up taking 9 months. 

But whilst timings might have slipped and additional costs around moving out having to be factored in the project did end up coming in on budget something Meera credits to the budget spreadsheet they set up at the outset.   As is common with old houses, theirs threw up a few surprises which increased building costs. Some jobs which they had planned for later became necessary during the building work, for example: installing underfloor heating raised the floor level near the front door which therefore had to be removed. This necessitated buying a new door which was a significant expense. The builder’s original quote had accounted for 3 skips (gross underestimate!) as they ended up needing 14! There were also additional electrical and plastering costs as they decided to rewire and reskimme all the rooms, not just the extension whilst, as Meera puts it, the bonnet was up!

Meera suggests ensuring you factor items “like bulbs, light switches, sockets, radiator valves, handles and delivery charges on large items (pallet deliveries) into your budget as they really add up when doing a whole house.  Planning all of your details well ahead of time means you can also try and take advantage of sale periods - even if you end up having to store items for a while. “

Doing prep work can also be a way to save money, with Meera tackling the unenviable job of stripping textured wallpaper which had covered every wall and ceiling of the original house herself (you are a better woman than I Meera!).  She also prepped and painted the entire house… weeks upon weeks of work that resulted in major decorating fatigue, but which saved thousands.  

In a nutshell Meera’s advice when it comes to budget is “assume a building project will cost more than you think so build in a healthy contingency into your budget, not just for the building work but all of the furnishing too, right down to the sockets. Some ways to save on costs would be to shop around especially for big ticket items, take advantage of sales and do some jobs yourself if you can.”

Sourcing and Design Tips 

One of the things that I think is so successful about Meera’s renovation is the high end look she has created in her kitchen for a reasonable budget. For example, having shopped around and done her research she found a reputable company that was able to supply her aluminium crittall style doors and windows at a fraction of the cost of the real deal.  She gets asked for her source list on a regular basis so has shared her entire kitchen and utility source lists on her blog which I am linking for the  kitchen  here and  utility here as they are a goldmine of great information!  Everything from glazing to flooring is covered.   

When it comes to kitchen design, Meera recommends working out the practical stuff before you worry about the pretty stuff. Her top kitchen design tips are 

1. Figure out how the kitchen needs to work for you functionally and research which appliances will meet all your needs now and in the future. “For example, I had always wanted a range cooker with two ovens, and when I was looking into them, I realised that a 90cm one would not give me a decent sized second oven, so a 100cm range cooker with two fan ovens was a minimum requirement. Similarly with a fridge freezer, the old kitchen had a small undercounter fridge and freezer which had felt so inadequate that we had ended up buying another small fridge and chest freezer which we had to keep in the garage. Needless to say, a full-sized American style fridge freezer was a must for us.”

2 - Work out the layout around the appliances you have picked, bearing in mind all the storage you will need for everything you have in your kitchen.

3 - Finally work out the position of the electrics and lighting then you can get to the fun bit of picking colours and materials. 

Renovation Regrets 

Visually and practically the end result of the project is an absolute success and it has given the family a beautiful contemporary home that works with the way they want to live as a family.  When it comes to describing her style Meera says  “I love classic style, but in a way that feels fresh for modern living, with injections of colour and plants for a happy feel, and a balance of light and dark elements for interest. If I had to summarise my style in simple terms, I would call it modern-classic.”

Having survived the renovation and come out the other side with a beautiful family home I asked Meera if she were to approach the project again what she might do differently and here is what she said.

Move out 

“I would never again live through such an extensive renovation. Personally, I didn’t much mind being amidst the dirt and chaos during the day (being on a building site is a regular occurrence in my line of work anyway), but it was really draining when that was our situation in the evenings and weekends too, and these were taken up by moving things around to empty out the rooms that the builders needed to work on next. There was no respite from the chaos whatsoever while we were in the house. What was also really hard emotionally was how much my kids hated it as the house got more and more broken. There would be times when I would pick them up from school and they would not want to enter the house. “

Instead of moving out on a ad hoc, last minute basis and having to pay for expensive temporary accommodation such as Air BnBs, Meera suggests factor moving out for the duration of the build into your budget as renting a property on a longer term basis can actually work out more cost effective and give you greater peace of mind as you are not living out of a suitcase.  

Getting the best out of builders 

“Another very important tip, which I can’t stress enough, is to do your due diligence about the builder. Check that they haven’t dissolved companies (red flag) and that they can provide references. Our builder came highly recommended by two of his previous clients, but they had been much smaller projects. We thought we were in good hands, and while he and his team did a good job overall, he became very difficult to deal with after he started other projects and it became a battle to get him to show up which was quite stressful. “

When looking for builders, Meera suggests asking them if your project will be resourced adequately for the full duration of the project until completion. The contract should also have something to protect your interests here, for example, a financial penalty for the builder if they fail to complete your project within a reasonable time frame. Read the contract carefully and ensure that you understand your rights should things go awry. If you are not happy with the contract, get it amended to include what you need. 

Another great piece of advice Meera gave me was around stage payments and making sure to “ensure full completion of a stage before you make the relevant payment, or you may end up with bitty work done here and there, and if you need to part ways with the builder for any reason, it could be very difficult to find another one who would be willing to take on a project that isn’t fully at a particular stage. “

Planning your interiors early

Meera recommends planning out your rooms in advance “you don’t have to know every single material and colour right at the start (although the more you plan in advance, the better you can budget), but it is very helpful to know your room layouts and electrical and plumbing requirements by the time first fix comes around. It will save you from having to make snap (and possibly wrong) decisions which could be costly to correct later. If you aren’t sure where to start or what to do, it would be well worth having a good interior designer on board your project to ensure that your home works as beautifully as it looks. Depending on the interior designer and their pricing, they may share their trade discounts with their clients which would go a long way in offsetting the design fees.” 

With the bulk of the work complete the family are enjoying living in their newly renovated home and planning out remaining projects that were put on hold for budget reasons such as the study/music room which is going to be a fun playful space for all the family. They have no immediate plans to take on another renovation project (memories of the open air bathroom are perhaps still too fresh!) but Meera says “given how much has happened in our lives over the past decade there is no telling where the next decade will take us, so who knows?!”

If you are based in the East Midlands and need interior design advice on a project, Meera’s offers a range of accessible and affordable interior design services through First Sense Interiors. For everyday inspiration follow Meera on Instagram where she is @firstsenseinteriors

The Malmo & Moss Guide to the North Norfolk Coast

I am the kind of person who, come the 2nd of January, likes to have their holidays mapped out for the year. Places I had wanted to visit in 2020 included Byron Bay and Bali. Places I actually visited: Worcester, Hunstanton and Truro. However, whilst things may not have panned out as originally planned (owing to the small matter of a global pandemic) we still had a great Summer, revisiting some favorite spots in the UK and adding some new ones to the list as well. With restrictions on UK stays looking likely to be lifted later this Spring, I wanted to share one of my favourite places to holiday at home with you: the North Norfolk Coast. We have been coming to this part of the world for over 10 years now drawn by huge sandy beaches, wide open skies, pretty flint villages and a winning combination of nice places to eat, drink and shop.

Where to Stay

There are so many great places to stay and something for every budget. From self catering to great gastro pubs with rooms, chic bed & breakfasts, glamping spots and comfortably grand hotels. If you are looking for all the advantages of self catering with all the luxury touches of boutique hotel then look no further than Ford House Norfolk.

Ford House Norfolk serves up some serious kerb appeal

It is located in the pretty village of Docking, which is located just ten minutes drive from Burnham Market, one of the buzziest places on the coast and within easy access of two of my favourite beaches: Holme Dunes and Brancaster. It has three bedrooms (two doubles and one bunk room) two bathrooms, a gorgeous kitchen diner with an Aga keeping it cosy and living room with brick built hearth, woodburner and the squishiest of sofas. Outside you have the choice of two gardens, lawn to the front with a kid pleasing trampoline or a lovely courtyard garden at the back with table and chairs and a fantastic mud kitchen to keep the kids entertained whilst you are soaking up the sun!

A sunny spot in the rear courtyard garden with a lovely mud kitchen for the kids

Ford House is beyond well equipped. Every single thing you could possibly conceive to make your stay as comfortable, luxurious and relaxing as possible has been thought of. It starts in the kitchen with a welcome hamper waiting for you when you arrive packed with useful basics and delicious extras, jars of sweets for the kids on the counter and a chocolate traybake awaiting you in the fridge. As a dedicated tea drinker I loved the choice of gorgeous ceramic mugs hung above the kitchen counter for your morning tea or coffee.

In every room there are scented candles from Join and bath foam from the same independent Suffolk brand when you want to run yourself a long hot bath at the end of a day on the beach. If you settle down in the evening in front of the fire there are a host of magazine and interiors books to tuck into and plenty of board games and dvds to keep the kids entertained should the Norfolk weather not be on your side. I am not kidding when I say there were days when we struggled to leave the house as it catered to our every need! I don’t know where Amanda (the owner) sources the duvets on the beds from but it was like going to sleep in a cloud every evening.

It is impossible not to sleep well whilst staying in the beautiful bedrooms at Ford House

The cosy living room has plenty of interiors books and magazines to keep you occupied

If Ford House is booked up (as I know it often is!) then why not try one of these great Air BnB options saved to my North Norfolk wishlist which I know had some Summer availability left (if you are quick). There is a handsome townhouse in the beautiful village of Cley, 5 mins from a great beach), the sweetest two bedroom cottage with great rustic industrial interiors near Holkham, a newly renovated barn with a hot tub for 4 guests near South Creake or a Scandi Rustic chic cottage in the beautiful market town of Holt. If camping is your thing then this Summer, in a secluded corner of the Holkham estate, there’s a new pop-up campsite called Camp Elwood with space for grass pitches, bell tents and a dining hall with a restaurant and fully licensed bar.

For relaxed bed and breakfast in a gorgeous grand country house, book into Stay at the Whitehouse . They have spacious suites that offer plenty of privacy and the breakfasts are worth dragging yourself out of bed for.

Beaches

If you can prise yourself away from the house then within a ten-twenty minute drive are two absolutely beautiful beaches. A new discovery for me this time, Holme Dunes is by all accounts a little bit of a North Norfolk secret so I feel slightly bad for sharing it here! From the car park make your way down to the beach through windswept sand dunes to find a gently shingled beach. There is no cafe so pack a picnic and find a good spot in the sand dunes to hunker down and enjoy the view out to sea. If you want a beach with more facilities, Brancaster slightly further along the coast towards Wells is also one of my favourites. There are vast open stretches of sand, and a hut selling ice creams, coffees, buckets and spades. Although it is more popular than Holme Dunes it never feels crowded because it is such a big beach. Also if you wanted to combine the two beaches in a day you could start at Holme Dunes then stop off on the way to Brancaster in Thornham where the legendary Thornham Deli awaits. From hearty breakfasts to amazing afternoon teas they do it all with plenty of tasty options to takeaway as well. There is also a great playground next door and playing field, always good to know if you have kids like mine who need to burn off labrador like energy levels!

The tranquil sands at Holme Dunes

If you want to venture further field then Wells by the Sea has lines of iconic pastel coloured beach huts , a minature railway leading down to the sea, a cafe serving breakfasts and lunches, and ice cream van and even a mini off shoot of Joules! My other favourite has to be Holkham. Norfolk is famous for it’s wide open skies and nowhere is that more true than on Holkham beach. You make your way down to the beach through pine trees and then come out onto great expanses of sand stretching far out to sea. It is impossibly wild and beautiful and once you have blown the cobwebs away you can head back up the beach to the Victoria Inn. A fantastic foodie pub with goregous rustic interiors. My other favourite beach has to be Cley by the Sea. You make your way towards it through a pretty flint village with it’s own Windmill and a new sell out bakery Pastonacre. The road leading down to it gets water logged at high tide so be careful how you time your visit (I ended up with very wet shoes and socks) but it is a lovely place for a walk as the sun goes down.

Places to eat and drink

There are so many great options that it is truly difficult to know where to start! So maybe I will break it down into different categories to make it easier - although several are great whatever meal of the day you are wanting to eat!

Breakfast & Brunch

I have to start this category with Byfords, a Norfolk institution and rightly so! Located in the pretty Georgian market town on Holt inside a beautiful old building with crooked floors and think wooden beams. There are tables hidden away in every nook and cranny and the breakfast/brunch menu will fill you up for the day. I always have eggs benedict whilst the pancakes are a firm favourite with the kids. On your way out stop into the deli section and pic up a home cooked meal for the evening or a doorstep size slice of one of their many delicious cakes. They also have rooms for overnight stays but make sure to pack elasticated waist trousers!

