According to the estate agents I bought my house from, I have a 2/3 bedroomed (don’t ask) house. It’s tiny and mid-terrace. A good friend of mine who shall remain nameless comments each time she visits that I have too many pictures and that I should shed some. For the purposes of accuracy I have just had a quick count up and there are admittedly in excess of 100 (not including photos and my son’s posters) but personally I think this is OK. and noticed a couple of slots that would benefit from having something nice popped into a frame. Whenever She descends and makes the dreaded comment I do, for a nano second, think she might have a point and that the style today is for “less is more” and perhaps I should get rid of some of them but then I come too and stop being silly. It is afterall my home and it’s my style. This is my “go to” place and therefore I have to like it and be comfortable in it so what I say definitely goes.

As I look around my bashed about cosy nest and the growing list of little jobs in hand I wonder how people can be so easily led by the “experts” and how many people actually do just buy stuff because it’s in the shops and featured in the style mags. Surely people only buy things they love with the intention of keeping it forever or is that just me?

My kitchen is tiny and decidedly unfitted. When I moved into this Wendy House of mine 5 years ago I wondered what to do with the sagging 1970’s melamine kitchen. First, without the aid of any tools at all, I pulled the cupboards off the wall. I then went out and bought a pine dresser (this cost £350 delivered). This makes up the bulk of my kitchen. There is a tall fridge one end and a cooker squeezed in at the other end. On the other wall I have a 90cm high wall cupboard for tins and pasta etc. with enough space above to store my essential fish kettle. My fish kettle is used on average once every two years but I have learnt the hard way that once it’s gone, it’s gone and so I will not be chucking it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Good design is good design whether old or new and so not everything in my shop is old. For instance I had a little rush the other day when I discovered a triangular Beswick ornament/dish or in my world an Ikebana dish perfect for Japanese flower arrangements which is date-stamped 1985. A classic of the future. Very collectible. My criteria for buying stock is that I have to like it and would want to give it house room myself. I have been faithful to this with only one or two exceptions. I have a couple of pictures that have got under the radar and they leave me twitching every time I look at them.

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I have given a lot of thought to the dreaded words “Life laundry/down sizing/having a clear out/de-cluttering” which are all terms I have come to hate. They seem to stem from a profitable genre of telly programmes and, sadly, I like everyone else fell for it. How ironic is it that you can buy books on the subject!

My own sorry story started 10 years ago with my journey down the slippery property ladder from a big four bedroom Victorian house, to a much smaller three bedroom Victorian house to my present Wendy house which is, believe it or not, a 2/3 bedroom Victorian house.

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