28/01/2015

Recently I've been...

Making a real life pinterest board. I've started to struggle with the decor direction for our living room and was feeling overwhelmed with all of the beautiful pinterest images on my home inspiration board. So I've printed out my favourites, collaged them together and left in the living room to see if it helps to kick start some decision making.


Loving our new door hooks from ikea. It's funny how the little things make all the difference, we were slaking a bit on our decorating, but putting these up gave us an extra boost of determination to keep going and suddenly the painting is nearly finished. Hooray!


Reading Mollie Makes as I was lucky enough to get a subscription for Christmas. It's almost too much inspiration though and I don't know what to make first!


Photographing experimentally thanks to Emma Davies photo challenge #Remarkable2015. It feels so good to challenge myself. This week we've been playing with different heights to take a photo from. Here's one from 'down low' which I love, taken at a local gardens.


What have you been up to?

21/01/2015

Buying a home | Searching for a house - three things I learned

If I could sum up our home buying experience in three words it would be exciting, scary & stressful. With that in mind I thought I'd share a few posts on home buying for any of you first time buyers hoping to make the big move this year. Kicking off with three things I learned when searching for our first house.



Photographs lie - don't get excited until you see it in person
We learned this about 5 minutes after our first viewing, looking down at our rightmove app and then back up at the rather disappointing house we had just exited. Photographs can make rooms seem larger, brighter and hide unsightly features! Look at floorplans to get a more accurate picture, most online listings now include these and many have room sizes marked out. I spent many a sleepless night excited at the prospect of viewing our 'dream home', only to be disappointed by my preconceptions.

It works both ways though. If a house is a great location and at a good price, don’t dismiss it because the photographs don't do anything for you, like I said photographs can lie. Interestingly, the house we brought was one we hadn't seen any pictures of inside before we viewed it.

It really is all about location, location, location
I love that show, but once we were really in the midst of our search I struggled to watch it without feeling slightly depressed, watching all those people find houses! When buying your first home it's easy to start looking online and think 'wow we can afford more than I thought' and 'there's loads of choice'. But on closer inspection they back onto railway tracks (not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's not for us) or are completely the wrong side of town (practically in the next town). Unless you have an endless budget you'll have to compromise somewhere but we quickly decided location wasn't one we could compromise on.

If you're unsure of a particular street or location, go back at different times of the day, on weekends and weekdays to get a feel for the place - it's often good to do this before booking a viewing as you might instantly discount somewhere and save the time of viewing it.

The 'feeling' does exist
Five months and countless houses in I really did start to think the house for us wasn't out there. We'd come close with a few, but I was always missing that 'yes, I can see us and our stuff here...' feeling. Or when I was thinking it was a possibility the boyfriend wasn't. You can start to feel desperate and viewings turn from excitement into a chore, at this point I’d completely stopped watching L,L,L and any house buying shows as they were too stressful to watch!

But then one evening after work we had three viewings lined up and the first one we walked into was IT. We really did just know that was the house for us. Funnily enough the house we viewed after it that evening was actually bigger and closer to town, but that didn't matter as we'd both finally found the 'feeling'. It does exist.

I really hope that’s useful, or at least entertaining! If you have any questions let me know in the comments, I'm no expert but happy to share our experience as it certainly wasn't plain sailing. Next up: top tips for after your offer is accepted.

14/01/2015

Inspired by: the robin

New year, new feature. Following last year's monthly floral and feather edits featuring all things floraly and feathery, this year each month will see a different bird or flower take centre stage in my new 'inspired by' series. Posts will feature inspiring photographs, products and crafts spotlighting my monthly focus.

We're kicking things off with everyone's favourite winter bird, the robin. Inspired by a lovely little fellow who has been visiting our new garden the last few weeks. (Although the image here was taken a few years ago).


LOVE    Robin redcurrant cushion | Howkapow


MAKE    A hand-painted button is the finishing touch to any craft project | Miss Beatrix Shop



WEAR    Robin print dress | Boden



04/01/2015

2014 in four makes

I don’t feel as though I’ve even slowed down enough to start taking a proper look back at last year yet or think ahead with some resolutions. But something I have found time to do is look back at some of my favourite makes from 2014, one thing I love about blogging is that it’s so easy to look back at all you have made and achieved. These have made the favourites list for various reasons, but one thing they have in common is that they are still all in regular use – always a sign of a successful creation in my book.

Knitted shrug
While I’ve still not been brave enough to try a knitted jumper, I think my first knitted shrug turned out pretty well. I still adore the colour and pattern, and am wishing spring would hurry up so I can wear it again.



Crochet cushion
Possibly my biggest achievement in 2014 was learning to crochet, something that has been on my list for so long – I finally made it a resolution last new year and actually stuck to it! I LOVE this cushion… can you tell?


DIY painted table
Furniture DIYs always seem to take that bit more commitment because you can’t fiddle with them as you sit on the sofa watching TV, this one involved a couple of hours over several days in my parents’ garage which made it all the sweeter when I finally took it, finished, back to our flat. It now looks great in our new house too.


Knitted dinosaur
Last year was the first year I’ve started giving my handmade items as gifts and Dino my knitted dinosaur went down so well with my friend and her beautiful new baby boy. I’ve already had a request for a giraffe from a newly pregnant friend, watch this space in 2015!



Ps. You may notice a few changes to floral and feather’s design and layout over the next few weeks, I’m having a bit of a play. Eek!

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