On the road out of Holt is another one of my favourite brunch spots: Back to the Garden. Located in in a converted barn with huge soaring ceilings it is set around a pretty courtyard garden with brunch options featuring lots of delicious local produce. If you want a more casual breakfast then you can’t do better than a trip to Stiffkey Stores for coffee and freshly baked pastries (more on that below).

Casual Lunches

There are so many great places to choose from in this category that it is hard to narrow it down! Here are some of the ones I enjoyed the most on our most recent trip. If you are visiting Holkham beach then add on a trip to Holkham Hall, a grand stately pile up from the beach with an excellent (and free) forest adventure playground for the kids, huge grounds to roam around in and, during the Summer, a outdoor food market on Fridays and Saturdays. In the shadow of the hall there are vintage style vans selling everything from cheesy chips (my fave) to burritos, burgers, wood fired pizzas and much more.

Wiveton Hall is on a smaller scale than Holkham but in amongst fields and a farmyard they have opened a wonderfully colourful cafe serving casual meals using lots of local produce. Even better for those with kids there is a mini recreation of the hall for climbing and playing hide and seek in.

When it comes to delis from which to source the ingredients for a tasty picnic your cup overfloweth. I have already mentioned Thornham Deli and Byfords in Holt but a couple of others which deserve honourable mention include Gurney’s at the Brancaster Village Store and Picnic Fayre in Cley Next to the Sea. The former is next to a playing field, communal tennis courts and picnic tables and the latter is in a beautiful Old Forge within walking distance of a beautiful beach.

Throw the diet out the window when in North Norfolk! There are so many great delis to pick up local produce

Evening meals

If you don’t fancy cooking your own dinner then there are plenty of great options for evening meals ranging from fish and chips through to fully on fancy fare. Erics Fish and Chips just outside Thornham has rapidly become a local institution with it’s modern take on fish and chips. They do all the classics, including gluten free options but also have some knock out side specials like pesto arancini balls that have to be tasted. There is loads of outdoor seating and last time we visited they have also added an ice cream van.

If you want something a little fancier then would really recommend Socius in Burnham Market which offers a British take on tapas with a delicious selection of small plate dishes. We have not yet managed to get a table, but The White Horse in Brancaster Staithe comes highly recommended by others with a stunning terrace overlooking lobster pots, oyster beds and saltmarshes out to Scolt Head Island and the sea beyond. For simple pub fair with boho style interiors (and a huge slide in the middle of the beer garden to keep the kids happy) head to the Gin Trap Inn. Two more great pubs with playgrounds (if you are eating early with the kids) include the Kings Head in Letheringsett and The Victoria Inn, Holkham. The food at the latter is seriously delicious.

Socius in Holt serves up great mini plates of food in British tapas style

Shopping

I could probably dedicate this entire section to my favourite North Norfolk shop: Stiffkey Stores. It is part general store, part cafe part amazing interiors shop in what was once the local post office. The L Shaped building frames a pretty courtyard garden where there are plenty of places to sit with the newspapers, freshly baked croissants and a coffee. My kids love the selection of sweets stocked inside which always buys me a bit of time for browsing in the interiors section of the store. The owners have an amazing eye for display, pulling together a selection of homewares that sits perfectly against the white wash and brick walls, wooden beams and stone floors of the building. In summer they often have plants and flowers to buy displayed in old iron bath tubs outside the front of the store. It’s a truly lovely place to while away an hour or three.

I challenge you to come home from Stiffkey Stores without making a purchase

Burnham Market has a nice selection of independent shops stocking a mix of fashion, jewellery , gifts and homeware and is a nice place to pass a happy hour or two browsing shops like Anna, Norfolk Living, Foras and Barefoot Living.

Another favourite shopping destination of mine is Holt, a handsome market town set slightly inland. It is a great place to stock up on provisions with an Adnams shop for those seeking locally brewed beers as well as butchers, green grocers and delis. There used to be a fabulous vintage store in a converted shop which was great for a rummage but that has sadly closed. A new find for me on our last visit was Sprout offering homewares right up my Scandi Rustic Street.

I loved the displays at Sprout in Holt

Just outside Thornham, another favourite shop of mine is Joyful Living. A treasure trove of gorgeous interiors products, from cushions to candles and everything inbetween that are not outrageously priced. It is great for combining with a trip to Eric’s Fish and Chips which is just next door.

I hope you love North Norfolk as much as we doo.

There is so much more I could share with you about this amazing part of the world but I will leave it there for now!

I received a small discount on my stay at Ford House Norfolk but with no obligation to blog about our stay.

Build Your Own Garden Office: Planning the Interior

For everything there is a season and, excitingly, this Autumn has been the season of garden office construction for us! To recap, after six months of home working/schooling in the spare room and at the kitchen table we decided to accelerate our plans to build a Scandi style Office with an integrated shed (aka a Shoffice) at the bottom of the garden.

We originally started looking options available from bespoke Garden Studio companies but for the size and finish we wanted (roughly 6m wide by 3.5m deep) we quickly realized they were going to be significantly out of budget at around £35 - 40K. So we decided to have one built from scratch instead - an option that works out almost half the price.

After many hours pouring over Pinterest I produced a sketch (although that is probably a generous description!) of what I wanted to achieve and called my builder Tony to see if a) he could tell what the drawing was and b) take the project on. Luckily for me it was a yes on both counts (although admittedly given my shaky grasp of Albanian it could actually have been “did a four year old draw this?”).

Sadly not my drawing but the inspiration for it - Cabu Cabins in Kent

It has been amazing watching my sketch literally coming to life out of the kitchen window for the last two months as Tony and team have made rapid progress. The first step in the process was lay a concrete base, after which they built a timber frame which has been insulated and boarded before then being clad. Electrics have been run out to the garden from the house (this cost approx £1K) but we decided against plumbing it with water as that would be a much more expensive option. The office will have underfloor heating and the option to have a wall heater as well if needed. For the office segment of the Shoffice (which measures approx 4m by 3.5m) the underfloor heating mat cost approx £175 so it is actually more affordable than you might imagine.

Once the concrete base had been laid the builders started constructing a timber frame

Electrics were brought out through the house and run down the side of the garden.

With the timber frame complete the next step was adding insulation

Starting to look like a proper room with the roof boards on, USB on the walls and the opening ready for the doors

In terms of the exterior, I deliberated for a long time about whether to go for real wood or composite cladding. My heart said go for the aesthetically pleasing timber that would weather to a lovely Scandi silver grey but my head (ok Tony’s head) said composite would be a better option in the longer term in terms of maintenance. In the end,after many hours of googling, I found a product that I think delivers the best of both worlds from a company called Envirobuild. Their Hyperion wood-plastic composite cladding is engineered from an innovative composition of 60% FSC® certified wood reclaimed from post-industrial manufacturing and 40% recycled High Density Polyethylene.

I love that these materials would otherwise be going to landfill but have instead been recycled into a long lasting durable form of cladding. And actually my heart has ended up as happy as my head as it doesn’t look or feel plasticky at all - it looks just like wood but is much easier to maintain. I chose to go for the darkest shade Graphite but it also comes in lighter “wood” finishes.

We used Hyperion cladding from Envirobuild for the exterior

One of the things I knew from the start (and that was hopefully obvious from my sketch) was that I wanted to invest in having crittall style windows having fallen in love with how they looked in the Cabu Cabins down in Kent. Because it is a relatively small space I wanted to go for ones with as slim frames and sight lines as possible (within budget!). Real crittall was sadly out of our price range but the aluminium alternative I found from ODC Glass achieve the look I was after for a much more reasonable price*. ODC are a British company with their manufacturing plant down in Poole, Dorset which means they are able to offer really quick lead times. Our doors arrived in 5 weeks compared to the 10-12 week lead in times other companies I approached offered. They installation was super quick and efficiently completed in a day and I am really happy with how they look. They are a sliding system with the two middle doors sliding to the sides and very easy to operate.

ODC fitting the doors

Installation was complete in a day

They are exactly what I was looking for in terms of the slim frames and sightlines.

The turnaround time on the roof and guttering have been slightly less impressive after an international aluminium coil crisis (who knew) slowed things up somewhat but it finally went on this week. I was originally thinking of having a zinc roof but to keep costs down I went for a more cost effective corrugated style sheet roofing from Cladco and chose matching aluminium guttering in the same anthracite finish.

With the roof on the exterior is now nearly complete and I couldn’t be happier with how it is all looking

Using corrugated sheet roofing was a more cost effective option than zinc on the roof.

I am going to worry about what used to be our lawn later - for now am just enjoying how it looks nestled at the bottom of the garden

So with the exterior now almost complete, I am now finally at the stage where I can start properly planning the interior and I couldn’t be happier to be teaming up with Neptune again to help me create a soothing serene workspace. To give you an idea of the look and feel that I want to achieve I have put together a moodboard which is inspired by American design duo Studio McGee (if you haven’t watched their show Dream Home Makeover on Netflix yet you are missing a treat) . Neptune do this simple, calm sophisticated look so well so I can’t wait to start work on the interior and showcase how to create the look working with their beautiful paints, textiles and furniture.

Scandi meets Studio McGee is my inspiration for the interior

Whilst Neptune stores in England are presently closed (bar for appointments only) owing to lockdown, they have recently relaunched their website and it is full of beautiful inspiring interiors and ideas and their team of home designers are doing virtual consultations if you need help designing a space.

A couple of design decisions I have already made when it comes to the Garden Office are to finish the walls in matching board to achieve a pannelled look that is a contemporary take on cabin interiors. I love how it looks in Design at Nineteen’s office and it is much more straightforward than installing individual tongue and grove boarding.

The matching board is already on the walls ready to paint.

I love how it looks in this gorgeous office on Pinterest

After careful consideration I have also decided to position the desk to the side of the room rather than at the back looking out towards the garden as this will allow us to have a long double desk running the length of the wall with two work stations and with storage on the walls and will still allow space to have an L Shaped sofa so that when our working day is done we then have another space to relax and use as a family. In my head we will gather here as a family to play wholesome board games and cards but I suspect the reality in years to come will be a trio of teenage boys loudly playing X Box! I look forward to sharing the next stage of the project with you all and please do ask if you are considering a similar project and have any questions

*I received a PR Discount from ODC Glass. My partnership with Neptune is a paid partnership.

Kitchen/Diner Revamp: The Big Reveal!

Things I had planned for 2020: giving my dining space a give it a Scandi Rustic revamp. Things I did not have planned for 2020: home schooling my kids for six months whilst trying to hold down my day job, write a book and keep a vague grip on my sanity. The latter slightly delayed the former but I am super excited to finally be able to show you the finished room!

To quickly recap: in the longer term we have big plans to create a contemporary open plan kitchen/diner, knocking down walls to combine three rooms into one. But in the short term I wanted to give the kitchen/dining space a refresh - toning down tango floors, adding timber cladding to create texture, refreshing the walls, removing a radiator cover bigger than our car, switching up the lighting and stretching my DIY skills to the limit by creating some faux crittall doors.

The Before. This is how the room looked when we moved in.

My moodboard for the revamp working in paid collaboration with Neptune

Working with Neptune, my dream interior brand, I have transformed the previously gloomy, cramped feeling space into a light, bright dining space that is now the hub of our home. So let me take you on a tour!

Working wonders on the walls

I think the lady who lived in the house before us was actually a secret senior Scandi fan because almost all of the walls in the house were painted in a neutral colour palette. However in a couple of places her inner Lawrence Lwellyn Bowen let loose and added flock wallpaper to the mix including on one of the walls of the kitchen. Having steamed it off in haste and then repented at my leisure - adding Neptune’s Cranbrook shiplap cladding has added some much needed (non Llewellyn Bowen) character to the room. Made from Norwegian Spruce (the Morten Harket of the timber world) you can keep it raw or have it stained in 16 different colour ways. Because the space is fairly narrow with not much natural light to speak of I have also refreshed the other walls using Neptune’s signature white paint: Snow. It is the perfect, fresh white and works perfectly as a base to build colour and texture around in a room.

The walls before. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty to strip that wallpaper off

I actually con’t believe how much better it looks! The cladding really adds interest to the room and Snow is the perfect crisp white for freshening up the space.

Freshening Up the Floors

If you are not a fan of the colour orange look away now! The floor we inherited was in perfectly good condition but as can often be the case, the varnish applied to the floorboards had taken a turn for the tango over time. In a DIY first (and potentially last) for me I buckled up went to B&Q and bought myself a belt sander to strip them back to a more natural shade of wood. I dithered for ages about whether to just seal them with a wax and leave them au naturel but ultimately decided to paint them an off white. I do love how light and bright the room now feels but part of me still wonders whether I made the right decision! I guess I will have to live with that #RenovationRegret though because if given the choice of spending another 48 hours belt sanding or fly fishing with Nigel Farage I would probably choose to get my tackle out.

