Hi everyone!

Hope this blog finds you all surviving lockdown 3.0. What a very bumpy ride we are having here in the UK with Covid… it seems to me it’s never ending! Not sure how you are all coping? Hang in there everyone, and if there is any chance of starting a bit of a DIY project, I would recommend it as a diversionary tactic. Just think of how brilliant it will be when it’s finished and you can share it with your family and friends in the summer (I keep reminding myself of that very same thing… sometimes daily!)

So, we are coming on leaps and bounds on what seems to be a daily basis with our project at the moment. After a literally freezing Christmas / New Year period, with no heating on downstairs, water running down the insides of the windows, and having to warm up any bottles of wine we wanted to drink in hot water as the ambient temperature downstairs was about 1 degree, the underfloor heating went on for the first time on Thursday (Yay!!!!!) It has to be increased very slowly, so that we don’t crack the concrete screed the heating is encased in at one end of the room (which is torture when you just want to crank it up) but I can notice a massive temperature difference already - I don’t need to scurry around dressed as Scott of the Antarctic, whenever I need to do the laundry or find something in the piles of kitchen equipment boxed up downstairs. That in itself is a big improvement!

The plastering is finished, and the coving that we have copied from the only original coving left in the house in the front Lounge room, looks truly beautiful… (thanks to Ian, Barry and Ste, you have all done a brilliant job on it !) The colour I ummed and aahed over for the walls has turned out to be the right choice (fingers crossed I still think this when the kitchen goes in !) Farrow and Ball School House White, teamed with the RAL colour I have used on all our ceilings throughout the house 9010. I wanted a chalky white finish, so that the real stars of the room would be the gorgeous wood floor, our modern take on a Georgian Kitchen, and the natural textural elements I am planning in the lighting, wall art and soft furnishings. I am also thinking of bringing garden elements into the room with a large Bangalow Palm planned for the living room… (it will also be a nod to my Sydney roots reminding me of home).

So far so good as they say… but still a fair way to go.

I have been lucky enough to have a few of my lovely Island Home customers send me pictures of their purchases with us, styled up in their own home decorating projects. I have posted a few of these on my Facebook Page, as it never ceases to amaze me how the same piece can look completely different depending on how a person styles them in their own space. It can also be great to get different ideas on how to use items - and who doesn’t love a nosey … I ask you?

So everyone, I will keep you posted on progress - take care, stay well and safe, and when boredom hits - remember - get out that paint brush and let your imagination run wild, you will never regret a bit of DIY do-over! xx