The Only Girl in the House

Green Velvet Dreams (The Sequel) | The Armchair

Green Velvet Dreams (The Sequel) | The Armchair

It’s been referred to as “the hole of doom” – it’s the place from which the din of Youtube rings, sofa wrestling settles remote-based disputes and a space that style (and I) forgot; it’s our lounge. Since our mammoth extensions were ‘finished’ (I use that word very loosely!), the lounge has become somewhere to assemble rowdy tweens for giant sleepovers, chuck/hide all Casper’s brightly coloured, plastic tat and very occasionally retire to once all the kids have gone to bed (that’s between 9.30pm and when I doze off 5 minutes later!). It’s been promised a plywood barn sliding door, a dramatic colour splash and layered rugs to make a Persian prince envious – but so far, I’ve failed to deliver on its style makeover.

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

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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Housework Sucks | Oreck Hoover Review

Housework Sucks | Oreck Hoover Review

Being the domestic goddess (ha!) in a house of 7 humans and 2 dogs, doing a silly amount of hoovering comes with the territory. I find myself lugging the overworked sucker from the cupboard at least once a day for a quick whip round – then there’s the extra outings it gets treated to when someone explodes a packet of crisps, upturns their croissant plate at breakfast or the mother-in-law’s popping in! So when the team over at Oreck got in touch and asked me to give their Oreck Magnesium a whirl, whilst it might not have seemed like the most glam of opportunities, on my scale, it rated it pretty highly. After all, I was the gal who actually got excited when she received a hoover for Christmas (it wasn’t feigned excitement either) and anything that runs the risk of making my life a little easier (yes, contraception would’ve been easier) is a bonus in my book.

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Monochrome Rug | My Rugstore Review

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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Great British Sofa – DFS Britannia

Great British Sofa – DFS Britannia

It’s now less than 100 days until the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics and as Team GB are putting all their energy into ensuring we get the best medal count ever, there’s been an exciting launch much closer to home… DFS just unveiled their very own Team GB collaboration collection, aptly named Britannia.

It’s fair to say, that in recent years DFS, whilst being a family friendly choice for stain guarded sofas, they have also become synonymous with colour jammed, fast paced TV ads offering eternal free credit and endless bank holiday sales. But this was a far cry from the DFS I got to see a week ago when I they whisked me off for a couple of days (yes, first night away from Casper – ahhhh, sleep!!) for a behind the scenes trip to their home in Derbyshire! I was given a glimpse into one of their factories where skilled craftsmen, upholsterers and sewing machinists busily hand make each sofa to order – yup, no stock just sitting on shelves here!

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