The floor before in all it’s tango glory

The floor afterwards painted in off-white. We purposely just did one coat to allow some of the grain of the wood to still show through.

In the kitchen space I have broken up the white floor with a jute rug

Switching Up the Seating

We already have a dining table located through the double doors from the kitchen so the idea behind creating a second dining space in the kitchen was for this to be a more relaxed, informal option that channeled more of a cafe feel! With that in mind Mr Malmo built a bench seating area in.

Bench seating by Mr Malmo beautiful grainsack linen cushions by Maison Brocante - a great small interiors business

The grainsack bench cushions from Maison Brocante are really comfy. I still need to decide how to finish the bench seat itself but that decision can wait for another day (or year)

We have also added a Arundel bench from Neptune in a natural oak finish. It is nice and wide meaning we can comfortably fit three of us on it or one person can hog it! Layering a Neptune sheepskin on it adds coziness to the space and stops the white walls/floors feeling too stark.

Lots more seating options to choose from now. I love how wide the Arundel bench is - perfect for our family of five!

Sometimes i let him sit on it

To tie the two dining spaces together we have a set of Wardley chairs which echo the kitchen/diner colour palette. These chairs encompass everything I love about Neptune - they ooze beautiful craftsmanship that is built to last and the spindle back design is a simple classic that will endure beyond any seasonal trends. You can choose to have them in any of the Neptune paint range finishes or in beautiful natural oak.

We have the Wardley chairs in Ink and Snow to echo the colours in the kitchen and tie the two spaces together

Letting the Light In

One of the great things about this house is the ceiling heights! All of the rooms have lofty ceilings but in the dining space we had just one overhead pendant light that got completely lost in the space and no cosy lighting options at all. Although obviously that is something Mr Malmo lost zero sleep over given he would happily sit watching TV with the kind of lighting they use to illuminate crime scenes. Over the table the lone interrogation pendant light has been replaced with the Browning three light pendant from Neptune which fills the ceiling space so much better and adds a discreet industrial nod to the space. Adding in walllights (the Brompton - which have a gorgeous brass finish for an really affordable price) means we now also have a lower light option as well. I love putting these on during the day when it is raining outside to create a cosy feel.

The lighting situation is now significantly less interrogation cell! This three bulb pendant light is a great choice if you have a larger space to fill

These brass Brompton wall lights are a great price for a really high quality finish. I am still un-decided on the picture shelf - do you think I might need to add another one?

Creating Crittall Style Doors (on a budget)

Perhaps the most ambitious part of the revamp was creating my own version of Crittall doors. Woodworking skills are not something listed on my CV for a reason - making a simple Roman Spear in middle school took me 11 weeks, saw me snap approx 67 jigsaw blades and drove my CDT teacher to the edge of a nervous breakdown. The existing doors dividing the kitchen from the more formal dining space were pretty non descript and I thought they would make a great feature if they were given a crittall makeover. Because in the longer term they will be removed when we knock the two rooms together putting in an actual crittall dividing screen was not an option. However, armed only with a tin of Charcoal paint from Neptune, a paintbrush, 11mm timber strips from B&Q and gorilla glue I think I have delivered a pretty good short term crittall dupe! Although it is at this point I should probably confess that I may have called upon Mr Malmo to do the part that involved the hacksaw and superglue. The chances of me either losing a finger or sticking one to a window were just too high otherwise!

The partition doors before

And after their Crittall makeover. All it took was two coast of Neptune Charcoal paint, some 11mm timber strips cut to size (by Mr Malmo) and some gorilla glue!

It’s my new favourite shade of dark paint as has less of a blue undertone than Railings. I just need to touch up the paint job a little bit where my frog tape skills lacked a little!

Crittall feels on a budget

Tablescaping Time

Although it has been a long and winding road to the finish line now that the space is finished I couldn’t be happier. It has turned what was a dark, gloomy bit of dead space into my own personal Scandi/Rustic cafe and become the real hub of the house - where we come together to eat, read, draw (dinosaurs) and chat. And now that it is finished it means I can finally indulge in one of my favorite hobbies: tablescaping!

Now that the space is finished I can tablescape to my heart’s content

I loved pulling this scheme together using some accessories borrowed from Neptune’s Autumn/Winter collection. The Lulworth tableware in dappled grey looks great against my vintage wooden table with cutlery in Olive (Neptune’s colour of the year) adding a subtle contrast. In the centre of table I have played with different height candle holders,the Bayham and the Heddon and then added some flowers from Neptune’s range of greenery. This rannuculous is credibly realistic and definitely something I will be investing in.

Hopefully sometime before 2034 we will be able to host people back round our kitchen table but for now I am happy to stay home and enjoy the new space.

I am just a girl making eyes at her new faux crittall doors and trying not to burn my bum on the radiator

Thank you so much to Neptune for collaborating with me on this project and for the enormous patience you have shown me as I struggled to complete it in a global pandemic! If you are in need of interiors inspiration then do go and have a browse of their newly revamped website which has so much lovely interiors content to browse on it.

Paid Collaboration

Photos by @TiaTalula

Designing and Building A Garden Office

2020: the year none of us could have predicted in our crystal balls on the 31st of December.  Life as we once knew it has been turned on its head.  Our morning commute has shrunk from taking a train into the city to walking across the landing to the makeshift office in the spare room.   Although we are now being encouraged to get back to the office by Boris, with every fresh headline it seems less and less likely we will be returning to the 9 to five of old.   And, in truth, having had a taste for working from home and the flexibility it allows, do we even want to go back to the old way of working?

With all of this in mind, an item that was on our “Maybe one day it would be nice to have” list has made it’s way to the forefront of our renovation priorities: a garden office.  This had always been in our long term plans as one of the attractions of this house was that it came with a garden that was longer and wider with the ideal space at the bottom for a studio. As the kids get older we were anticipating a time when we might want to have a separate space where they could hang out (or we could hide from teenagers).  Lockdown has made us realise we may need that extra space sooner than originally anticipated.    

Forgive the slightly messy photo with B&Q’s finest extension cable taking centre stage but the area to the right of this picture at the bottom of the garden is where we thought would be a good spot for a garden studio.

Having decided to get our “Shoffice” on sooner than expected, last month we started to scope out our options.  There are lots of different companies out there offering studios of all shapes and sizes and catering to every budget. It all depends what you want to use the building for and how much you have to spend.  The more traditional log cabin style tend to be cheaper and the more contemporary tend to the more expensive but there are also good options in the middle and many ways to pimp a log cabin to give it a more modern feel . 

Cabu create a range of modular buildings including garden studios with a modern farmhouse aesthetic

Koto have some really cool contemporary home office designs

We wanted something fairly big so that we would have space for both an office and a storage element (otherwise known as a shed). We actually came very close to buying an ex display Hanley Heritage model from Malvern, having discovered this great British company through @design_at_nineteen (go check out his feed for Garden Office Goals) but we ran into difficulties in terms of side access to get it into the garden without having to call in a crane and it didn’t have an integrated shed so we had to go back to the drawing board. All of the other options we looked at in the size we wanted from garden studio companies were, unfortunately, out of our current budget.  So, instead, armed only with a rough drawing I had done after a glass of vino (that frankly looked like something a five year old had knocked out after an exhausting day at softplay) we decided to ask our builder if he would be able to knock us up something bespoke in budget falling within permitted development rules.

Ok so my art work will never be displayed in the National Gallery but hopefully you get the idea

You are probably none the wiser as to the design having looked at my rudimentary drawing (Neil Buchanan I am not) so I have pulled together a moodboard that captures the key elements. The idea is to have one building with a apex roof that includes two separate spaces: an office and storage shed. Working within permitted development means that it can have a max height of 2.5m but I still like the idea of having an element of slope even if it is not going to rival Notre Dame for ceiling height. The top left image on the moodboard is major inspiration for the whole design and belongs to an instagram account I think you would love to follow called @barnhousecabin. It is the forest cabin that two Copenhageners have built on preserved lakeside land in Denmark and if our Shoffice (on a much small scale) turns out 5% as cool in our non lakeside North London suburban setting I will be happy. In terms of the glazing I am hoping to include a set of crittal style aluminium doors that will span much of the width of the office space to bring lots of light into the space. With the cladding I want to keep things feeling contemporary by opting for vertical planks and I have been investigating composite alternatives to timber as that may prove to be a more cost effective option in the longer term when it comes to maintenance.

Top left image is of Barnhouse Cabin, middle image from Pinterest, Top Right image from the Local Project, bottom left image of Cabu Cabins, middle bottom image from Chatsworth Road project completed by Shakadelic and bottom right image is via Remodelista and of David Kohn’s Stable Acre Project.

Excitingly after a couple of days of mulling it over (and probably trying to decipher my drawing with a cold towel around his head) the builder came back to say he could deliver what we wanted within our budget so Project Scandi Shoffice is go! I can’t want to share the progress with you as it takes shapes over the next few weeks and hopefully inspire a few of you to maybe try something similar.  In the meantime I am off to pitch a TV Series called #PimpMyLogCabin to MTV.

Kitchen/Diner Revamp: Sanding The Floor By Hand

In my last blog post I unveiled the long term renovation plans for our Pebble Dash Princess. However, this week I have an exciting update for you on the shorter term revamp of the kitchen/dining space I have been working on for what may feel like the last millennium.

Sanding the Kitchen Floor

One of the main items on my revamp hit list for this room was the floor. We inherited engineered wooden floorboards that were in pretty good condition but which had an orange varnish that made this Scandi girl wince. In the longer term plan I am hoping to have polished concrete floors throughout the open plan kitchen/living space but, for now, it is sanding rather than concrete mixing on my mind.

The kitchen floor when we came to view the house

After stage one of the Kitchen/Diner Revamp with a filter applied to take the tango edge off the floor

This is not my first brush with David Dickinson floor varnish. We inherited very similar stained floorboards in our old house. On that occasion it was my husband who tackled the tango floor, hiring an industrial sander and then painting them off white. This time round he was less keen to take on the task (perhaps understandably when trapped at home with 3 kids in the midst of a global pandemic). As a result I found myself in Aisle 24 of B&Q on a socially distanced Saturday night, surrounded by power tools, looking as out of place as a nun in Ann Summers.

Like a Nun in Ann Summers I had no idea what I was doing in B&Q’s power tool aisle

How I Sanded The Floor By Hand

I had decided against hiring a big industrial sander because the space is quite narrow and, quite frankly, it would be like putting Thora Hurd behind the wheel of a double decker bus, After half an hour , and a lot of quizzical looks from men in tool belt trousers in B&Q, I selected a MacAllister belt sander for the job instead. According to Screwfix (not me) they offer a powerful, high speed sanding experience for fast removal of material and are ideally suited for use on large flat surface areas. At £40 it was a cheaper option than hiring the large industrial sander.

Malmo & MacAllister: the belt sanding dream team

There followed many hot dusty nights for Becca and the Belt Sander which satisfyingly stripped off the varnish - albeit creating storm clouds of sawdust in the process. I would definitely recommend a mask and googles for the job and having someone in the house who doesn’t mind following you around with a hoover. I did the most back breaking part of the job but, by the end Mr Malmo took pity on me and got his mouse sander out (not a euphemism) to finish off the edges and corners. If you are sanding a bigger room I would definitely say hiring a big industrial sander would be the better option because it collects the sawdust for you into a vacuum bag as you go along and doesn’t involve you being hunched over the floor in a position resembling a toad going to the toilet.

With the worst of the sanding out of the way I became tempted to leave the floors au naturel

How To Give Your Floor a Nordic Look

Once the floors were sanded, I had originally been thinking I would paint the floors white but as the varnish came off I really liked the natural floorboards that were revealed so I started to toy with just staining/white washing them to leave them with an au naturel finish. That is what we did in the hallway and living room using Bona Floor Oil in Frosted to create a Scandi flooring effect that I am really happy with.

We used Bona floor oil in Frosted on our hallway and living room floors

If you are thinking of going down this road some of the other products that people recommended to me to achieve a white washed natural floor feel were Osmo White Tint Oil, Spruce by Treatex, Dinesen White Oil, Woca Softwood Lye and Blanchon Raw.

However, in the end, I went back to my original plan to paint them because, truth be told, the quality of my sanding job was suspect with lots of uneven areas. The paint I chose for the job was Little Greene Portland Stone Mid, which is a great off white option that we have also used on the open shelves in our kitchen. We used a paint brush to do the edges and then a roller for the main areas.

At the moment we have only down one coat so you can still see the grain of the wood

Don’t look too closely at the quality of my cutting in!

