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Mother's Always Right

~ If not, ask Gran

Mother's Always Right

Category Archives: Home

A snoop around the baby’s nursery

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Molly in Baby and toddler products, Home, Pregnancy, Style

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

interiors, kids interiors, mint yellow and grey, nursery decor

Baby's nursery mint and yellow

One of the most exciting things about preparing for this baby has, for me, been decorating the baby’s bedroom. When I was pregnant with Frog we lived in a rented cottage, so couldn’t splash paint on the walls or hang pictures. Although she had a lovely bedroom it wasn’t necessarily the bedroom she’d have had if we’d owned the house.

One of my freelance gigs is writing the interiors pages for a magazine. It means that I spend a lot of time oggling beautiful blogs, interiors magazines and nosing round various shops to look at the latest trends, be inspired by new colour pairings and generally make long lists of things I want to do in my own home (much to the dismay of my husband).

So you can understand why I was so excited about decorating the nursery. Continue reading »

My grandmother’s chair

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Molly in Family, Home, Pregnancy, Style

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

family, Pregnancy, upcycled furniture

There’s one piece of furniture I always wanted but never had as a new mum last time around: a nursing chair. Telling myself it was a waste of money as it wouldn’t be used long enough to warrant the expense, I never splashed out on one. Instead, I’d sit perched on the edge of the bed, or on the futon in Frog’s bedroom, feeding her in the middle of the night, trying not to get back ache.

This time around I was determined to have a chair in our new baby’s nursery. Even though the baby won’t be sleeping in there at first, I wanted a quiet place where I could do feeds without having to find a corner of a bed to perch on.

The thing is, I’m not a huge fan of new furniture. I like pieces that tell a story and, if it’s personal, then all the better. All of the nursing chairs I’d looked at online seemed ludicrously expensive or just not to my taste – too bulky, too mumsy, too ugly, or just not quite right. I know, I’m possibly a little too fussy.

And then I remembered my grandmother’s chair. My beautiful Nana died earlier this year. She was funny, kind and the best baker I’ve ever known. Time spent at Nana’s house in Derby was always fun. When my Dada was alive they would bicker with each other and he would make us all laugh. He’d tell Nana off for the occasional swear (“Ooh you naughty bugger!”) and she’d scold him back for having the telly on too loud.  Continue reading »

One year in Devon or, “Things turn out OK in the end”

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Molly in Family, Home

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

buying houses, Devon, family

Living in Devon

One of my biggest regrets of the past three years is that I wasted so much time worrying. I was a worrier with a capital W. I worried about where we were going to live, what we were going to do for work and what school my daughter would eventually go to. I worried about all sorts of things but, mainly, I worried about the future.

I am a planner you see. I wish I wasn’t but I am. So there you go. This means that, although we lived in a pretty little cottage in a lovely village in Berkshire not far from London, I couldn’t relax. It was all so… temporary.

We rented our house and lived on a rolling short term tenancy contract. Buying a house was on our “To Do” list, not because we aspired to owning property particularly but because tenants in this country hardly have any rights or security and, after 6 years renting we’d had enough. We wanted to put down roots properly but knew the chances of affording anything bigger than a shoebox in that part of the UK was nigh on impossible. Continue reading »

The living room revamp and a sneak at my shelfie

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Molly in Home, Style

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

home decor, interiors

living room redecoration

This is the first time in forever we’ve had a room that we can say, hand on heart, is completely “ours”.

Before moving into this house we’d always lived in rented places – a flat, then a cottage, then a little house while we went through the process of buying where we are now. Our rooms were filled with second-hand furniture given to us by kind relatives, because all our money went on saving for a huge mortgage deposit.

Our homes were loved and comfortable but not necessarily entirely of our own choosing. We couldn’t paint the walls or look for beautiful furniture to upcycle, because we didn’t know where we were going to end up and didn’t own the houses we lived in. If we ended up in a tent somewhere, that huge sofa purchase would have seemed like a hasty purchase, you know?  Continue reading »

The corners of my kitchen

24 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by Molly in Home, Style

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

homes, interiors

Kitchen corners

I’m going to admit something here: I love a good nosey around other people’s spaces.

