Home picks and the Wrenovation survey

I love interior design. I love writing about it, reading about it and doing it. It’s not something I write about a huge amount here as this has always been my “mum place”, but since I recently accepted that running two blogs just isn’t realistic for me at the moment, I’ve decided to post a bit more about interiors here. So, in between the posts about babies, kids and mum life, you can expect to find more posts about my latest interiors projects too.

I’ve always had pretty clear ideas about how I want the spaces that I live in to look. When I was ten years old my favourite TV show was Changing Rooms (true fact). I can clearly remember redesigning my bedroom aged nine and then again aged 14. I had a lilac and silver colour scheme and my dad made me a bespoke wardrobe complete with lilac muslin and spray-painted silver wood. I also had one of those inflatable armchairs that won me extra cool points with my mates.

Later, at university, I spent four days of the summer holidays painting the bedroom I was about to move into in a shared rented house, because I just couldn’t bare to live in a room that “had no character”. I even made my own tealight candle holders to go with my new room, because I couldn’t afford to buy new ones but couldn’t face living in a room that had no candles.

Now, at the age of 31, I can finally let my love of interiors run free. 16 months ago we moved from a rented house into our first home with a mortgage. Within a month we were ripping up carpets, sanding down floorboards and painting walls. Wren Kitchens have recently published a huge survey into the nation’s decorating habits which make for fascinating reading – especially if, like me, you’re into home improvement. One of the findings that struck me was that only 26% of home-owners have had arguments over decorating decisions because of a clash of styles. I thought the figure would be much higher.

Luckily for me, the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine is happy to let me take the lead when it comes to decorating decisions. Because I do quite a bit of interiors writing for work, I already have a whole load of ideas before we’ve even decided to decorate a room. He’s less bothered about spending hours on Pinterest or reading blogs and beautiful interiors magazines. And he has no interest in trawling through curio shops and searching eBay for the perfect upcycle candidate. Perhaps that’s why we rarely disagree on our decor decisions – he simply can’t be bothered!

I recently wrote a feature for a special edition of OK! Magazine (OK! Mum and Baby) focusing on gender neutral nursery ideas. In my search for products to include in the feature I came across lots of lovely ideas, not only for baby bedrooms but for other rooms in the house too.

I’ve stolen the monochrome colour palette for our new bathroom, which we’re in the process of redecorating. We’re going with bright white walls and one dark grey wall around the window. Floating white shelves, monochrome accessories (including some gorgeous Ferm Living and House Doctor picks) will also be in there. And, perhaps, a pineapple (currently a bit obsessed with pineapple accessories, copper tones, box frame shelves and circular mirrors – see the top pic as evidence of this).

The thing is, the bathroom’s not even finished and I’ve already got plans to update Frog’s bedroom and our own. This is probably because the one room I really want to get cracking on is the kitchen, but we don’t have the budget yet for the kind of changes we’d like to make. According to the Home Wrenovation survey 48% of homeowners give more attention to their kitchen than any other room. This doesn’t really surprise me, as the kitchen is the hub of any home so it follows that you’d want it to look good. For us, the changes we want in the kitchen involve new cabinets, a new floor and taking out an internal window to create a breakfast bar once our girls are older. These are all big changes that cost big money though, so for now we’ll have to live with the dark cabinets and questionable flooring.

You can hear more about the survey over on the Wren YouTube channel.

Tell me, have you ever argued with your partner over decorating? And which room are you most proud of in your house? 

***

Thanks to Wren Kitchens for working with me this post. For more information about how I work with brands check out my Work With Me page.