It has made the kitchen feel so much lighter and brighter

I have a new rug on order which is wider for this space

At the moment we have only done one coat as I want to still be able to see the grain of the wood (and because I am lazy and would rather watch Selling Sunset than do a second coat). Although I agonized a lot about painting the floor in the end I am really happy I went for it. The whole room feels instantly bigger, brighter and more spacious.

The eagle eyed among you will also spot that there has been another exciting lighting revamp development since last I blogged about the project. The ceilings are pretty high in the dining space so the single pendant light we had hanging over the table before lent the room distinct interrogation cell vibes. I wanted something that would fill more of the space without dangling down into our dinner- and creating a pendant in pasta situation. Step forward the Browning 3 light pendant of my dreams from Neptune. I love the contrast it provides to the cladding and the wooden table and it has really evened up the space.

The Browning 3 light pendant from Neptune is a much better light for this space, I love the slight industrial edge it adds

Next stop on the renovation express? The faux crittal door transformation. Prepare to see me wade even further out of my DIY depth with this one!

The Browning Pendant is part of my ongoing collaboration with Neptune on this project

Renovation Update: We Got Planning Permission!

This week will mark one year since we moved into our “new” house. I don’t think we could possibly have foreseen in July 2019 quite how much time we would be spending in it during our first 12 months of residence!

Moving Day July 2019

Two slightly nervous new home owners trying not to panic about the number of Roger’s Renoval boxes awaiting them inside

The day we moved in when we still had a nice green lawn that hadn’t been obliterated by football mad boys

Over the course of the last year we have made a start in making it feel a bit more us with renovation projects on the hallway and living room and most recently a budget revamp of the kitchen/diner. But behind the scenes we have also been working with Detail.Architects to draw up bigger plans to transform our Pebble Dash Princess into a Modern Rustic Swan.

Actually I lie, getting rid of the massive radiator cover that hogged the hallway and adding a lower radiator and scaffold bench is my favourite change!

My latest DIY project, sanding back the kitchen floors

I never thought I would be a power tool owner 12 months ago

Adding paneling painted in Farrow & Ball’s Ammonite to the hallway is one of my favourite changes we have made so far.

As I think I have mentioned before, gaining extra (house) girth was one of our main motivations in buying the Pebble Dash Princess (our affectionate nick name for the house). It is at least a third wider than our old house creating the possibility of having the open plan family living space downstairs that I have always dreamed of. However, in its current configuration the ground floor is a bit like the layout of the Crystal Maze so part of our brief to Reah our architect was to redesign the floorplan so that it doesn’t feel like you have to navigate the Aztec zone to get to the utility room.

Welcome to the Crystal Maze! The existing downstairs layout is a bit of a rabbit warren of rooms

Upstairs has the same number of bedrooms as our old house but they are not quite as big and as the kids get older we are conscious that the younger two, who currently share, might not want to go on doing that forever. So we also wanted to add a fifth bedroom and an extra bathroom and then, by removing a hot water tank the size of a small submarine from an airing cupboard, also make the family bathroom bigger.

The submarine size water tank is sandwiched in between the toilet and bathroom

So now you have seen what we were starting with do you want to see the design Reah came up with that achieves everything on our wish list and more?

The final design worked up by Detail Architects

What do you think? I hope you love it as much as I do! We are extending at the rear but actually not by much - filling in an unused passage at the side that leads to the utility room then going out a little bit on the right hand side to fulfil my ultimate dream of having a window seat. Inside we are going to take down the wall between the kitchen and second reception room that currently makes this room feel narrow and dark.

Crystal Maze be gone the new layout creates a much better flow to the downstairs space.

We will then move the utility backwards from its’ existing position, borrowing a bit of space from Mr Malmo’s beloved garage. This, along with the extra space we are adding, will hopefully give us a nice big wide, open and airy room with great connection to the garden. These 3Ds that Reah put together really give you a sense of what the space will ultimately be like.

There is a pillar through the Island shown here but we are hoping the structural engineer will come up with plans that allow us to avoid this.

Upstairs we will be adding a loft which will have enough space for a bedroom, dressing room and bathroom. On the middle floor taking out the small submarine will enable us to new, bigger family bathroom that has room for a separate shower. I have shared the plans for the loft in a previous blog. Click here to have a read.

Externally the look I am hoping to achieve is what I would describe as modern Scandinavian farmhouse - I thought that had more of a ring to it than New Nordic Agricultural. The pebble dash is hopefully going to be replaced by a smooth render unless I find out chipping it off will cost the same as a new car in which case I will be seeking to persuade you guys that pebble dash is a material favored by hip Scandinavian farmers. The ground floor will have timber cladding (expect detailed chat about how different types of wood weather coming your way in 2021) and I will be paring that with slimline glazing, with crittal style doors to one side.

The vision for the exterior. Pebble dash replaced with smooth render and timber cladding

The journey through planning has not been without its bumps and compromises. Our original design was turned down owing to concerns about how the roofline would look in comparison to other houses in the street. If I could go back in time I would definitely have paid to have formal pre planning discussions with the council at the outset so that we could have understood their views and incorporated them into the design from the get go. However, we got there in the end and the changes we have had to make to address the Council’s concerns don’t materially alter the space we will end up with internally so all is well that ends well.

I don’t think we can afford to do all of the work at the same time and, to be honest, after the way 2020 has panned out so far, I am not sure I am up for cooking us meals on a camping stove in the garage with only the outside tap and a hose to shower under right now. The current plan (bar a lottery win) is to start with the loft and first floor and then tackle the ground floor work later on when we have saved up a bit more.

The next immediate task now that we have secured planning permission is to get a structural engineer on board to help with the structural drawings and to then get builders quotes for the work once we know how much steel etc we will need (Laksmi Mittal if you are reading call me :-)). It obviously goes without saying that I already have about seventeen pinterest boards on the go to help me plan out the interiors and I am excited to start sharing my ideas with you once we get going but for now here is a little snapshot of what has been inspiring me. I hope you will enjoy following along with our renovation ups and downs.

With planning permission secured I can now start pinteresting with purpose to pull together my ideas for the interior

10 Great Ideas For A Staycation This Summer

The 4th of July 1776 was the day America declared independence from English rule. The 4th of July 2020 will see citizens of the UK celebrate their holiday independence as campsites, hotels and self catering accommodation reopen after lockdown. Granted we probably won’t commemorate the moment that the gates of Elvedon Centre Parcs swing open for the next 300 years but right now it feels pretty momentous. Demand for UK holidays has soared leaving many of us scrambling to lock down a staycation that doesn’t involve camping in a layby off the A1. But I am here to save you many hours of google research with 15 great places to stay in the UK that still have some availability for July and August. All of my choices offer Scandi Rustic rather than Skegness style and I have tried to include options for every budget.

Agricultural Chic in Norfolk

North Norfolk is one of my favourite staycation destinations with its wide open skies, sweeping wide sandy beaches and flint stone built villages full of great little places to shop and eat. Nestled in the Norfolk countryside 30 minutes from the coast, Great Barn Farm is a collection of barns expertly converted to maintain the historical, rustic look of the farmyard, but combining it with modern comforts and practical design. Spacious, neutral interiors that blend seamlessly with the surrounding countryside make this an excellent option

Cottages in a Cornish Cove

With plenty of time on my hands during lockdown I have enjoyed using my evenings to learn another European language, master Origami and write my first novel. Who am I kidding I have actually been collapsing on the sofa, eating Rich Tea biscuits slathered in Nutella whilst rewatching Poldark for the fourth time. The harbour in Charlestown on the South Cornish coast often pops up as a location and it is home to a gorgeous cluster of self catering accommodation known as Antonia’s Pearls. There are 6 different properties and if you are quick some of them still have July and August availability. The all feature the same fresh, white interior with lots of quirky interesting vintage finds. We have stayed in the Sail Loft before and had a lovely week, pottering around the harbour, swimming in the sea and picnicking on the secluded pebbly beach.

Scandi Suffolk Cabin

The Stables is a centuries old former stable converted into a modern rustic rural retreat. Set deep in the Suffolk countryside but within easy reach of the Suffolk coast it is a holiday cottage for four people with with original brick floors and oak beams throughout. Surrounded by lots of land to let the kids roam free/feral this idyllic rural retreat still has good availability for August.

Get Cosy in a Cotswold Cowshed

A few years ago we rented Bledington Barn for a break between Christmas and New Year and fell in love with its picture perfect location on the edge of a Cotswold village green a stone’s throw from the fantastic Kings Head pub. Sleeping up to six the owners have renovated the 300 year old barn in an eco-friendly way recycling and re purposing original materials. Think lazy breakfasts around a gorgeous old wooden table, evenings playing games in the double height living space and nights snuggled up in beds with the softest sheets and linen.

Camping in Kent

Last Summer just before we moved house we spent a very happy couple of nights in a bell tent in Kent. Blocking thoughts of packing/stamp duty and removal lorries from our mind we loved this small family friendly campsite with great facilities. Whilst Fallowfield weekends are now booked up there is still weekday availability in the bell tents. It makes a great base for exploring some of Kent’s nicest coastal spots including my personal favourite: Whitstable

A Highland Adventure

At the end of a four mile, loch-skimming, possibly buttock clenching single track drive past hedgerows thick with purple thistles and fields of shaggy Highland cattle, lies Monachyle Mhor - a boutique hotel owned and run by the Lewis family. In the grounds of the hotel, across a handmade bridge, is a very special Highland hideout.

The Ferry Waiting Room Cabin sleeps 4 and is built around two huge picture windows that connect the cabin to the amazing highland views around it. if you want to get back to nature this is the place for you. Climb a mountain, go fishing in the loch and embrace your inner Highlander.

Shed Chic on Skye

If I could close my eyes and transport myself to any of the places I have picked out this would be the one I would teleport to. The Black Shed sits on the side of a remote hill, surrounded by Hebridean sheep grazing under vast skies with Loch Dunvegan shimmering in the distance. The Black Shed replaced an old agricultural building and offers airy interiors made up of pine-clad walls, textured concrete floors and big windows to frame the view. This is a retreat for two so pack your bags and

Run Away to Rye

If you haven’t left the confines of your house for the last three months bar socially distant trips to the supermarket (the new going “Out Out”) then blasting the lockdown cobwebs away standing atop the vast sand dunes of Camber Sands will feel like heaven. This tranquil harbour-side hideaway sits two miles downstream from Rye town (hello cute cobbled streets) and only six miles from Camber Sands. Hawkhurst was once used to spy on trespassing smugglers and enemies, today the former watch house which sleeps six exudes Scandi rather than smuggler chic.  

Timeout in Thorpeness

An apartment virtually on the beach with stunning sea views and light bright interiors sounds like just the place I would like to be right now. 4 Truman Lodge is in peaceful Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast. The apartment sleeps 4 and is next door to the Thorpeness Country Club which offers facilities including tennis courts and steps away from the popular Dolphin Pub. It still has weekend availability in August from £95 a night so go forth and book quickly.

Days on the farm in Devon

Berridon Farm is a small family farm in a gorgeous part of Devon, with access to secret beaches and rolling countryside. Gather eggs straight from chickens, splash in the stream and swing on the tyre swings and then warm yourself by a woodburner on chilly Summer evenings in one of the five rustic tented cabins.

They still have availability for a couple of weekends in August but be quick because this slice of the Good Life is sure to get booked up soon

Updating My Kitchen/Diner with Timber Cladding

A couple of weeks ago on the blog I revealed my plans to revamp the second half of our kitchen/dining space.  The project is my lockdown sanity saver – giving me something to focus on other than Twinkl worksheets and how little it turns out I know about how to calculate and teach improper fractions. The space is fairly non descript at the moment meaning I have a blank canvas to work with but it is also quite narrow and doesn’t get much natural daylight so it is potentially a bit of a tricky beast to breathe some Scandi Rustic style into.

Top left image from Plain English, Top middle, Middle left and Bottom Left images from Neptune

One of my main revamp conundrums is what to do with the wall that I over enthusiastically stripped wallpaper off before Christmas with no real plan as to what to replace it with. In hindsight that gin fuelled decision may have been slightly hasty as the wall below the paper was not in great condition and in its naked state it is currently lending the kitchen more of a 1970s squat than Scandi feel. Over Christmas I added a festive sprinkle to it with three rustic wreaths but with Saint Nicholas having long since returned to the North Pole it is time to find a more permanent solution to the problem.

