Ouch! So how did we get from a big echoing pile of nothing to the kitchen below?
I started the kitchen design by deciding on a theme and colour scheme. I wanted a fifties-style diner feel mixed with country farmhouse kitchen elements and pastel colours in shades of pink, cream, blue and mint. Everything would have a vintage feel to it and no detail would be left unturned, from our mint green fruit and veg crates to our pastel blue dustbin. The floors and basic flatpack kitchen (the latter from Homebase) are white planks and the walls are decorated with white brick slip tiles from eBay.
We used diner lights, a Smeg fridge and a vintage-inspired stove to evoke the fifties diner feeling
We had a reasonable budget but we’re by no means millionaires, so John and I had to get creative when it came to getting what we wanted. An Aga oven would remain a dream for distant, wealthier days, but our electric Leisure double oven from ao.com was a fraction of the price.
I was desperate for a pretty pink Smeg fridge, but brand new it would blow the majority of our budget. Instead, we took to eBay, accepting that we probably wouldn’t get a perfect product but going through a highly rated and reputable seller of second-hand fridges. We paid just over £300 for our Smeg fridge. While we did have to clean it out, it arrived a little grubby but fully functional and still works well over six months later.
We replaced our microwave with a pastel pink and white Daewoo model and all of our other appliances, toaster, kettle etc. were replaced with soft blue-coloured makes to match the rest of the kitchen.
As I mentioned, we left no detail behind. We mixed Cath Kidston mugs and crockery with a polka dot design we had previously bought at a major supermarket, and ensured every detail (too many to list here but if you spot something you love, please comment and I’ll dig up where we found it) went with our theme, even changing the handles on all of our cupboards to floral door knobs from eBay and replacing our cutlery with pretty floral and polka dot cutlery by Katie and Alice.
My favourite find was a vintage-style digital Robert’s radio we bought on eBay for a bargain £35. The description said it was broken, and we planned to fix it, but we took a chance and changed the batteries and lo and behold it worked perfectly!
For me, consistency is the single most important factor when designing a dream kitchen. If I suddenly had a bright red appliance it would look jarring and ruin the overall effect. John sometimes despairs of my neurotic need to keep everything in its proper place and to recycle anything that doesn’t quite go, but I love the overall effect!
So that’s our vintage-inspired kitchen. We’d love to hear all about your homes and how you’ve decorated – leave us a comment in the box below!
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The first thing you can change is the tiles. I bought my bathroom tiles from notonthehighstreet.com – they’re from seller Welbeck tiles but there’s a huge selection on the site if these ones don’t suit your scheme.
The second thing I would suggest is getting a large mirror. Nothing creates the illusion of space like a mirror. I bought this baby on sale for £15 at TK Maxx. It has a little shelf which is great for storage (as long as you don’t put anything too heavy on it).
Another way to make a room seem bigger is to have light floors. Our house isn’t particularly spacious, so we have white floorboards. Not only do they create great lines that give the illusion of length, but they reflect light back into the room and make spaces seem airy and roomy.
An easy way to give character to a small space is through accessories – adorable bins, cute toilet roll holders, even a new toilet seat. Our shower curtain was from M&S a couple of years ago. While they don’t sell it any more, there are plenty like it on the market. This beauty from Sainsbury’s is just £10!
Wall plaques and tin pictures that won’t get damaged in a bathroom can really brighten up little rooms. One other way to accessorise and save space is to put your bubble baths and shampoos into clean crystal decanters. That means you can stock up without having to store extra stuff. Perfect!
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Working from home full time and especially in a job where feeling fabulous is part of the job description, it’s important that I have a real space in which to get things done, and not just a small desk in a corner somewhere or slouched in front of the TV. I had seen a few pictures on Pinterest and in Pearl Lowe’s Vintage Craft book of little offices in wardrobes, and really fell in love with the concept of having a small, enclosed space that could hold lots of pretty decorations and be neatly packed away at night if extra guests need a place to sleep.
This wallpaper was a bargain £10 per roll from Wallpaper Direct and brings a really pretty, floral focus to the feature wall behind my desk.
I bought my wardrobe for about £20 on eBay. We took several days to sand and paint it in Javan Dawn 1 (Homebase paint) and brilliant white. Initially, the wardrobe and bureaus we bought looked like this:
My pretty pink writing bureau was just £10 from eBay. John and I fixed the foot, which had a slight crack in it, sanded it and painted it a pale pink (check back in a couple of days for a feature on how to paint furniture).
This pretty pink rotary phone is by Steepletone and is available from many online retailers. It’s the same model that’s winging its way to our recent competition winner!
My turquoise typewriter was about £25 on eBay. It is decorative but apparently does work when spruced up!
The flooring in my office (and throughout the house) is soft wood floorboards painted with several coats of hard-wearing floor paint and sealant.
This lace panel was £10 from eBay. I chose black lace to give the room a slight gothic edge to counteract all the pink!
My spinning office chair was my one extravagant expense shipped from America. You can buy it online from Pottery Barn Teen (it’s the Ooh La La swivel chair), but be warned, the shipping costs more than the chair itself! The corner chair was a plain white chair before I went at it with Decopatch decoupage patches from Hobbycraft! Now it’s a patchwork floral chair that matches the rest of the room!
I decorated the room with pictures, oil paintings in gilded frames, beautiful and inspirational pictures and photographs of my friends and family. My calender is a vintage cats calender that my lovely friend Heather gave me for my birthday (she knows me well).
And that’s Darling Lovely Life HQ – where the magic happens every day! As they say, it might not be much, but it’s mine! Check back in a fortnight for our second interiors instalment where I give you a sneak peek into my vintage-inspired bathroom!
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