Home Building

Miffy is one of those characters that feature in childhoods across generations, she featured in mine and now my daughters. Miffy turns 60 in 2015 and she hasn’t aged a bit having had a far reaching “career” taking her out of her original books to toys, games, clothes and there’s even a Miffy Movie! This iconic illustration is available to adorn the walls in your home. Ideal for children’s spaces and easy to fix, a range of eye-catching wall tiles featuring Dick Bruna’s classic character Miffy are now available from http://www.ixxidesign.com/

You can choose from a wide selection of Dick Bruna’s distinctive images of the little white bunny. You can pick an existing wall design, such as a poster-style single image, height chart or collage, or you can customise your own creation to fit the available space. The modular wall system designed in the Netherlands, uses durable, waterproof paper squares and connecting crosses. You can choose the detail, shape and size of the IXXI. The tiles are easy to put up (a complete assembly kit is included) and do not require nails in the wall. They can also be changed over time, with new ones added, thereby ensuring a fresh, updated interior.

I think they are super cute – what say you?

If, like me, you need a little inspiration with home building, then there’s no better thing than putting together a board of ideas, or perhaps scrap-booking them if you lots and lots of concepts. I tend to use Pinterest as a great way of sharing my ideas and the approach works really well for interior designs. However, if you live in a 1960s build, as I do, it can seem that there is little you can do to update the exterior. Brickwork and weatherboarding is how most of the homes in Cheshire – as elsewhere in the country – had their exteriors constructed at this time and most of them remain as they were the day they were built. Nonetheless, there are some inspirational ideas I’ve taken from Pinterest and elsewhere.

One of the best examples I’ve seen recently of how to create a new look for a brick built exterior is with composite cladding. This material sharpens the look of a house built in the 1960s or 1970s. Indeed, you see many new-builds using this material nowadays. Grey composite cladding appears to be one of the most popular choices. Furthermore, when it comes to updating old and often mix-matched brickwork – so often the result of multiple extensions which have been added over the years – good old-fashioned render still works well. Render can be painted any colour you choose, once applied. Either way, composite cladding or render, it is a great opportunity to change the look and tone of your home’s exterior in one go.

Adding light to the interior of a home is always desirable, especially for the living quarters. Sliding patio doors on the rear façade is a typical method for achieving this, but they don’t always add to the look of an exterior – not in an inspirational way, at least. Much more preferable would be bifolding doors with cool aluminium frames. The use of aluminium creates a much more pleasing architectural finish to the glazing, so new bifold doors integrate more naturally with the exterior. In particular, I like the look of the low-threshold ones which makes the garden much more a part of the  home than ever before – perfect for summer get-togethers when you want to open the home up!

The baby days are long behind us. The toddler days are also done. With an 8 year old and 5 year old in residence it was time for a declutter and sort out. So when one of our favourite brands, the Great Little Trading Company, contacted me to see if we would like to be involved with their campaign on children’s storage we jumped on board. Eight years into this family life lark I like to think I know a thing or two when it comes to home storage solutions for family life. Here’s my round up of what helps us to create a place for everything.

Under bed storage
Make use of any and all space beneath beds, perfect for bedding or out of season clothes.

Beside the bedside
We welcomed this stacking storage trunks for Lil H’s bedside perfect for keeping books, night lights, soothing music and audio book CD’s neat and tidy.

Baskets, baskets and more baskets
Encourage children to put away their toys and make it easy with open baskets.

Hook it up
Behind the door or on the wall with shelving with hooks is a great place for clothes, bags and especially useful for the little girls with big party dresses or pettiskirts that take up their entire wardrobes!

Make the most of what you have
Consider fitted furniture for alcoves or loft rooms to make the most of the space you have even if it is an unconventional shape.

Cassia Loft Playroom / Bedroom from Betta Living

Sort the small stuff
The little bits, the pencils, the rubbers, sort them separately so the don’t get lost – clear jars are great for this as you can see and easily label the contents.  

Hanging baskets
Not the flowering front door type, if you have shelves increase your storage by adding hanging baskets to shelves.

Wall storage
Be smart with your walls and add hanging canvas pockets to store and display toys and teddies.

Make the most of corners
Book shelves double up as a fab display, make great use of space and create a reading nook, here’s my own Diva G’s room.

Dolls house storage
Make storage fun and dual purpose with house shaped free standing and wall hanging storage unit. Diva G had these for her first Christmas (seen above) when she was just 8 weeks old, when she turned 4 years old we “furnished” her shelving and it became her dolls house with all the home comforts you’d expect.