The wall after my Friday night wall paper stripping frenzy

Because the dining space doesn’t really have any distinguishing/interesting features I don’t just want to paint the wall as I feel like it needs something that can help to add (non seventies squat) character and texture to the room.  On a pre-lockdown visit to the Wimbledon branch of Neptune I stumbled across the perfect solution. The ceilings of the store (which is a new build) were clad in a really gorgeous timber with a white washed/grey finish that created my ideal Scandi- Coastal look.  Upon quizzing the store manager (yep I know I have great chat) I discovered that it was in fact Neptune’s own Cranbrook Shiplap cladding which I already had pinned to lots of my Pinterest boards! It is made from Norwegian Spruce (no less) and comes with a silver birch finish but can also be customised to any of the other colours in the Neptune paint range.

Because the dining space is quite narrow and doesn’t get much natural daylight the light wash of the Cranbrook Shiplap cladding is perfect for adding texture without making the space feel gloomy or oppressive.  With Neptune having made all my interior dreams come true by teaming up with me on the revamp I can actually now give you guys a first peek at what it looks like in my house because work had actually begun on installing the cladding before lockdown began ( I was just a little behind on my blog writing and Instagram documentation of the project!)

Goodbye depressing wall hello Cape Cod Clapboard vibes

As you can probably tell from the amount of power tools in the above picture this was a task above my DIY pay grade but if you have a better grasp of a spirit level than I do and wanted to take on a cladding project of your own then the basic principles are pretty straightforward. The first step is to attach batons (hark at me with my technical terms) to the wall to create a frame on which to attach the cladding and then, once this is done, saw the planks to size to fit the wall and affix them to the batons with screws.

Although work had to stop when lock down began so some of the boards still need a colour wash applied it has made such a huge difference to how the space feels. I can’t wait to get to work painting the floor to take the David Dickinson factor down several notches.

When lockdown is lifted and work can resume all that is left to do is to colour wash the remaining boards with the silver birch finish so that it has a consistent look overall. Hopefully by then I will have also made more progress on the other aspects of the revamp like the painting of the bench seat, floor and other walls so that I can give you a better idea of the final look. However, I already absolutely love how the cladding has transformed the space - it is giving me all the Cape Cod Clapboard feels.

I love the rustic natural feel of the Norwegian spruce boards. When we do the longer term renovation of the kitchen we will reuse these planks in the utility.

Five Great Ways to Use Timber Cladding to Update your Decor

If you fancy taking on a cladding project of your own I have rounded up below some of my favourite ideas for how you can use it in your home. From hallways to bedrooms and lots of rooms in between there are plenty of ideas to get your timber juices flowing. The cladding I have used in our dining space has a rustic appearance but I also love how both more contemporary cladding or traditional tongue and groove style boards can look.

Image Credits. Top left image Domino Magazine, Top Right Project Felix via the Local Project, Bottom Left Mollies Motel and Bottom Right from Remonis

Whilst I ultimately used panelling rather than cladding in our hall it was a very close call because I think cladding can be a really great way to zone a space like a hallway. For example, I love how the contemporary cedarwood cladding in the first picture below has been used to create a backdrop to the pegs. But it can be equally effective if you go bold and clad the entire space

Image Credit Oak House, Derek Swalwell . Pictures below left hand Vosges Paris, right hand M Arkitekur

When the dining room revamp is done (some time in 2025 judging by my current rate of progress) I have my sights set on updating the wardrobes in our master bedroom and the boys bedroom. They are fitted and although structurally sound I would love to bring them more up to date. I have a whole pinterest board devoted to them (no you are too much fun) and one of my favourite ideas is have new cladding style doors made to fit the carcasses. I absolutely love how Simply Scandi Kate has done something very similar in her bedroom so that it looks like a wall of cladding rather than wardrobes. The blush pink wardrobes below are actually MDF with lines scored into them to make them look like Tongue & Groove.

Image credits Top Image Suzy Hoodless

Although we don’t have a kitchen island in our current kitchen (unless you count our jazzy breakfast bar) I think using cladding on an island can be a great way to make it stand out. If you don’t have an island or wanted to keep yours more neutral then you could look to the walls or the cupboards to clad instead. The tongue and groove style cupboards in the kitchen of Imperfect Interiors are some of my favourite on Instagram.

Image credits Main image EST Magazine, Bottom left Gloria.Fi and Bottom Right Imperfect Interiors

There has been a lot of talk about the ceiling being the fifth wall of late and if you can get up there with a drill and some timber without ending up accidentally adding rustic character to your head it is the perfect place for some cladding. I think it looks particularly good in more modern style or new build homes where it can introduce real character and warmth.

Image credits Main Image M Arkitekur , Bottom left House Doctor and Bottom Right EST Magazine

I know not everyone is a fan of wood in a bathroom as they worry about it getting damp and mouldy but we had tongue & grovve pannelling to a half height in our old ensuite and we never had any problem with it. If you are on a budget and want to make use of reclaimed materials then using scaffold boards like in the picture below is a great way to add an industrial edge in an eco friendly way.

Image Credits Main Image Project Felix via the Local Project Bottom left Unique Home Stays and Bottom Right EST Magazine

I am a particular fan of using cladding to add texture and interest in loft bedrooms as they can very often feel like bland spaces. Adding a scaffold plank wall to our old loft bedroom was certainly a game changer for me. and using reclaimed boards is an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to add a statement wall. I also love the idea of using cladding as an inexpensive way to create a statement headboard. If you are after inspiration for this idea when lock down ends then book yourself a night a Mollies Motel where I loved the contemporary cladding headboards in red cedar wood.

Image Credits Main Image Remonis , Bottom Left unknown source Pinterest, Bottom Right Malmo & Moss old bedroom

I hope that round up has given you some ideas for creating statement wooden walls in your own homes. With the cladding part of my revamp now almost complete the next task I am planning to tackle is my radiator cover colossus. Brace yourself for big questions coming your way about my best option for minimising its presence in the room!

The Cranbrook Cladding was supplied to me as part of my paid partnership with Neptune

Live There, Wear This - Melbourne

As we prepare to head into Week 7 of lock down, with potentially many more socially distant weeks ahead of us, I thought I would introduce a new blog series to provide a bit of quarantine escapism. It combines two of my greatest loves: interiors and travel and then lobs a bit of fashion into the mix (although obviously I am no fashionista as anyone who saw me in a pink, purple and green shell suit age 11 will attest). The basic premise is this: each time I will feature a jaw dropping home in a fabulous location and then a cheeky mood board or two of the type of outfits you might wear if you lived in said dream house.

I am hoping it will offer a bit of day dreaming relief from home schooling/endless work zoom calls/getting up at 3am to try and secure an online shopping slot /arguing with your partner over whose turn it is to clean the toilet this week. OK are you ready to come through the first keyhole with me? If so, virtual suitcases at the ready as we are off to Melbourne.

The Destination

Set on the banks of the Yarra River, Melbourne is a cosmopolitan city with a rich and diverse culinary scene that offers an insanely good cafe game. Pictures credits from left to right 1) Dukes Coffee Roasters 2) Archies All Day, Fitzroy 3) @mrsmithmelbourne 4) @julian.varricchio 5) Vegie Bar, Fitzroy

On my list of places I have visited that I would consider swapping the North London suburbs for, Melbourne is right up there next to Copenhagen. I have visited the City twice, nearly ten years apart. Once just after I left Uni and the second time when I was pregnant with my first son. On the first occasion a regrettably large chunk of the 36 hrs we had there was spent hunting down Ramsay Street to take a picture of myself smiling like a loon outside of Lou Carpenter’s house. The second time, no longer a student and with an income that would allow me to frequent nice cafes and bars rather than eat pot noodle in a youth hostel, I fully fell for Melbourne’s non-Neighbours related charms.

The City has access to several gorgeous beaches. A rooftop bar in St Kilda watching the sunset over the sea with a large Aperol Spritz in hand would do nicely for me right now. Picture credits 1) Via Porta 2) and 3) Captain Baxter’s St Kilda

Located on the banks of the River Yarra it may not have the show stopping good looks of Sydney but I actually much preferred it’s understated charms. Scratch the surface and you will find a multitude of cool cafe, bars and shops on streets bisected by trams that really reminded me of San Francisco, another of my favourite cities. Within easy reach of the city centre are a multitude of beaches including Brighton beach with its colourful beach huts and St Kilda, described as like Bondi without the crowds and camera crews.

Picture credits left to right 1) The Beach House 2) Fitzroy Neighbourhood captured by @n.charlone 3) @lyndagardner 4) The Fitzroy Pinnacle captured by @thewolochoice

The Dream Home

It is in the leafy family friendly Melbourne suburb of Malvern East that we head to visit our featured home of dreams. Malvern East boasts a range of architecture from beautiful Edwardian, Victorian & Art Deco homes to sleeker more contemporary developments. McNamara House, designed by Tom Robertson Architects fuses the two styles together to stunning effect.

McNamara house is an original federation era property but the owners of the home wanted to add a contemporary extension to help the space work better for them and their teenage children. Tom Robertson Architects came up with a design that has created a single-level contemporary pavilion that sits discreetly behind the grand facade of the original home. The entry, sleeping quarters and bathrooms are housed in the original part of the building with its period detailing and high ceilings whereas the kitchen, dining, study and lounge occupy the new contemporary addition. The journey from the old to the new is seamless.

In the new addition floor to ceiling thin frame crittal style windows flood the space with light and frame the view of the courtyard beyond.

The material palette in the kitchen/dining space has been kept deliberately simple with statement timber clad ceilings, a contemporary style white kitchen with marble worktops and white planked wooden floors in a natural finish.

The kitchen/dining space is linked to outdoor space via large sliding glass doors. The couple actually sacrificed a large portion of the properties original back yard to the extension as, with growing teenage children they were using the house and space differently and identified that their teenagers no longer used the garden as they once did (good news for anyo f us parents of young children desperate to say goodbye to the days of a garden full of plastic ride on toys!). The extension has been built around a series of courtyards that create different zones to the outside space. My favourite zone has to be the one with the infinity style swimming pool. I can see Malmo and a Mojito quite happily residing poolside.

Another of the outdoor courtyards features an outdoor barbecue. The large sliding doors open up to mean this space feels like an extension of the house in warmer months.

The sunken lounge on a separate level to the kitchen creates a cosy space for the colder months.

Part of what has made the blend between the old and new so successful is the design of the interior with the same simple colour palette and materials being used throughout both parts of the house to knit the old and new together. Many thanks to Tom Robertson for agreeing to let me feature this wonderful home on the blog (all pictures taken by Derek Swallwell). If you would like some further inspiration do go and check out some of the other equally awe inspiring projects the practice has worked on over at Tom Robertson Architects

The Wardrobe

So you were the owner of a gorgeous house like this in the Melbourne suburbs what would be in your wardrobe? I have put together a few ideas for the outfits I might like to slip into to mooch about in the different areas of this beautiful home and included some links in case you want to shop the look to wear in the slightly less sunny UK (surely we deserve a long hot Summer after our house bound Spring?!) . Or perhaps it might just give you some inspiration for how to shop your own wardrobe to create some new lock down outfits. So if you were to be relaxing around that lovely pool (or more realistically in your back garden this Summer) here are a few ideas for what you might like to wear.

Writing this looking out of my bedroom window at a soggy garden it feels slightly hard to imagine slipping into a swimsuit and lying in the warm sunshine but the BBC Weather App assures me sunnier days are on their way and whilst I may not have an infinity pool I do have the garden sprinkler so I may yet make it into swimwear in 2020. The edit I have pulled together below is focused on finding flattering affordable swimwear and accessories that you can feel comfortable sipping your poolside cocktail in. So there are no high cut styles that require you to call in a Combine Harvester to deal with your bikini line in advance and a distinct absence of the thong style bottoms favoured by Love Island contestants and the Kardashian sisters.

From left to right: 1) Candy Striped Cross Over Swimsuit 2) Sage Green Swimsuit, H&M 3) Blush Pink Beach Dress 4) Rust and Cream Polka Dot Swimsuit 5) Straw Beach Tote Bag 6) Leather Strap Sandals 7) Pink Metal Ridge Sunglasses 8) Straw Hat 9) Tortoiseshell Sunglasses

If the McNamara House were mine I think there is a strong possibility that 75% of my time would be spent in that amazing, light filled kitchen. I can imagine myself padding around the marble topped kitchen island or settling down at the dining table to drink a cool ginger beer and read a magazine. Whilst I was wafting around I imagine I would like to dress very much like the kitchen itself in an understated palette of easy neutrals. So below is my edit of where to shop the “Casual Kitchen” look.

From Left to Right: 1) Scalloped Edge Blouse 2) High Waist Jeans 3) Nude Sliders 4) Gold leaf charm necklace 5) Pendant Chain Necklace 6) Polka Dot Blouse 7) Linen T Shirt

As the sun set and evening fell I would prise myself away from the pool or one of the leafy courtyard areas, take a bath in that beautiful sleek white rolltop and then slip into something a little more sophisticated. Obviously in this fantasy my three kids are with their Grandparents for the weekend otherwise I would actually be slipping into saggy bottomed joggers and watching Top Gear/Power Rangers sporting a greasy top knot. The lounge at the McNamara House is divided from the kitchen by a sliding wooden door and was designed to be a cosy, cocooned space with sunken style sofas and it is there I would head in my evening outfit.