It’s true. That picture you put on Instagram? Secretly I’m peaking past the foreground of your photo, trying to work out what design your wallpaper is and if that table is an Annie Sloan upcycle number. Sorry.

I put it largely down to my interiors obsession of late. I say “of late”, I mean “of the past two years”.

Ever since we decided to save up to buy our own place I’ve had big plans. They mainly involve pinning ideas on Pinterest, reading interiors magazines and blogs and deciding which trends I like (chevron – tick) and which will be a passing craze not worth bothering about (clashing florals – bleurgh). Continue reading »

Lessons I learned while doing DIY with my husband

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by Molly in Home, Relationships

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

DIY, home improvements, marriage

DIY

Last week proved to be the biggest test to my marriage yet. Forget childbirth, newborn babies and living without a dishwasher. This was far, far worse.

We battled through it and came out the other side, I’d like to say stronger than before, but that’s debatable. Here are the lessons I learned during the testing period that was our first ever major DIY project together. A period covering four days of blood, sweat and tears. Literally.

1) My husband thinks I am like my mother Continue reading »

The intelligent way to heat your home

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Molly in Home

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

central heating

OK, I’m going to be honest. Central heating isn’t top of my list of fun house things to talk about. I’d much rather get stuck into a new upcycle project or plan what colour of paint is going to go in my hallway. But, aside from running water and my kettle, central heating is probably the biggest thing I’d miss if we didn’t have it in our home.

We live in a Victorian terraced cottage. It has high ceilings and the windows at the back of our house are the originals, without double-glazing. It means the house can get drafty. Lighting the log-burner downstairs helps, but it can take a while for the place to heat up on a really cold day. Which is where the Hive from British Gas comes in.

Victorian windows

Continue reading »

On becoming obsessed with interiors

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Molly in Home

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

interiors

We’ve been in our new home now for just over two months. The boxes are all unpacked and, as the weather improves, we’re starting to plan a few DIY projects. I have eight years of pent up DIY frustration at living in rented houses, so it’s all I can do to stop myself running amok with a drill and a hammer.

First on the list is a new sofa for the living room. I love the mixture of old and new in a room, with vintage or pre-loved pieces alongside newer furniture. This suits my limited budget too, which is handy. I’ve got my eye on a grey or charcoal sofa to go with a new black and white striped rug, which would look lovely against my grandma’s old Danish teak sideboard. A recent trip to the home department at John Lewis has had me salivating over much of their furniture. The Barbican Sofa in Charcoal is my absolute favourite… Continue reading »

How to teach your kids about renewable energy

21 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Molly in Home

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

renewable energy

windmills

(Photo Credit: germanborrillo via Compfight cc)

Today I’m welcoming Ovo Energy to the blog, for some brilliant tips on teaching children about renewable energy.

Over to Ovo….

Your children are growing up in a very different world to the one in which you were a child. They use computers as often as you used a pen or a pencil, their toys or entertainment are more likely to require a power source than yours did and they see solar panels and wind turbines on a regular basis. When they are adults, the world will have changed even more and they will be the ones who have to continue shaping it; this is why it’s important to help them to develop a sense of the importance of having a responsible attitude towards energy use. Continue reading »

Worth the wait

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Molly in Home

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

house, interiors, new home

Houses are funny things. Until recently, I had no idea how much impact the space I lived in had on my mood. It’s now clear to me that for the past 18 months much of the stress I’ve felt has been to do with feeling unsettled and frustrated with where we lived.

Although we loved the village and the cosy cottage we lived in for three years in Berkshire, by the time we left we were ready to move. It had become too small, cramped, the low ceilings a constant source of irritation for my 6’5″ tall husband. Continue reading »

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