Dolls House Bookcase & Dolls House Wall Shelf from www.gltc.co.uk

Cubes and colours
Bright, beautiful, colourful storage cubes are great in kids’ bedrooms and playrooms.

Wardrobe that grows
Keep the clutter hidden, the toys on display, and their clothes neat and tidy with Betta Living’s transformative wardrobe storage system that will grow with kids as they go from designer babies to trendy teenagers.

For more great quality and stylish storage ideas for children’s rooms swing by The Great Little Trading Company.

I am having to promote Lil H to Mr H as he is rapidly approaching his 8th Birthday in April! We are having a pre-birthday bedroom clear out, the  play table so perfect for playing with trains is now a dumping ground, the trains were sold on before Christmas last year and it is time to clear out and upgrade from my boys bedroom.

This fabulous “Stars” range of wallpaper from Hibou Home caught my eye and has made it onto my Pinterest board of home-inspo.

A contemporary but sophisticated, a beautiful print which features a combination of differently sized stars that have been sporadically placed for a truly unique and captivating look. Not just for boys the wallpaper is available in three stylish shades including an on-trend dusky pink Blush, shimmering Silver and a celestial Stellar Blue, the dreamy colour palette will coordinate wonderfully with today’s modern home and inspire a new generation of star gazers. The Silver and Stellar Blue colourways feature a subtle metallic finish on the stars creating a delightful twist within the sophisticated designs. 

What do you think, you like? Any tips and advice for long lasting bedroom design from 8 years up?

There is no doubt Winter is most certainly here, the nights are long and dark and the weather is cold and too often wet.

It’s the time of year I become a total home bird, there’s no nicer feeling than arriving home, getting my comfy loungewear on, grabbing some warm, wholesome comfort food and just being at home with my family. It’s all good except my home interior is all “just making do for now”. Our major renovations are still on track for 2015, finances permitting, but that makes my dream interiors just that, dreams.

So, I have put together a Pinterest board with cosy looks for the home reflecting the 2015 interior trends to keep homes looking good, on trend and stay warm and cosy over the winter. 

Follow Cheshire Mum’s board 2015 Interior Inspiration For Cosy Homes on Pinterest.


As you will see there is a big grey theme going on I’m all about the colour grey – light, dark, bluey – grey is definitely the hottest neutral these days. Magnolia who?

This post is created as an entry in the Duette Blinds competition as there is not a window in Villa Lancaster that isn’t letting out the heat and leaking in the cold – brrr! New blinds for me please!

Our new house will create two of our three bathrooms as “Jack and Jill” bathrooms. Feel free to check out our first floor. “Jack and Jill” bathrooms are bathrooms with two doors, usually to two bedrooms which is the case for one of ours. My daughters en suite can also be accessed from the spare room and my sons can also be accessed from the landing. This gives all permanent residents and overnight guests en suite bathrooms as well as having a “family bathroom” accessed from the landing. We achieve this without having to have additional and mostly unused bathrooms to pay for and to clean.

Diva G’s en suite is in progress and I shall share the before and afters very soon. We have just past the last of the brick dust days and the new wall to what will become the guest bedroom, currently still the now much smaller bathroom, is up and I am choosing the furniture. It is going to be a wet room style shower room – shower, sink, toilet, storage unit, mirror and towel rail – all wall hung. Colour wise we are going grey – large rectangular tiles, dark, slate grey on the floor and paler, softer grey on the walls.

I’m good with everything but struggling to find the right basin as ultimately for 99.9% of the time it will be Diva G’s bedroom from age five through to adult hood – it needs storage. There will be make up, hair styles and god help us, hair dye to be experimented with. She needs to be able to stand in front of the mirror and be able to have her “stuff” under the sink FOR HOURS!

I spotted this design from Bauhaus, Solo is small, beautiful and rather smart in its use of space and now available in Quartz which is a soft grey – just what I am looking for…

I popped down to my local stockist Opulenza by Tubs and Loos in Heald Green, Cheadle to check it out, loved it. The solo unit is the perfect fit at 500mm wide but the basin is wider than the unit by just 50mm and those 50mm make it just too wide – gutted! Luckily the team at Opulenza helped me leave armed with brochures of alternatives to flick through so I am now a little bit closer to making a decision. With the shower going in this week I need to get on with it too.

If you like the Bauhaus Solo it is also now available in Azure, a gentle blue joining the existing Graphite, Calico and White options, bringing the colour choice to five.

There’s little about the current house, as it is, that I like.  The house we are saving to start developing is the one I love, here’s the house plans.  Knowing that almost every room is changed by the redevelopment leaves little in the way of mini projects. Anything we do is going to be undone as walls are knocked down and rooms change use.  The only rooms we’ve done are the kids bedrooms and we did them the day we got the keys making their rooms fab for them to move straight into.  The kids have the best rooms in the house, as it should be, but it’s getting me down.