Whilst we may not be enjoying any nights out for the foreseeable future I have found that actually scheduling a date night at home and prising myself out of clothing with an elasticated waist for 1-2 hours makes me feel a whole lot better. The pieces I have included in the evening edit below could also be easily dressed up or down so you wouldn’t feel like you had gone too full on Joan Collins if you sashayed/shuffled down the stairs in any of them.

1) Satin Camisole Vest 2) Black Button Down Dress 3) Straw Shoulder Bag 4) Black Strap Dress 5) Personalised Pendant Necklace 6) Satin Midi Dress

I hope you have enjoyed coming to Melbourne with me and visiting the wonderful McNamara House in our mutual day dreams. I look forward to sharing more fashion and furniture fusion with you in some more dream destinations over the next few months.

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My Plans for Part Two of My Kitchen/Diner Revamp

Last month on the blog I revealed the first part of my mini kitchen/diner renovation.  You may recall that we have longer term larger scale renovation plans but, whilst we work out how much loose change we need to find down the back of the sofa to afford them, for now I am making some smaller changes to try to make the space feel a little bit more Malmo. 

Our kitchen after a mini Malmo makeover

I made over the space for less than £130

Not unlike me, the new house has a generous downstairs.   However, as you can see from the first floor plan below, the kitchen/utility/dining and living space are currently carved up into separate spaces in a way that means that some of the rooms are little awkward to work with. In the longer term we hope (subject to to planning) to be able to reconfigure the space to give us a bigger open plan kitchen/diner by removing the walls that currently divide the three rooms and shifting the utility room backwards into part of the garage.  I have included a second floor plan below that shows what that reconfiguration would look like.

However, as we currently find ourselves in uncertain and unprecedented times I am not really daring to dream too much about those plans at the moment.  Instead, to help preserve some semblance of my sanity whilst socially distancing, I am turning my mind and painting brush to completing the second part of the shorter term kitchen/diner revamp.  

Round one of the mini revamp focused on the kitchen at the end of the dining space.  This Scandi came over all Handy Andy and removed the upper wall cupboard doors, painted the lower cupboard doors and switched up the handles.  Those simple changes made such a huge difference so now I want to wave my Scandi-Rustic-Industrial wand over the remaining, untouched dining space.  

This time I  am unbelievable excited to have a little help from my ultimate fairy godmother: Neptune.   My love affair with this British brand started 10 years ago when I came across one of their beautiful kitchens on holiday in Norfolk but their story actually started 10 years earlier with a hammock hand sewn at a the kitchen table.  It turned out to be a case of from small hammocks big beautiful lifestyle brands grow. Today there are 26 stores across the UK (with a handful more in Europe) all of which are gorgeous destination experiences in themselves.

Gorgeous home inspiration galore on the Neptune Instagram Page

Whilst it is not currently possible to visit their beautiful shops in person, the online Neptune experience is just as swoonworthy.  I regularly lose myself down an inspiration rabbit hole on their website, Pinterest and Instagram pages and the great news is that lots of the helpful services they offer in store (such as design consultations) are now available virtually instead. So if you need help with a room revamp you can talk to a dedicated Neptune designer by phone, zoom or whats app and started planning how to improve your space with expert advice and ideas.. You can also still order items from their website with their online delivery service still running (working closely within all relevant government guidelines).

To be honest being asked to collaborate with them was a bit like Brad Pitt turning up and asking to take me to my school prom so I am absolutely delighted to be able to champion one of my favourite brands in these challenging times for British retailers.

The Plans for Part Two of the Mini Kitchen/Diner Revamp

So are you ready to see the space I will be working to transform? It is slightly awkward in that it is sandwiched between the kitchen, utility and living room and is relatively narrow. When we first moved in it was wallpapered in a textured flock wallpaper that I believe Lawrence Lwellyn Bowen may have designed during a fever. We said farewell to the flock on Friday evening before Christmas when, after a gin & tonic, I tore it off with my bare hands (sorry Lawrence).

When we first came to view the house this area had a table in but our existing dining table was too big and wide to fit in the space so we chose to put it at the end of the living room on the other side of the wall instead.  However, we quickly realised that without a table in the space the area just felt like a big corridor and it rapidly filled up with anything and everything that didn’t have a home somewhere else in the house.

The dining end of the kitchen when we came to view the house.

So before Christmas Mr Malmo got his drill out (not a euphemism) and knocked up an L shaped seating bench with built in storage so that we could create a second more casual dining area that would make the room feel less like a suburban branch of Big Yellow Storage.  

The storage bench construction in progress

It has built in storage

At the same time I threw myself on the mercy of Vintage Curator Interiors who I had sold my old, smaller dining table to before we moved.   That table held many happy and sentimental memories for me as it was the first piece of vintage furniture we bought for our old house and hosted many happy (and messy) family dinners.  I was therefore overjoyed when my puppy dog eyes and pleading tone combined to persuade Sam to let me have the table back.

The old table styled up for Autumn

However, as you can see from the pictures below, there is still lots of work left to do!  These are the 5 further changes I am going to be working on to fully convert it into a secondary relaxed dining space with Scandi Rustic style with a little bit of help from Neptune.

Transforming the wall

Whilst my wallpaper stripping frenzy before Christmas saw us saying sayonara to the flock it left us with an unpainted wall that looks like we are pioneering a new trend in seventies hippie squat chic.  My plan, to add some texture into the space, is to clad the wall in a pale rustic wood which, when we go ahead with our larger renovation, we can then reuse in the new utility room.

The wallpaper is gone but the blank wall left behind is ripe for a revamp.

These two images from the Neptune Pinterest page have been serious cladding inspiration for me and I am hoping the end result will have this lime washed, coastal inspired feel.

Painting the walls and floor

Because the space is relatively narrow and set back in the house one of my number one goals with the mini makeover is to brighten it up in order to make it feel more spacious.  We were fortunate in moving into a house where the previous owner liked neutral colours as much as me so the kitchen is currently painted in a gentle shade of taupe that is by no means offensive.  However to try and bounce some more light around I am going to take the walls whiter.

The floor is currently engineered wooden floor boards but they have quite an orangey appearance and a shiny varnish which currently makes the space feel darker.  In an ideal world I would probably sand them down and oil them but given the Corona crisis that is not really an option so my Plan B is to paint them an off white colour.  Mr Malmo has some serious reservations about this plan so I am hoping it doesn’t turn out to be an even worse idea than the Dirty Dancing sequel. 

The floors currently have quite an orange varnish that makes the space feel darker

I am hoping that by painted the walls and floors white it will significantly refresh the space. Picture from Pinterest source unknown

Updating the lighting 

Whilst I am hoping that freshening up the walls and painting the floor will make the space feel naturally much brighter I also want to change the current lighting to add a softer mood to the room in the evenings.  The only lighting we have at the moment is a small overhead light above the table that creates about as much hygge atmosphere as the floodlights at Wembley. I have plans to add in both some new overhead lighting and a couple of wall lights that will create a more balanced lighting scheme.  

Upgrading the seating 

Whilst the newly built storage bench has already provided an element of seating in the space we are still a few seats short of comfortably accommodating a family of 5.  As a makeshift seating solution we have been using a vintage Hungarian milking bench that usually lives in the hallway. However, whilst it may be the perfect size for a lone Hungarian milking maid, if any more than two people sit on it at one time it has an alarming tendency to topple over.  I am therefore hoping to add some more stable non-agricultural bench seating to the other side of the table and perhaps a statement chair in a darker colour at the end.

The rustic Hungarian milking bench that has been doubling up a seating in the dining at present

Removing the radiator cover and disguising the radiator 

On the wall opposite the table there is currently a large radiator cover that takes up almost half of the wall and protrudes out into the useable space which is already quite narrow.  I know some people prefer radiator covers to seeing the raw radiator but I am personally not a massive fan. I think, therefore, that I am going to take the cover off, pray for a not entirely Soviet looking radiator underneath and put a Scaffold shelf over the top to distract the eye away from it 

The radiator cover that currently cuts into what is quite a narrow space

Creating Crittall 

The final big change I want to make is to transform the glass doors that currently divide the kitchen from the living/dining space on the other side of the wall.  They are nice and wide and I think they are a perfect candidate for a crittal on the cheap style makeover. My DIY to date has not extended to woodwork, perhaps because my last brush with a jigsaw in 1992 nearly took my CDT teacher to the point of nervous collapse, but there is no time like the present to extend my home improvement skill set.   

The dividing doors I want to give a crittall makeover on a budget to. As you can see the dining table is currently doubling up as a table tennis table in lockdown

Ultimate crittal door inspiration from Plain English

Mine may not end up looking quite this chic but I am hoping that they add an industrial edge to the kitchen/diner

I hope you will enjoy following along with the revamp over the coming weeks, I know I am going to need your support and guidance when I am hacksaw in hand trying to craft myself that crittal!.

This Blog Post is Part of My Paid Partnership with Neptune

My moodboard for the makeover

A Weekend on the Suffolk Coast staying at The Dunns

Suffolk: land of my father’s birth and fictional birthplace of Harry Potter (true fact Potter fans). Inland it is dotted with lovely towns and villages featuring pastel coloured cottages with thatched roofs. But head to its easterly side and you will also find a stretches of glorious unspoilt coastline abutted by tasteful towns where you can queue up for gluten free fish and chips and wash them down with a craft ale or two like a proper DIFL.

Since discovering the charms of its coast 15 years ago we have been regular return visitors. I spent my 30th birthday eating chips on the beach in Aldeburgh, we celebrated my mum’s 60th birthday with a meal at the Crown & Castle in Orford and we returned (without my mum) for a dirty weekend in Woodbridge back in the days when that wasn’t shorthand for clearing out the garden shed.

Its charms are endless and I am always on the look out for great new self catering places to stay on this stretch of coast now that our days of holing up in hotel rooms are over. So I was delighted when Jodie got in touch to ask me if we would like to come and stay at The Dunns, a newly converted cedar clad Scandi style holiday home in the heart of Orford, one of my very favourite Suffolk spots.

The Dunns definitely has coastal kerb appeal

I love how they have brought the bungalow up to date with the use of timber cladding

Orford sits on the mouth of the river Ore and you reach it via a soul stirring drive through Rendlesham Forest. There is very definitely a sense of leaving the world behind behind you as you whizz past pine trees under huge open skies. Whilst Orford is a vision of cute cottage loveliness it also has some really cool contemporary houses as well which take full advantage of the amazing views out over Orford Ness Nature reserve.

Orford is full of pretty houses like these red brick beauties

The Dunns is one such home. It sits nestled in a great spot just yards from the castle and the quay and has been newly renovated by Jodie and her family to create a light, bright and spacious holiday home. Downstairs it has a brilliant open plan layout with a newly installed navy kitchen which leads out to a courtyard at the back and a great garden at the front.

The open plan kitchen/dining space

The super well equipped kitchen

A tap like this is on my kitchen renovation wish list

I liked how Jodie had mixed some vintage pieces into the Scandi inspired decor

There are two bedrooms at The Dunns, a double and a twin that can also be a double. The twin is on the groundfloor with an ensuite shower room whilst the double is upstairs in the dormer with its own balcony, stunning floor to ceiling windows and access to an eaves bathroom with the kind of roll top bath you will struggle to get out of.

The master bedroom upstairs with access out to a balcony

I loved the floor to ceiling windows and the views out to Orford Ness

There were so many lovely touches with plentiful interiors books to read in bed

The bathroom in the eaves. I loved the cement tiles they had used in the shower

The view from the bathroom through to the bedroom

The twin bedroom downstairs

With its own ensuite and some more show stopping tiles

Back downstairs, the living room has a lovely squishy corner sofa and woodburner for days when the sun isn’t shining so bright. There is also a sideboard stocked with board games to keep everyone amused as well as a Smart TV.

The squishiest of sofas

As you can see it wasn’t long before everyone had made themselves at home!

A cosy corner by the woodburner

The interiors have been kept simple and Scandi so were right up my street but what really sets The Dunns apart is the level of thought and detail that Jodie has put into making this a truly comfortable and cosseting hideaway. There are stacks of gorgeous interiors books that you will want to sit down with in front of the fire, back issues of Simple Things mags to stay in bed on a Sunday with, Plum & Ashby bath products, lots of board games (and most thrillingly of all for my 3 year old a set of Power Ranger figures) and then also wine, chocolate and biscuits from local producers awaiting you on arrival.

