black and white Archives - The Only Girl in the House

Jess August, 2017

Monochrome Homework Station Ideas with Wayfair

We’ve now rebuilt most of the house (extension updates to come real soon, promise!), added bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen and moved a staircase; the one thing I’m still to get sorted is a desk area, not for me, as I oddly find the dining room table in the wee hours my most productive spot, but an ‘inspiration station’ for the kids. Somewhere that houses their 537 scented pens, 123 football shaped rubbers and all their other overpriced Smiggle junk, while also (perhaps) having the desired affect of being a place that once the school bell rings it will get their creative juices flowing on the off-chance they’ll get some homework done. Sure, I might be a little optimistic on the homework front, but I not only love a kid-based challenge but I love hunting for interiors goodies and planning a space more than a 9-year-old loves making slime!

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Jess May, 2017

Where Did You Get That? | My Monochrome Must-Haves

It might be a beautiful picture of my cherub, I’ve captured a darling moment and captioned it with squishy, vaguely comical, words – but there’ll always be a couple of beady-eyed, interiors magpies commenting: “Random question, but where did you get your [insert monochrome home-ware of choice] from?”. Truth be told, I’ve done the same a thousand times over – sod that kid picking his nose front of frame, tell me where I can get THAT cushion!!! So, whilst a vast amount of the shiz filling up my home was salvaged from a car boot sale or eBay, here’s my most asked about home wares from our monochrome family home that you can actually get your hands on, plus some I’d love to throw into the mix!

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Jess January, 2017

Going Green | House Plants for a Family Home

It was only last week, after about 53 minutes of finally moving back into our newly extended/renovated family home, that Mr Only Girl turned to me and whimpered, “I just wasn’t expecting it to be quite so black and white!”. I’m not sure quite what he expected, given that we’ve both been privy to our joint Pinterest “house renovation” board for well over a year, jointly selected a white kitchen, black flooring, white bathroom, black bathroom furniture and a charcoal sofa. Said Pinterest board provides endless scrolling fun of Scandi-inspired interiors, awash with white walls, black accents and the odd smattering of birch ply – so his insistence that this was all “a bit of surprise” was met by “I just don’t think you’ve been paying attention!”. That said, as I wandered from room to room I noticed there was an element missing – something that my Scandinavian muses hadn’t overlooked but was such an integral part to their home design, it was like a camouflaged, subliminal message from the super stylish sanctum: House plants.

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Jess August, 2016

Monochrome Rug | My Rugstore Review

Anyone that’s been following along on my instagram would’ve undoubtedly heard me referring to our never-ending building works and the elusive extension – which, of course, will offer the answers to all our spacial problems, child tantrums and teenage angst – right?! Well, maybe not the latter two, but we’re certainly hoping the first issue might be solved. But me, being me, the moment the architect had made his first visit I already had a dozen Pinterest boards dedicated to the cause – bathroom taps, kids rooms and rugs – all with a common theme, black and white. I’ve often mused about the wonders of a monochrome house; when there’s enough chaos under one roof with 5 boys, two adults and two dogs – adding colour to the mix would be like raving it up in a life-size bag of skittles while everyone gets high on candy-floss.

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Jess March, 2016

My Habitat Bedside Story

My love affair with Habitat started very young – I would follow my mum into Brighton and gawp, stroke and inhale the chunky, red velvet sofa that greeted us in their ultra hip, industrial shop space in the otherwise dilapidated, concrete structure of a shopping precinct; I must have been all of about 5! Move on 10 years, and with a blatant disregard for employment law, I applied for their Saturday sales assistant job at the tender age of 15 – yes, I got the job but, needless to say, all fell apart when they requested my national insurance number which wouldn’t arrive in the post for another 7 months! So, when my first interiors love got in touch – like a long lost beau, to ask if I wanted a slice for their bedroom furniture cake -how could I refuse?!

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