Not having any space I like has left me with a desire to make something over that can no longer be suppressed!  So over Christmas I decided to makeover the downstairs loo, after all it is possibly the most visited room in the house by both residents and guests!

Our  starting point is orange, very orange, very very orange indeed!  Whilst I like a bit of colour this room has been most certainly tangoed by the previous owners – brace yourself here’s the before photograph:

I wanted the makeover to cost as little as possible as this room gets completely knocked down come redevelopment time.  I wanted it to look fresh, clean, modern and cost nothing – I love a good challenge!  We had white paint, a mirror I had acquired from a skip – what?  Yes I rescued it from a skip!  There were a couple of leftovers from jobs my husband had undertaken for clients, a huge and fabulous tile and a roll of funky geometric Harlequin array wallpaper.  Here’s a close up of the wallpaper, what do you think?

My plan was coming together and I had my vision for the room, for it to be a clean, white space with a funky feature wallpaper on the back wall.  I wanted to add texture with the large tile as a splash back, adding light and the illusion of more space with the large mirror.   The biggest challenge of all was getting back to white walls, I thought it would take two coats it actually took four, yes four coats of paint!  Here’s the room in its now white state with the mirror and the tile, which is a pearlescent white, as a splash back:

I’m pleased, really pleased with the new look, achieved in 48 hours with my super skilled joiner husband, swing by and like his Facebook page Rob Lancaster Joinery, Fitting, Fixing!  A few finishing touches are outstanding – a light fitting, a toilet roll holder and I am contemplating a vinyl sticker for the mirror that says “Hello beautiful!” – a nice touch or tacky or a waste of a tenner on a free mirror?  I have my eyes peeled for the right bargains.

Right now this transformation cost time and that’s all, so, what do you think?  Worth the effort even if it does get knocked down in 12 months time?  Let me know your thoughts…

I have a big kitchen window. I have a South facing kitchen window. I also have planning permission for the new house development and it won’t be a kitchen window in the new home so I don’t want to spend much if any money! We’re saving, saving, saving! However whilst it is a lovely sunny room at times the sunshine can be completely blinding and over the Christmas break I’ve had a bit of “project-itis” and needed to do a few little makeovers. The kitchen window has been one of them, here’s the window itself …

It’s a big window, 2.3m wide and blinds that size need to be made to measure making them expensive and I don’t want expensive. I want cheap and when I say cheap I mean as close to free as I can get! I also don’t want to lose all the natural light from the room so I decided to go for multiple blinds. Three ready made black out roller blinds, two set against the window frame to the left and right and a third set in front of these in the middle. This allows us to pull down whichever one will block the intense sunbeams leaving the others to allow the sunshine to still flood into the kitchen. You know what? It really works, look …

I chose grey because it works in the currently white kitchen, also grey is going to be a key colour in our future interior. My thinking is the blinds will have a future life and can be relocated as temporary window coverings when we get to that point and every penny always counts.

The grey blackout blinds came from eBay and all three cost me £35.07 delivered with all fixings and fittings. An absolute bargain if you ask me!

So there you have it, my kitchen window makeover.  On this occasion “more is more”!  Do you like?  Tell me what do you think…

It only took the lions share of two years to get booked in for a child free stay at fab boutique hotel, Fishmore Hall in Shropshire. This was Mr L’s Birthday gift from his parents in 2012 but that’s where I’ve just returned from a lovely mini break away. I’m always on the hunt these days for ideas I’d like to bring to our home and there were a few I spotted this weekend.

Bathrooms
I miss my beautiful bathrooms from our old house. I look forward to staying at friends or in hotels to have a bath or shower in a nice bathroom – even the Travelodge at London City Airport is much nicer than what is on offer at my home. I won’t lie. It definitely gets me down. I loved this weekends bathtub and I was surprised as it looked a bit square and angular but it was really comfy and I thoroughly enjoyed my soak!

Floor joining strips
There was also a really neat approach to managing the tiled bathroom floor meets bedroom carpet challenge. Handled fabulously with a complementary strip of granite stone allowing both floorings to be neatly finished beneath. That works, I like it!

Lighting
I’m definitely a ceiling spot light fan with room lamps to create atmosphere, but sometimes central and wall lights work too. A single style throughout was really impactful and at Fishmore Hall they had these rather fab contemporary crystal fittings that looked great and really created a consistent look and feel whilst allowing different spaces to be used for different purposes.

They created fab reflections too, look:

Current house build status, with planning permission, without funds, saving and idea collection in progress!