Christmas Gift Guide: Home

As we get into the final weeks of buying gifts make sure you don’t forget gifts for the home, these make the perfect present for anyone. Maybe they just moved house like me?! 

Below is a huge list of my favourites and some highlights for me is the new, complete set of premium essential oil blends from Organic Aromas, you can read more about the power of scent in another post. This new collection is divine and will make any home smell incredible. 

You also cant go wrong with a cookbook especially when Mary Berry is on the front and some gorgeous bowls from Houseology by Tom Dixon - gold heaven!

For more products just see below:

1.   A-Z encyclopaedia of garden plants 

2.   Cox & Cox, Etched Grey Table Lamp

3.   Morphy Richards, Spiralized express

4.   Zoella, Write On Point Pencil 

5.   Mary Berry, Cooks The Perfect 

6.   Darlington Crystal

7.   IconicLights, Modern Touch Table Lamp with Copper Base

8.   Houseology,TomDixon Large Bowl Set 

9.   Stellar,Slow Juicer 
10.               Liberty Trading, Dinky Diner candy floss machine 

11.               Addis, Retro Copper Bin

12.               Organic Aromas, The Elements Premium Essential Oil Blends Collection - the complete set 

13.               Bodybuilding.com,Go Fit yoga mat 

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A Pinterest Worthy Lounge

I have some very exciting life news, I am moving out of my London flat or maisonette (so it sounds bigger) to the slightly leafier world of Walton-On-Thames and I couldn’t be more excited. This move comes with a whole lot of shopping as we are going to become landlords and rent our other place – I feel a little scared but excited at the same time. So the first room I am looking at is my lounge, in my current place the lounge is my favourite place maybe because it was the first room we painted or maybe it’s because it’s the only room we actually fully furnished and I will be sad to see my green feature wall and my massive flamingo artwork go. The only things we are keeping are the TV for obvious reasons and my bar cart, which I could not part with as I made it myself.

So first things first, Pinterest is a must, make sure you start planning your 'Ideal Home' and gather up all your ideas, it makes it easier to select the look and types of products you want to fill your blank canvas. Your room needs a focal point or something to point at your TV, that is right folks a sofa is the first and foremost the most important thing in your lounge - I would be interested to know how many days you sit on a sofa in your lifetime I can imagine its crazy but it is an important purchase and you do not want to make it a wrong one. The sofas and chairs that feature below are from The Lounge Co, as you are basically designing your own sofa at a great price. They have 24 piece range which really focuses on British design which fits perfectly with the aesthetic I would like running throughout my home. You can either hunt online or visit a local showroom mine is Chiswick and I think I will be popping down soon. When you pick your sofa it's going to be with you for a long time so you need to fall in love with your first sit. When you are happy with your sofa you are then able to choose your fabric from over 100 designs and you can get it in 4-6 weeks, I need to get ordering sharpish.

Now you have your focal point it is time to decorate with poufs, lamps, artwork, throws and even some security (which means I can monitor Dylan while I am out n’ about) I also have moved on from flamingos to cactus’ and I have fallen in love with this print from Oliver Bonas (unfortunately they only sell the frame but that is lovely too). Every room also must have a hint of rose gold and it needs to smell divine, my favourite scent at the moment being the new Wild Sage collection from The White Company, such a clean and fresh scent filling the room with garden herbs.

Check out some of my other favourite lounge pieces below:

1.    George Home at Asda lace inspired lamp, £17

2.    The Lounge Co Rose Sofa,  £549

3.    The Lounge Co, Joseph chair, £499

4.    Primark, # sign, £8

5.    Next, grey knitted pod, £60

6.    Motorola, Focus 85 HD WI-Fi video monitoring camera, £70.87

7.    Oliver Bonas, brass frame, £16.50

8.    Marks and Spencer, Statement Green wall clock, £49.50

9.    The White Company, Wild Sage Candle £28

10. Oliver Bonas, Jade Geo Throw £75

11. Willow Sofa from The Lounge Co for a retro feel. £899

12. Oliver Bonas, Tiggy Side Table, £75

13. New Look, Copper Plant, £4.99
14. The Lounge Co, Sophia Snuggler Chair, £949

This post in a collaboration but all thoughts and the the fact I need to furnish a whole house are all me.

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DIY: Painting the lounge!

From moving in to my new abode in January it took a while to scrape some money together to decorate but after a few months, it was time to put on some tatty clothes and get decorating.

Who invented sanding?

So I didn't realise decorating wouldn't just be painting a pretty colour onto a wall. NO you have to sand the whole bloody thing down which took forever and my time frame of one weekend was sadly untrue.

So after sanding and then scrubbing it down with sugar soap it was time to finally paint!

So many colours

We went with Dulux paint for the lounge and with so many colours of paint to choose from it was hard to know where to start, and how to choose what colour each room should be?

The Dulux website offers lots of inspiration and I recommend getting the booklet to help you visualize! 

So we first got six samples of our favourite colours.

From left to right we have:

1. Dusted Fondant

2. Polished Pebble

3. Sea Urchin 1

4. Mellow Mocha

5. Overtly Olive

6. Mint Macaroon

Sea Urchin 1 is actually this season’s number 1. colour and is modeled by Alesha Dixon as a peacock! 

After the testing we were still confused, we loved the colours especially polished pebble and Mint Macaroon but we were not sure they were right for the lounge so in the end after hearing some gossip about using ‘Natural Hessian’ I just picked at random. Natural Hessian for the walls and willow tree for a feature wall (I was nervous about not testing the colour first but I absolutely love it)

For the ceiling we wanted to keep it white using Brilliant White to ensure the space remained light and keep the illusion that it is larger than it is.

Next task is to do the create wooden floors and paint hallway – watch this space!

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