Arriving to find the new Modern Rustic was bliss

I loved this mural in the hallway

There is an honesty shop in the house offering a range of lovely locally made interiors items

So you can stock up on all your favourite Plum & Ashby products whilst you are there

Things to Eat, See and Do in Orford

If you can tear yourself away from the house Orford itself has enough on its own to keep you happily amused for a whole weekend. Mere metres from the Dunns is the legendary Pump Street Bakery. If there is a purer slice of pastry pleasure on this earth than their Rhubarb and Custard donuts I am yet to find it. If you want to enjoy breakfast in the cafe then make sure you get there are soon as it opens (if not a little before) as there are basically only 4 tables and lots of competition for them! Pump Street also now have a shop in the same square if you wanted to take some chocolate goodies home with you.

People come from miles around to get one of the Pump Street Bakery donuts

They also have a chocolate shop just across the square

Inside the small but perfectly formed cafe. Be sure to get there early if you want a table!

Donut heaven

Parking our posteriors outside Pump Street Bakery

Walking away from the main square you have the choice of going right to the castle or left to the Quay. The castle is defo not of Windsor sized proportions but our boys loved rampaging around its walls and ground playing hide and seek. If you have worked up a hunger from hide and seek you can call into the Crown & Castle (formerly owned by Ruth Watson of the Hotel Inspector) for a lovely meal or a drink by their fire. Or back on the market square you can enjoy a truly locally sourced meal at the Butley Orford Oysterage. Pinneys who own the restuarant (and a shop down on the Quay) have been growing and smoking Oysters in nearby Butley Creek since the 1950s.

Orford castle: small but perfectly formed

The Crown & Castle is definitely worth a visit for lunch or dinner

If you are not too full of seafood or sausage and mash head down to the Quay to walk it off at Orford Ness a ten mile shingle spit with marsh, lagoons and waterways. If you prefer to gentle cruise to a stomp through marshland there are daily river cruises from which you can take in all of the same scenery. Sit on the quay at sunset and you will see fishing boats coming back in as the light catches the water and seagulls swoop over head. You can warm up in the nearby Jolly Sailors, one of many excellent Adnam’s brewery pubs on this stretch of coast.

The Quay was my coastal heaven with faded black clad huts

The perfect place for a pint after a wintery walk in Orford Ness

Things to Eat, See and Do on the Suffolk Coast

If you can tear yourself away from Orford there are numerous other lovely spots to explore, almost too many to mention in one blog post! Orford is within very easy reach of all the hotspots on this coast. Head slightly inland to Snape Maltings to enjoy a wonderful combination of music concerts, galleries, cafes and shops set in amongst an expanse of reeds and water in a gorgeous old red brick building. Further up the coast from Orford the delights of Aldeburgh await with its bustling high street and two fish and chip shops so good that they have people queuing around the street for their cod and chips. Our favourite is the Aldeburgh Fish and Chip Shop . Go and eat them sitting on the expanse of pebbly beach and if you have room for dessert be sure to head to the Two Magpies Bakery . Keeping heading up the coast from Aldeburgh and you also have great beaches to chose from at Thopeness, Dunwich and Walberswick not to mention all the delights of Southwold to the south.

If you can tear yourself away from the beach the nearest town to Orford is Woodbridge, set on the river and full of lovely old buildings, shops and cafes. Our favourite is Honey & Harvey. Shops to visit include Vanil, New Street Market and Matisa Market for brilliant secondhand clothes. And it would be remiss of me not to mention the Unruly Pig on the way to Woodbridge which is the best Sunday lunch I have ever eaten. If you have time and room in your belly after that list of recommendations then head to Darsham Nurseries for a lovely lunch and spot of plant shopping. There is also a great antiques/vintage place in which to have a rummage just over the road.

The cafe at Darsham Nurseries

Writing this list of recommendations has just completely wet my appetite to book a return stay to The Dunns this Summer. Thank you so much to Jodie for hosting us for the weekend. The Dunns is available to book through Best Of Suffolk. Click here for the link and here for The Dunns Instagram.

How I Revamped My Kitchen For Less Than £150

Girth: not a filter term you can enter into Rightmove but it was one of the main things we were looking for when we searched for a new house 9 months ago. Our old house was lovely in many ways but it was relatively narrow with little scope to add extra width (especially when it came to the kitchen). As soon as I saw the floor plan for our new house I knew it was the one because it had the girth that would allow me to have the spacious open plan kitchen/diner of my dreams. It is almost double the width of the old house but, in its current configuration, the space is divided up in a way that does not make the most of the space.

Our old kitchen was a lovely space but it was narrow

The desire for a wider kitchen/diner was one of the motivations for our move

We have submitted a planning application to extend and reconfigure the space as well as to add a loft conversion. However, with a less than Roman Abramovitch sized bank balance, we are not currently sure how much of the work we will be able to complete in one go so it may be a while before I get the kitchen of my dreams. The kitchen we inherited was in OK condition and immaculately clean but it is just a little bit dated. So, before Christmas, I decided to embark on a mini makeover to #MakeItMoreMalmo in the short term. Because we are going to be doing a bigger renovation in the not so distant future I couldn’t justify ripping out and replacing things like the tiles and cupboard doors. My challenge, therefore, was to achieve the Scandi/Industrial look I was after by pimping what was already there.

The kitchen we inherited was clean and relatively light and bright it just felt a little bit dated.

I knew there were some simple inexpensive changes I could make that would bring the space instantly more up to date. Sphincter tighteningly for Mr Malmo, they mainly involved me, left over tins of paint from the garage and his electric screwdriver. The key areas I wanted to tackle were the tiles, the cupboards and the handles.

Adding in my own possessions helped to make it feel a little more homely to start with

But I was itching to do something with the wall cupboards

For the tiles I decided the simplest course of action was to paint them white and use a grout pen to give them a refresh. Now an experienced DIY blogger would no doubt have carefully researched and purchased both primer and specialist tile paint before embarking on this job. However, #SlapdashScandiHandyAndy bought a tin of ordinary white emulsion and a grout pen off Amazon and cracked on with the job after a couple of glasses of wine one Friday night.

Can of white paint at the ready I made a start on transforming the tiles

Considering that my technique involved individually painting the tiles and filling in the corners using the brush from a child’s face paint set I would say it is a miracle I finished the job before 2022. Even more miraculous given said painting technique is the fact that the end result actually looks half decent (especially if you are squinting and have consumed four strong gin and tonics). It may not be the perfect paint job but it has instantly freshened up the kitchen and given it a much more contemporary feel.

If I was to do the job again I would definitely adopt a different painting technique though, using a roller to paint the tiles on mass rather than painting each one by hand!

As long as you squint the paint job looks pretty good!

The newly painted tiles create the perfect backdrop for a bit of nonchalant recipe book reading

The second change I made was to #GoToWarOnTheWallCabinets. I know a lot of people like their crocks behind closed doors but I have always been more of an open shelf kind of girl. I like to wear my mugs on my sleeve. So from the moment we moved in I had the wall cupboards on my hygge hitlist. My ideal scenario was to take them off the wall completely and replace them with open scaffold board shelves. But I feared that might end in us having to replaster the walls which was definitely not on my budget kitchen makeover plan. So the compromise option was to take the doors off and paint the cupboards.

#SlapdashScandiHandyAndy in action

Even just one cupboard in I knew the decision to take the doors off was the right one

Usually I would rely on Mr Malmo for any job requiring a Black & Decker but in a bid to prove you don’t need a dick to (screw) drive I tackled this task myself. Having removed the doors I painted the cabinets in Portland Stone from Little Greene (I bought a 2L pot and had some left over by the end). No replastering was required and it means that my impressive/excessive mug collection is now back on display.

Wearing my mugs on my shelf

I love the interest, texture and (muted) colour they add to the kitchen

Is 79 an excessive amount of mugs to own (asking for a friend)

The next decision was what to do about the doors on the lower cabinets. I initially thought of also painting them in Portland Stone but when I tested the colour out on one of the cupboards it just felt a bit meh so I decided to dip a toe in the dark side instead (perhaps also inspired by the fact that I had 3/4 of a tin of leftover Railings paint in the garage). Whilst the upper cupboards were easy to paint the bottom ones were what can only be described as a complete bastard! Because I had tested out a few different shades on them before plumping for Railings it felt like Farrow & Ball could sense the presence of its Middle Class paint competitor and was determined not to be on the same cupboard as them! I should probably have stopped, gone and bought some primer and tackled the task afresh but that level of patience/preparation is not my DIY style.

If you don’t zoom in too close the paint job really doesn’t look too bad despite my epic struggle to get the paint to stay on the cupboard

However despite my struggles, as long as you don’t zoom in too close, I think it has turned out OK in the end. I don’t think I will ultimately chose to have a dark kitchen but, for now, I am definitely enjoying having a temporary flirt with dark side. With the (bad) paint job complete, the final finishing touch in my budget kitchen makeover was to update the cabinet handles (a couple of which had actually fallen off). I initially thought about going for a copper bar style handle but, echoing my mum’s thoughts about the casting of Timothy Chalamet as Laurie in the Little Women reboot, I decided that they were too modern for the part.

A sneak peek of one of the aged brass handles I opted for

Instead I tracked down some aged brass handles from More Handles which were the princely sum of £6 per handle meaning the handle refresh came in at approximately £80. I have had pedicures that cost more (foot maintenance is an expensive business in London!). They really helped pull the makeover together and were super easy to fit.

I chose industrial style aged brass handles from More Handles

They were very easy to install and I love how they have changed the look of the cupboards

So what do you think of the end result? I added up what I spent on the white emulsion, grout pen, Portland Stone paint and the handles and it came to the princely sum of approximately £130. With the exception of the handles I have just worked with what was already there and I think it has really underlined to me that creating a space that feels contemporary and cosy does not have to cost the earth.

A cosy, homely kitchen that feels like Malmo for £130

This is my favourite corner to hang out looking like William Shakespeare off to do a spot of DIY

The one change that I didn’t make which I am now slightly regretting is painting the floor. The flooring is engineered wood but the boards have a quite shiny/orangey varnish finish and I have an urge to paint them an off white to take the edge off them. What do you think? Get my paint brush back out or leave well alone? Perhaps that will be one of the changes I make in Malmo’s Mini Kitchen Makeover Part II as there is actually another part of the kitchen that I haven’t shown you yet! I can’t wait to share my plans for the rest of the space with you soon and maybe this time I will invest in some primer…..

The shiny floorboards that I have an urge to paint off white. Please ignore the fact that I should have hoovered before I took this photo!

New kitchen and a new fringe - only one of them now looks like I borrowed it from Rod Stewart

A full frontal of the newly revamped kitchen

Taking a break from painting but I am already plotting Part II of the kitchen makeover

Best Places to Stay UK: Carbis Bay Hotel, Cornwall

With February half tem just around the corner and Easter just a couple of Creme Eggs behind it I thought it was high time I featured a Cornish gem on the blog that would make a perfect break for either holiday. If you have been following me for a while you will know that I am a big fan of a Cornish staycation. Not even the memories of a nightmarish 14 hour return journey after a caravan breakdown on the A40 can dim my love for this corner of the UK.

Miniest Malmo has inherited my love of Cornwall

We have spent many a happy holiday in a clotted cream coma on the Cornish coast. However, we have always tended to stay on the Roseland Penninsula or up on the North coast rather than heading west. So when we were invited to stay at the Carbis Bay Hotel, a mere hop and a scone away from St Ives, we eagerly accepted!

The heavenly setting of the Carbis Bay Hotel

The hotel is majestically perched just above its very own blue flag beach (the only hotel in the UK to have one!) with wide sweeps of soft golden sand stretching out to sea. It feels like you have discovered the best beach in Cornwall and no-one is in any hurry to tell other people the secret! The main hotel is in a sprawling white washed Victorian villa. However, we were invited to test out one of the newly added Scandinavian style self catering beach lodges that are nestled into hill below the hotel and which open directly out on to the beach.

The Beach Lodges at the Carbis Bay Hotel which front directly on to the beach

The front door of the beach lodges is actuallly at the top of the house (so far so Hobbit) with a roof terrace that features a large hot tub in which you can soak whilst taking in spectacular sea views. My youngest son loved this feature so much that he broke down in tears on the M4 when we had to break it to him that we had not been able to pack the 10ft by 8ft hot tub into the back of our already crammed full estate car to bring home with us.

Talk about a hot tub with a view!

As you can see we would have struggle to pop this in the boot of the car to bring home

The lodge we stayed in had three generous double bedrooms (all en suite) with two enjoying balcony’s and views out over the beach. To the boys delight they all have flat screen TVs and to my delight the master bedroom came with a cast iron slipper bath.

