It’s fascinating watching a nearby home refurb project take shape. Those first ideas form and change over the weeks into a proper scheme by excited homeowner. Then comes quotes, and goes without saying that agreed plan, once put out to one or two local design/build studios will become a major project by the time … [continue…]
Whenever there’s a national crisis, and until March 2020, there have not been many such worries since the cessation of WW2 in 1945, people tend to become negative and this global pandemic has brought out the whiners and teeth gnashers. However bad a situation, as we know, there are always some good elements. We are … [continue…]
Funny how the rapidly approaching yuletide always brings out the sentimental side for some reason. Normally we wouldn’t be seen out with any fluffy or cosy – life is for living, but at an adult and very mature way. But when the winter comes and the christmas adverts start bearing down on us, we seem … [continue…]
I’ve had the chance to have a proper professional decorator come and do my house out next year. This chap lives abroad and usually comes back to Blighty every February/March to work on heritage houses. Next year seems to be a bit thin on the ground for that kind of work. It seemed an ideal … [continue…]
We all need a bit of a lift after some of the most difficult weeks and months of our lives. Obviously there will still be many folk in their late 80s and 90s who lived through the second world war and current restrictions and public announcements bring back a whole new raft of memories. Unlike … [continue…]
When you’re having to work with old buildings, bringing them up to date with certain heating and utility requirements can mean some disfigurement along the way. Take an old loft installation – maybe someone has now bought the top part of an old house and needs to have a complete new HCVA air duct. If … [continue…]
Whilst everyone in the entire world is now looking at life insdoors, isolated from anyone not immediately within the household, it can be very challenging to try and keep control of tempers, bad behaviour and emotions. One way is to get the family interested in getting the house straight, moving furniture about to a different … [continue…]
I have often wondered whether folk really do choose their pets to enhance their own happiness or just to make their choice of home furnishings and decorating and interior design ideas stand out. I know of at least two families just near here who have ‘invested’ in rather fancy breeds of cat and thinking about … [continue…]
When you’re looking at the subject of home interior decor, it can cover a range of possibilities. Furniture itself can be classed as either soft or hard – for example a luscious all enveloping and squashy sofa is a piece of soft furniture and an essential one at that. The matching armchairs are rather harder … [continue…]
When you feel the need for a change in your home style, it can be very tempting to rush out and do a blitz of all the huge out of town diy and decorating empriums. Coming back with sample cards, paint colours and fabrics all look very exciting and there’s that general buzz of ‘let’s … [continue…]
It would be really lovely to have a change of decoration and furnishings every time Christmas and new year comes around – but of course unless we have the kind of salary that accommodates these whims, this is never going to happen. But there are ways and means of having a new theme when these … [continue…]
There are some truly awesome advertisements on tv these days. Admittedly they’re less likely to be still keeping us in raptures in another forty years time as so many of the very old product ads still do. Who can’t remember the lovely woman from a particular stock cube company who was only just married in … [continue…]
I travel around to visit relatives and contacts all over the home counties – to some rather attractive and capacious houses that in the late ’70s and through to the ’90s, seemed distinctly modern and of their era. We were greatly influenced then by up and coming entrepreneurs – the high flyers just beginning to … [continue…]
I was eating out at a very country pub the other week. I’ve been there before, several years apart, with an ancient relative who only ever eats at top quality locations. Non of the spit and sawdust style for her. Any artisan activity has to be the most expensive. This pub certainly fitted that criteria. … [continue…]
This is definitely the time of year when we start thinking about more entertaining. Lots of fok around for patio parties and bar-b-qs……. that’s all very well but for the person who is responsible for keeping the house and garden in tip top visitor ready condition, it’s not so easy. When you have a busy … [continue…]