Real homes: my gloomy hallway

The dingy hallway has never reached its potential.

First the shiny lime green highlights, bequeathed by the previous owners got whitewashed – but with such limited light in the area, it just looked grubby, particularly one side of the space – and so efforts have since been focused on that one wall.






The new front door, with glass panels was meant to help. But still the troublesome hall wall

Real Homes: Finally facing my Waterloo

When I was 19, out of work and still living at home, a friend of my mum's said she'd heard about some summer jobs going at Wimbledon, driving tennis players around during the tournament. 

She knew someone involved with the hiring and suggested to my mum that I apply.






Above: the downstairs loo got painted black

Incredibly, none of us considered that this prestigious job would definitely

Moodboarding taste

So I've just been asked to create a few moodboards, own photography only, to illustrate my taste. I can't reveal why just yet (but will shortly) and thought I'd share them.

It was harder than I thought – mainly, I have realised, because I'm in denial about what my taste is. Who'd have thought?









I guess it's like trying to pick your 25 all-time most 'you' Instagram images. Each time I

Real homes: am I the hoarder next door?

If ever I needed evidence that I had hoarding issues, my garage is it. 

But during the August break, its purging is just one of many cleansing activities I've got up to. I shudder to relive the ordeal through this "before" photo, below...





This garage was in trouble before I'd even moved in (when you get to the oven picture you'll see why). But over the years, with different configurations

(Ridiculously kitsch) Object of the day: John Hinde tin box

I'd gone out to buy something from the DIY store, but it had just closed.

On my way back to the car I had to pass the farmer's market, which sells all sorts of random stuff, not just food. Serendipitously I thought (always a good approach to impulse buying) I passed a stall I often linger at, full of enticing old bits and pieces. No need to feel sad about the closed DIY store – here, surely, was

Hacking Annie Sloan

These stools, which have nearly been chucked out several times over the years, have had a radical makeover this weekend. 



But before that, a little back-track about their transformation.





When, recently, I was offered a place on an Annie Sloan painting techniques course by Rigby & Mac, a mini chain of interiors shop local to me in south London, I was intrigued and dubious in equal measure.

Bathroom gets some love (apart from the ugly storage bit)

The bathroom was in need of some love. 

It was looking a little cluttered and untidy around the edges.



















But the real motivation was the paintwork...











Hmmm. So it got a weekend transformation. The paint looks white in these photos, but it's a lovely shade of a white-that's-a-little-bit-green – a Dulux mix. 



I was shocked to discover that B&Q had stopped selling

Real Homes: the Tiny House Movement

I was fascinated to read about the Tiny House Movement last week on the US website, Salon. 

Next week, Ryan Mitchell, one of the community's biggest enthusiasts and a blogger on the topic at thetinylife.com, is publishing a book sharing his tips on how to live small. Here are some of the weeny living spaces featured in it...



And even if you're not familiar with the Movement, if you've watched

Before & After: a dramatic transformation of the downstairs loo

Would anyone ever describe their house or flat as finished? 

Eight years after moving in, I'm finally getting around to painting that bit of bare plaster, tidying up those wonky shelves and changing various unsatisfactory light fittings.





And of course my tastes have changed since I first moved in, so there's a fresh round of updating too. So sometimes it's good to wait a while until you're

Real homes: copycat front door

This door belongs to my friends, Adam and Maggie, an example of their mastery at finding brilliant things for their home for next to nothing.

I went to dinner there at the weekend and asked about their incredible late 70s smoked glass and angular chrome early 80s dining table: £1 on eBay. The story reminded me to take a photo I'd been meaning to take at their house for ages – this one, of their

Hinge sprucing #cheaphometricks

We've just redecorated the bathroom, and you can see from the cracked paint below how badly it was in need – but that's a story for another day. 

Because today I just want to focus on one tiny change we made to the room that cost just a few quid, a bit of effort and – in my opinion – has given our bathroom door a bit of a new, design-y lease of life (plus it's a more positive DIY story than last

Real homes: when DIY goes wrong

It was meant to be a cheap, quick way to give the shower room a spring spruce-up. 

We had a leak in there, and while I was shopping for grout and silicone to fix it, I was dazzled by the grout reviver on sale nearby (everyone else gets excited and over-shops at DIY stores too – right?). A sparkly new bathroom for just a few quid? Yes please. Only things haven't gone quite to plan...





This

Spotlight on... Vernon Ward

Here is my bargain of the month. A beautiful Vernon Ward framed print... for just a quid!

I found it in Suffolk countryside, for sale in the on-site shop at an amazing converted barn we stayed in (more of which another time). It's my second print by the same artist.






Vernon Ward lived from 1905-1985 and was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Though he was born in London, many

Spotlight on... themed playing cards

Contributing editor, Abi, gives very good gift. 

And she's just pulled off a double-whammy with two beautiful sets of playing cards. A while back, she gave me this most excellent John Hinde Cornwall-themed set.







Hinde's studio, in case you don't share my – and Martin Parr's – obsession with it, is the prolific producer of pretty much every British holiday postcard you've ever bought –

Spotlight on... houseplants

I love to have greenery indoors but if there was a horticultural equivalent of the RSPCA, I'd have been shopped. So this is my latest adventure in not killing house plants. 



A little bit pathetic, but a start. And succulents are – in my limited gardening knowledge – virtually impossible to kill.








And putting them on the kitchen windowsill, where I can never get too distracted after

Before & after: Ikea mini drawer unit revamp

I've had these Ikea drawers so long that they no longer sell them (though they're in the ilk of the Moppe series). 

I put wheels on them back in the day, and thought often about painting them, just like the ones I overhauled in the bathroom – using odd old drawer knobs found on eBay and some white gloss paint. Years passed, procrastination flourished. Finally I have got around to fixing them up.

Please excuse a brief absence because...

...we've got the builders in, and my computer's covered in plaster dust. 









We're having the teeny tiny en-suite bathroom made into a more useable sized room, the downstairs loo fixed up and, on Sunday night, we decided we'd simultaneously reorganise the shelves under the stairs completely...



Agh! Their contents are now filling the kitchen table and – due to today having been spent

Real homes: my office makeover part II

I've had another office makeover. Only a little one. 

But it's amazing how much difference it's made moving the desk to the window. And I get a view! A very urban one, which I like a lot, and it has bonus trees. Here is how the office looked before...




I wrote about it in this previous post, where you can see the before before images with white walls and everything. And I also dug out some

Kitchen table traumas

OK. So "traumas" is way overstating things. But I'm currently mildly perplexed about the kitchen table situation round my house.



The kitchen, along with most of the rest of the house, is undergoing a gradual upgrade (which I touched upon after Massive Wardrobe-gate a couple of months ago). 

 


The kitchen is where it's all happening right now. All over the house, we're trying to finish all

Before & after: a mini makeover

It's amazing how different you can make a room feel with just a little rejigging. I've had the sideboard in the living room arranged like this for ages. But I've always felt that the print on the left, a piece I love by the artist Claire Scully, got slightly lost.



You'd be hard pushed to see that it depicts a giant squirrel climbing an urban tower block. The whole corner had also started