The cast iron slipper bath in the master suite

On the ground floor, at beach level, is a large open plan kitchen/dining/living space with huge sliding glass doors which lead out to a garden with sun loungers from which it is then mere steps to the beach. We visited in October so it was not exactly bikinis on the beach weather (or in my case sensible swimsuits on the sand) but it was still crisp and sunny and the boys absolutely loved the freedom of being able to run in and out between the lodge and the beach.

The open plan kitchen is super well stocked

There were lots of lovely touches like a lemon drizzle cake awaiting us

The kitchen is open plan with the living space

The views from the bedroom

When it got too chilly, even by their Lad-Labrador standards, we retreated back inside, turned the fire on and hunkered down on the squishiest of sofas to watch a film. The fireplace at the Beach Lodge was actually major inspo for our recently completed contemporary fireplace revamp (click here to read more about that). I loved how they had clad it in white washed rough sawn wood and the way the flames spring, James Bond style, up from the gas fire.

The contemporary fireplace at the beach lodge that inspired our own

I loved the curvy concrete staircase that ran through the middle of the house

The beauty of the Beach Lodges is that whilst they are set up for self catering but you also have the option to tap into the two great restaurants on site as well ( for days when your inner Delia Smith is feeling a bit down trodden). For casual dining that works well for those with kids we loved the relaxed surfy vibes of the Beach Club restaurant which serves up Mediterranean food with an amazing view. If you fancy a treat then the hotel also offers fine dining at its Sands restaurant. We didn’t brave that one just because we didn’t think the other diners would appreciate their Michelin dining experience being accompanied by the soundtrack of the number of episodes of Paw Patrol that would be required to keep my three year old in his seat for more than 30 mins.

The Beach Club restaurant was right up my modern rustic street

If you are feeling even lazier you can actually also order food from either restaurant to be delivered to your lodge instead. Breakfasts are served in the conservatory restaurant up at the hotel (where you can also enjoy afternoon tea) and received the thumbs up from Mr Malmo who could add breakfast buffet connoisseur to list of his hobbies behind running and watching Sheffield Wednesday tussle with annual relegation.

The terrace outside the conservatory restaurant

For the warmer months when you can venture outside without a coat without fear of losing a nipple to frostbite the hotel also has an outdoor swimming pool and year round non nipple risking relaxation is on offer at the C Side Spa.

We could easily have spent the whole weekend just happily flitting between the lodge, the beach and the hotel but a five minute drive or brisk walk along the coastal path brings you to St Ives, brimming with nice shops and places to eat, and, admittedly, in the height of Summer a lot of pensioners on coach trips searching for scones and souvenirs. To escape the crowds, if you carry on walking around the corner from the main bay you will come to Porthmeor beach. It is less crowded and has much more of a surf than silver haired feel to it.

Just one of the many lovely shops in St Ives

We loved getting lunch at the Porthmeor Beach Cafe, nestled into one of their (heated) outdoor booths and watching the surfers attempting to ride the Cornish waves whilst we ate a delicious lunch. We then tootled up to the Tate St Ives which is just minutes away from the beach. We didn’t visit owing tothe combo of our three year old and ceramics being a bad one, but the Barbara Hepworth Museum is also in St Ives and supposed to be beautiful.

The view from the outdoor terrace at Porthmeor Beach Cafe

We reluctantly left the beach lodge and Carbis Bay behind at the end of our stay leaving well truly converted to this corner of Cornwall. The cheapest way to stay at the Carbis Bay Hotel is by booking a stay in the main hotel, where the decor is nice but not as contemporary/Scandi as the lodges. Out of season at this time of year they often have good offers running as well . If you have a bigger budget or are looking somewhere for a special treat or celebration with family then I cannot recommend the beach lodges enough, they really are the most special place to stay. We are dreaming of one day returning and spending Christmas there as waking up on Christmas morning and walking straight out onto the beach would take some beating.

We would love to return to those stools one day

Goodbye Cornwall until next time

This February half term we will actually be Norway rather than Cornwall bound having booked 4 nights away in Oslo. I lasted visited 15 years ago for 2 night so if anyone has been more recently or is a Norwegian native then I would love all your tips!

Our stay at the Carbis Bay Hotel was kindly gifted to us

Renovation Diary: Our Living Room and Fireplace Revamp

I have lived in period properties pretty much all my life bar a brief stay in a soviet style 1960s halls of residence during my university years. Think less the gleaming spires of Cambridge and more solid concrete Stalin. However bar that brutalist blip I have always been #TeamEdwardianVictorian. The first flat we bought was Edwardian as was our first house. But three kids in when we looking for more space it quickly became apparent that sizing up to a bigger period property in our area would require £500K that we didn’t have (unless there is a lot more loose change down the back of the sofa than I thought). So what we have ended up buying is a 1930 house which offers us the extra space we were after but the compromise is it doesn’t have much in terms of period features.

The Edwardian house and all it’s period features that we have left behind

The living room is a case in point. It is a nice wide room with high ceilings neutrally decorated by the previous owner so it feels light and spacious but we have little in the way of attractive cornicing or decorative ceiling roses and no grand fireplace crafted from marble from Roman times. When thinking about how to decorate it to make it a bit more Malmo I had two choices: try and inject some period features into it or go in a totally different direction and try a more contemporary look. My inner Edwardian was shocked to find that I actually leaned towards the latter rather than the former option. There were a couple of key changes I had in mind to take it Twenty First Century. This first was a fairly straight forward sand and oil of the floors to take them down from David Dickinson Orange to Dinesen Doppelgangers.

The living room as it was when we came to view the house. A nice big room but not much in the way of period features

Overhauling the fireplace and taking the floors down to a more Scandi shade were two of the main things I wanted to tackle

Introducing our own furniture and a few artfully displayed magazines helped to make it feel more us in the short term

The second change was much more likely to set off Mr Malmo’s “No Fucking Way” alarm because it involved ripping out the existing gas fire, building out the chimney breast, creating two benches either side in the alcoves and then micro cementing the lot. My inspo for this design decision came via Pinterest as well as from a couple of my fave American DIY accounts.

With Tony (Vintage Curator Interiors amazing builder) and, incredibly, Mr Malmo on board we got to work at the end of November. The first step was to cap off and remove the old gas fire and fireplace surround and to then build out the chimney breast by approx 25cm.

Progress by the end of day one: the old fireplace surround is no more and the gas fire is on its way to join it

With the old fireplace gone the next step was to build the chimney breast out 25cm and add benches in the alcoves either side.

Once the structure was extended the next step was to clad it in fire proof plaster board which would then be micro cemented.

I want to be able to give you a detailed description of how this was all done but by Tony’s own admission the young lad he had labouring for him was about as cheerful as Nora Batty with PMT and favoured communication by grunt instead of speech so I mainly stayed out his way instead of taking progress pics. The biggest and messiest part of the job was definitely the micro cementing which required three layers to be applied and then sanded down with a tool that made a kind of high pitch whiny noise not unlike a whippet that has got its tail trapped in a door. You then apply a top coat of oil to seal it. Tony bought the microcement from Imperia Italia in North London and if you fancied having a go with it in your own home they run courses showing you how to do it.

Imperia Italia have a range of different shades to chose from but I went for a natural very pale grey

This was the microcement after 2 coats. It looked quite shiny at that point so I was feeling a little bit nervous!

Luckily after a third sanding down it lost that sheen and started to look just how I had pictured it

I am fairly sure that after 3 solid days of this process neither my neighbours nor Tony ever wanted to talk to me again but the end results are 100% worth it. Although a lot of the inspo pics I liked had a dark grey finish I was worried that might be a bit imposing given the height and width of the chimney breast so I opted for a much lighter shade of grey. I couldn’t be happier with how it looks against the newly pale wooden floor which we (well Tony) sanded down and then oiled with Bona wax in Frosted.

This is the fireplace from Pinterest that was one of my inspo pics but I decided that this shade of grey might be too imposing

I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether to go for a freestanding or inset wood burner. All of the inspo pics I was drawn to had an inset one but I was worried that given we had a fairly large, wide chimney breast that an inset one might look lost and more like a wayward microwave oven than a stove. However my mind was made up to go for one as soon as I clapped eyes on the Arada i750 Series stove. Arada are a small British Company established in 1966 who manufacture all of their stoves in Dorset. It has really crisp contemporary lines unlike a lot of other ones I had seen and crucially at 750mm wide it was big enough not to feel lost in the space. They also have a freestanding woodburner in the same range which has the same clean contemporary good looks! It is also DEFRA exempt meaning it can be used in smoke control areas. Tony created a rendered opening ready for its installation and then we used Essex Stoves & Chimneys to install it based on the recommendation of one of our old neighbours.

John from Essex Stoves & Chimneys on the day of installation

Waiting for the flue to come down the chimney to connect to the i750 Arada Stove

They were very reasonable as well as professional with the other quotes we had from companies ranging from £1500 to £3000. They do installation across London and the home counties. One of the largest costs is actually having to hire the scaffold to enable them to get up on the roof. The most dramatic/instagrammable part of the installation is putting the flue down to connect up to the stove.

John waiting to feed the flue pipe up to the guys on the roof

In it goes! Did I mention before that the new house has a balcony?!

I was slightly alarmed to discover the there was an axe hiding in the chimney when they came to install the flue, hoping that we don’t have the ghost of a serial killing Santa lurking up there!

With that part done you need to ensure you have a suitable air vent in the relevant room and a carbon monoxide alarm. There are also certain regulations that you need to meet relating to the type and size of hearth you have. I had initially thought I might go for a patterned tile on the hearth (I know crazy times) but in the end I decided to go for a concrete tile to keep things natural and earthy and to make the hearth blend with the floor as much as possible.

The big reveal!! Stove in, log piles stocked and benches and chimney breast fully microcemented! What do you think??

I couldn’t be happier with the finish and colour of the microcement and I love the contrast of having the black i750 Arada Stove (although you can also chose from a range of other colour finishes)

The oversized Espen rattan pendant was gifted as part of a previous collaboration with Cox & Cox and works perfectly with the high ceilings we have in this room

One very happy Malmo in my new favourite spot in the house. It was always my plan that this bench would be wide enough to sit on and I opted for 2 rather than 3 shelves in the alcoves to allow the head room to sit in there.

I originally envisaged the stove being flush with the chimney breast but building it out meant that wasn’t possible but I actually now quite like the fact that it sits back slightly

Tony sanded down some old scaffold boards and installed shelves wither side of the chimney breast for me

The room is by no means finished. We need to poly fill and paint the walls, chose a rug that fits the space better ( I have temporarily borrowed this jute one from another part of the house), sort out pictures on the walls, find wall/floor lighting and have about a 17 hour faff with the contents of the new reclaimed scaffold shelves. But I am determined not to rush finishing off the room and to just enjoy the process of tying it all together. The changes we have made have already created a room that we absolutely love. In fact I love it so much that it has taken me pretty much all of January to tear myself away from my spot in front of that fire to pick up a pen and write this blog!!

The rustic wreath and garlands in the alcoves were the work of Your London Florist and were actually meant for Christmas but I love them so much I have kept them up past the 6th of January!

Adding new curtains in Kendra Linen from Hilarys (gifted) has helped to really soften the room

Also for someone who never made it beyond Duke of Edinburgh Bronze (I blame a wet weekend camping in the Brecon Beacons) the stove is stunningly easy to light and keep going. In a reverse of everything watching Bear Grylls has taught me, you actually light a fire in this stove from the top not the bottom. So you lay the logs down first then arrange the kindling on top rather than the other way round. Once you have lit it to get the blaze going you push the air vent levers on the bottom over to the right and then switch them back left again once you have the kind of roaring blaze Ray Mears would be proud of.

Rustic Ray Mears demonstrating her fire laying technique

It is super easy to use and the ash that accumulates after each fire collects on a tray at the bottom of the stove that you can then easily pull out and empty. I just use the hand hoover to clear up any ash that falls onto the hearth when I am cleaning the fire out.

I am toying with maybe getting a hanging chair to go in this window and the switching this chair to the other side of the room. What do you think?

The jute rug is also a temporary loan from a different room in the how. I would like something thinner in the longer term

I love the contrast between the pale wooden floors and the logs which we get from Thompsons at Crews Hill in case anyone else is North London/Hertfordshire based and looking for wood!!

Here is where you will find me for the rest of the Winter

Pom Pom slippers on

In the cosiest corner in the house

The i750 Series Stove was gifted to me by Arada Stoves. I also received a very small PR discount from Essex Stoves & Chimneys on the cost of the installation. The curtains were gifted by Hilarys and the Pendant light was part of a previous paid collaboration with Cox & Cox