Making A Home Is So Much More Important Than We Think

These days, if you tell someone you’re doing up your house, the usual reaction seems to be that you’re planning to try and sell it. Alternatively, perhaps it means you’re an externally driven person who wants their house to be a bit of a showpiece – something you’re proud to show off to visiting friends and relatives; a testament to your good taste perhaps?

Now it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with these approaches and, who knows, maybe there isn’t?

But really, making a home a true home is about so much more than this. It’s far more important and fundamental to our human natures than we think. First off, we need to develop a true understanding of the difference between a house (or any place we happen to live in) and “home”.

Home is as fundamental to our human natures and needs as are water, food, Read more »

Moving To A New Home

When you first move into an empty house, it can feel a little cold and soul-less. But it only takes a few pieces of furniture and some personal possessions to make it feel like a home.

It depends, of course, if you have furniture from a previous property to bring with you, and most of us do.  However, sometimes you need to buy new things to go with the new style of house you’ve chosen. It’s a good idea to decide what you’d like to buy before you move from the last house, as then you won’t spend money unnecessarily on transporting the old stuff to your new place.

Sofas are a great thing to leave behind. Although they are reasonably Read more »

Putting Colour In Your Home

Colour fashion can be a fickle thing – colours that are now in vogue can soon go out of favour. So when decorating your home it pays to be a little cautious before choosing expensive items in strong colours that may seem out of date all of a sudden.

You can choose to make the walls the colourful feature in your home. Paint them a bright but warm tone to add some vibrancy to your living space. If you tire of the colour, it’s not so difficult to repaint them some other colour.

It’s far easier to change the wall colours than the flooring. This is probably why most people stick with plain wood, a neutral tiling in black, grey or cream, or a carpet colour like oatmeal for their flooring.

There are plenty of soft furnishings available in bright colours – such as Read more »

Time to De-clutter – The Bedroom

I long for the day when I wake up to birdsong one sun-drenched morning, push back the crisp white Egyptian cotton covers and saunter dreamily over to the window to greet the new day, cup of green tea in hand, pristine spa-type robe around my shoulders. It’s not quite like that in our household. Either I am yanked out of sleep by the alarm clock or my four year-old gets there first. There’s no room on my bedside table for a cup, and to get to the window I must traverse assorted climbing shoes, bank statements, self-help books and a guitar.

Perhaps you’ve trodden on a toy train in the middle of the night; perhaps Read more »

Bed Shopping Guide

If you have just moved into a new home or are giving your bedroom a bit of a makeover, one of the first things to get right is the bed. After all, there’s not much point in having a beautiful bedroom but no bed, or a bed that’s so old it causes you sleepless nights.

Bed shopping doesn’t need to be stressful and can even be quite fun! Just follow a few simple steps to make sure you get it right and you will have a new bed you’re happy with in no time.

First of all, consider the type of bed you want. If you have a small bedroom and sleep alone, a single bed might be the best bet for you. It might be that you need a spare bed for friends or family to sleep on when they stay overnight, in which case divan beds are ideal, as they can be folded up and used as seats during the day.

For couples, double beds are preferable, as anyone who has tried to Read more »

Choosing A New Sofa

Christmas is the time of year that seemingly everyone decides to go and get a new sofa. It makes sense as you open your home to friends and neighbours for evenings of mince pies and mulled wine, and often have family staying for Christmas, too. So it’s a good time to make the living room lovely.

A sofa is often the centrepiece of a comfortable living room, so you should take some time over choosing the right one.

There is a huge range of choice available these days and there seem to be sofa sales on pretty much everywhere – on the high street, at out-of-town outlets and online.  Start by looking at different retailers online to get an idea of what kind of styles and shapes the different stores stock.  Then, when you’ve narrowed down to a certain shape, go and look at sofas in-store. It’s only be seeing them, sitting on them and testing them out that you’ll really know if their comfort matches their design.  While a beautiful piece of Read more »