How to Bring more Hygge into your life

*This post contains affiliate links  Most people by now have heard of the Danish word Hygge which is used to describe the Danish way to living well-valuing cosiness and togetherness. It touches on the ideas of slowing down, simplifying life and taking pleasure from the presence of soothing things. With the Danish being one of the happiest countries in the world it's a good time to take a leaf out of their book and bring a little bit more Hygge into your life. No matter where you live there are small ways we can embrace the Danish way of life, which is said to improve your general wellbeing, self-esteem, sense of belonging and that can only be a good thing right? So here are a few tips to embrace Hygge 1. Candles Is there anything more cosy and relaxing than listening to music or sitting down with a hot drink and having so lovely candles burning in the background? When the Danes were asked what they associated most with Hygge, 85% mentioned candles and you can see why......

Read more »

How to take a white kitchen from cold to gold

As you may already know when we are not traveling or exploring somewhere new outdoors I am usually indulging in my love of interiors. At the moment we are just doing a few finishing touches to our house before we sell and I have been focusing on the kitchen this past week. White kitchens have been on trend for over a decade or so, and with good reason. The cool clean look is perfect for hygienic kitchen areas, white goes with everything and just doesn’t date if done right and can be a good investment for your home. However, there’s one obvious flaw in the logic that kitchen designers up and down the land are spending a lot of their creative time addressing. How do you inject some warmth and personality into a space consisting predominantly of hard white surfaces? How do you take the edge off a stark white kitchen ? Is it possible to achieve a cosy, comfortable and welcoming vibe in a modern white kitchen to create the beating heart of the home? Here are 6 tricks to show you ......

Read more »

Autumn Style - The Mini's edit

With so many wonderful jumpers, jacket and warm and cosy hats around at the moment I thought I would share a few of the kid's favourite autumn threads and many of them I wish they would make in adult sizes. One of our favourite British brands Tootsa MacGinty who make such wonderful and colourful ethical unisex clothing and these two Scandi inspired raglan t-shirts have become somewhat of a feature in their wardrobe. I love clothes that connect with nature as well as travel and culture and this Polar bear Northern light print does that perfectly as does my younger ones fjord print. We also recently came back from a wonderful break to Bluestone in West Wales (full review to follow soon) and we spent the majority of the time exploring the trails and spending many an evening around the open fire at Smokey Joes which mean the boys cute knitted jumpers kept them warm and cosy. The one thing I love about this time of the year is being able to wear layers and lots of d......

Read more »

For the love of Modern Period interiors

We are edging closer and closer to putting our house on the market and we cannot wait, our time in our little welsh hobbit house as we refer to it as the ceilings are so low are coming to an end. We are all in need of more space, more light and in Johns case a doorway he doesn't bang his head on everyday. As much as the rustic appeal is to us and it really does, our home is a bit neither here or there in terms of location, only 20mins from the city on the edge of a small town so it doesn't have the slower pace feel as you would find in a more rural location and equally does not have the colour and culture of living within walking distance of the city. We have also found over time our real passion and dream would be to find a small bay fronted Victorian property as we absolutely love the combination of a period property with a fresh and modern look that embraces the original features of that time rather than covers them up. I think the Scandinavian inspiration that has b......

Read more »

Hello Helsinki

As some of you may already know we jetting off from Heathrow on Easter Monday, taking off in a storm (that was interesting) and made our way across Denmark and Sweden to the northern Finnish capital of Helsinki , a place I have dreamed of going to for a very longtime. We have been invited to live as locals for a week and get to know the real Helsinki and discover it's secrets. On the first day our flight was delayed meaning after we had navigated the fast train from the airport to the city centre and finding our apartment the sun was already starting to set, luckily the wonderful people at Heleates had left us a hamper of local foods including some much needed Good Life Coffee - did you know Fin's drink more coffee than anywhere else in the world! Chilling on the balcony of our apartment We spent the first evening taking in the view from the balcony of our apartment and making plans for the rest of the week. My eldest is super excited at the thought of being in th......

Read more »

More from The George Home

As you may already know we were invited to view the new George By Asda homeware and furniture collection a few weeks back, it was a fun filled day with activities for the kids, a scrummy lunch and some chit chat with four other lovely bloggers while taking in the beautiful styled home in North London. I have written about the day here but felt as there was so many beautiful details that I wanted to share a little bit more with you as well as the Vlog I have put together about the experience.  As I have said before this collection really stands on it's own and both John and I were very pleasantly surprised with the quality and design of all the products with may on trend pieces at reasonable prices. There was a real Scandi feel in the living spaces and when we move into our new home, hopefully later this year, we are planning to purchase one of their stylish sofas. What also caught our eye was their lamps and light fittings, especially the copper effect t......

Read more »

Friday Interior Finds - Call Me

We have been meaning to get a "proper" phone for a longtime, especially since our Juno hamburger phone was too tempting as a toy for Mr A and really I had had it for years and needed or a more grownup replacement. As some of you may already know we are huge fans of retro and vintage interiors and we did actually have a phone from the 60's for a while but they don't have touch dial and if your calling anytime of number that requires you to "press one" it simply does not work so this Wild and Wolf phone from Red Candy has all the retro features but is as practical as any modern phone today. I thought I would also put a few of my favourite interior picks for Friday Finds from Red Candy as they have such a great selection of chic, quirky and unique products and I absolutely love this round light fitting and sorbet bowls and as soon as we move later this year I have my eye on a few pieces I would like to pick up for the new home. 1. Umbra Tr......

Read more »

Three things - Interior loves

So they say it's the little things in life that count and it's the small touches that really make a home so I thought I would share three things that have caught my eye this week and I would love to have in the home, all simple but beautiful. First of all I am trying to find more time to read and love this Literary Art from In Spaces , it would be perfect for my reading nook. If you read the blog you probably already know I love Scandi and Nordic interiors, the simplicity combined with well made furniture and beautiful objects if done well can create a lovely, creative space and I would love to put this Nordic slip glazed stoneware jug from Rigby & Mac, where is you will also find this hand screen-printed chevron cushion. I have a thing for yellow this season, it's one of my new favourite colours for the home....

Read more »

Nursery Prints

I love this simple and nature inspired wallpaper print ( image ) So I cannot believe I am already 32 weeks and we haven't even really started on the nursery, so that is our first port of call for the New Year and what a fun project it will be (hopefully). We recently picked up some lovely printed wallpaper from Laura Ashley which I cannot wait to share with you all. I have to admit I have never really bought into the "statement wall" trend unless done very well, although I have to say that I do think it works best in a nursery or kids room as that is the type of place you can really have some fun and it's the type of room that you need to inject a bit of colour and texture. I love this simple, subtle and stylish nursery and how cute is the cloud pillow ( image ) The great thing is now there is so much choice, you can still keep the room fairly simple and clean  but bring in some light and subtle prints, which is what we are going to go with when w......

Read more »

Hello Stripes

I love this striped rug ( image ) We are really trying to bring more texture, patterns and colour into the house and it popped in my head the other day how much I love stripes and as long as you plan your room right and don't go over the top it can be a real statement pattern in any room in the house, such as this amazing rug in a kitchen. By keeping the kitchen simple and neutral in colour it means that is does not look over cluttered or too busy with the stripes and intact they add to the beauty of the room. This technique can also be followed through into a hallway and I love how the colourful stripy rug really adds to the room and brings in an elegant but fun element to the space. A more personal way of adding stripes and colour into a room is by painting a key piece of furniture such as the chest of drawers above, the main thing to remember is only do one piece of furniture otherwise it just won't work and don't clash colours, keep things simple and it can bec......

Read more »