H&M Home Haul

Myself like everyone else I know is obsessed with H&M Home. Their aesthetic is just so perfect and they always seem to have some really interesting pieces that look high end designer not high street! Of course the prices are pretty amazing too.

This post is going to be a slightly long one given the number of things I have acquired over the past year or so.

First up are mugs – these are the most gorgeous mugs ever! You will notice that I am drawn to most things with a gold accent – mainly a gold rim in the case of H&M Home! The flamingo and ladybird mugs are beautiful. I love that they are black, white and gold. The mugs are all £6.99.

This one is also stunning with flowers and more ladybirds and of course a gold rim – this was a gift from someone who knows me well!

Next is a tray with the obligatory leaf print and again with a gold rim! It is such a unique piece (£17.99). I use it in my living room stacked over magazines and coffee table books and in it I have another H&M item – a candle in a decorative jar.

I love this candle. It is scented (firewood and fig) and costs £12.99. I love the snake design and of course the gold accents. After I finish the candle this will probably end up in my kitchen for tea bags or sugar!

Another stunner is this textured ceramic storage jar in baby blue with a gold topped lid. I use this in my bathroom for bath salts!

Finally my favourite most recent purchase – a ceramic plant pot with palm print and cheetahs (and of course a gold rim)! This is such a stunning piece and looks so much more expensive than £12.99! The green of the plant looks amazing against the black, white and gold. The design is also amazing and as you can see the images change as you move the pot around.

That is my current H&M Home collection but I know that this will be growing, every time I look on their website I see so many things I want that I have t resist!

Palm/Leaf Print Obsession

My palm print obsession continues…my hallway is of course a shrine to it (see here) and it is now spreading to the living room and garden!

Palm or leaf print cushions are my thing. I have had two Monstera print cushions from H&M Home for years (first picture) and now I have added these cute smaller ones with a lovely tropical bird (second picture, also from H&M Home and £6.99 each)! I think they are so pretty and work really well in my living room with all the greenery.

I also wanted a couple of cushions for my outdoor sofa. I couldn’t find actual outdoor cushions that I loved so I got these from Ikea £13 each, that I bring in every evening. I absolutely love the shape and size and of course the print. It really elevates the outdoor space!

 

My Daughters Room

My daughters room has taken a while and its still not quite right! Storage is definitely an issue but I am giving up on it looking clutter free as she loves it! She is now 11 and we wanted a room that she could grow with and love for a good few years.

So before we decorated it was a very tired looking room, with a desk and a futon on the floor.

Below is the after picture, with lemur wallpaper and all her toys! The wallpaper felt right as a continuation of the theme in the rest of the house!

Its a lovely bright room, thats full of colour and fun. The bed is an old Ikea bed that we spray painted copper and strung some lovely fairy lights on. The curtains and the bean bag were custom made by a lovely local tailor. The blue rug is from Homesense and the Persian rug is a family piece.

As you can see she has lots of stuff and we have a mish mash of storage solutions mostly from Ikea and eventually we might change things around but for now it works for her.

My daughter loves her room, she has loads of space to play, relax and have friend over too!

The Landing/Study

This is an odd space to write about specifically but I have to say I just love sitting at my desk on the landing so I thought I may as well write about it too! So before it was fairly sparse as you can see but straightaway I knew this was going to be my study! Having only 2 bedrooms means that you have to be a bit clever with where you put things and this landing is huge so lends itself well to being a working space as opposed to dead space!

This is the landing after. The main feature is the wallpaper from the hallway that wraps all the way round. I love that it creates this enclosed space around the desk and really frames the space making it special and not just a landing. I love the skylight above the desk, its a great place to watch the rain or the stars…

The desk was made for the space so stretches the length and depth of the nook and gives me loads of space both on the desk and below. I am planning lots of baskets etc to store things in but for now I am using what I already had.

The office chair is new and from Made. I love the grey fabric and the brass legs. I have added a velvet cushion and a colourful throw to add comfort and interest. The rug under the desk is from Homesense.

On the desk I have lots of things that are either functional or just pretty!

Candles and plants of course, and just other bits and pieces!

In the corner of the landing I have an old step ladder which I am using to display my collection of small plants. The skylight above the desk means that they are doing really well here.

I love the view from either end of the landing.

So thats my landing/study. A great little space for me and my daughter to work, but also just a lovely spot for a bit of contemplation with a coffee or a glass of wine..

 

The Bathroom

The next room I wanted to blog about is my bathroom. Although it was both the last room I decorated and the one I did the least to, I think the small changes have had a huge impact.

 

The bathroom before was simple and functional. I loved the skylight and the laminate floor which made the space feel very light. I was actually really happy with the room as it was and wasn’t going to redecorate it…until I saw this stunning wallpaper!

A friend sent me a picture of it and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Given that I had finished the rest of the house at this point, I couldn’t think where it would work and then suddenly it was so obvious that the perfect room for it was the bathroom. I did a bit of research and found a website where the owner had used the same wallpaper in a small under the stairs toilet and the wallpaper was doing well after a number of years. Once I had established I could use the wallpaper in the bathroom without any problems my mind was made up!

As the walls are tiled it had to be the ceiling and actually I love looking up at the golden swimming fish as I lie in the bath. I also painted the window surround gold as the white would’ve been too stark. The tiles were actually not that noticeable when I viewed the house, but now the dark metallic tiles work so well with the wallpaper. The wallpaper has completely changed the feel of the bathroom into something unique and very me.

The rest of the bathroom is mainly just my stuff. I had to have a plant in here and this one seems to be very happy under the skylight.

I have a lot of products so I have two storage units and have also made the most of the shelf that runs the width of the bathroom.

I do want to add more shelves mainly for plants and candles, but I am not in a huge rush. I am just enjoying the swimming golden fish!

And on to the Living Room

The next room I wanted to write about is my living room. Although the transformation in here is not yet complete, it’s already a lovely room with lots of future potential! This room was fairly simply decorated before I moved in, carpet on the floor and muted greyish lavender on the walls.

I knew that I wanted a lot of white throughout the house so it was easy enough deciding on that and I have carried on the laminate floor from the hallway into this room.

I wanted to keep the room open so I haven’t divided the space which works much better for me.

I did want one dark wall and I love this dark grey from Dulux (Night Jewels 2). I know, this is the colour you see every shop/restaurant/bar painted in now but the reason I picked this colour is because a friend has this in her kitchen and long before I bought my house I knew I wanted it! It also works so well with the white and the vast amount of greenery (which we will come back to)!

Some of the furniture came from the old house with a few new bits thrown in. I have been quite restrained in here with new pieces mainly because what I want are expensive pieces that I need to be certain of before I purchase! Against the grey wall is my beloved green leather chesterfield which I’ve had for years and love. It really fits with the grey wall and massive plant! Next to it is my bar from Oliver Bonas, again an old piece (see post here).

 

The 2 Ikea Poang armchairs are also old and very temporary until I decide what I am doing along this wall. I just cannot decide if I want more armchairs, a two seater a chaise longue…or a day bed?!! For now its fine and I am not rushing into anything. Finally I have this shelving unit from Ikea that was originally in my daughters room in the old house. I quite like it here so it has stayed.

On the opposite wall is a new white shelving unit from Ikea . I had seen this before I moved and loved it. It’s a great space for plants and I love that it has drawers. Again the clean white lines work well.

Then we have a old pine blanket box that honestly wasn’t mean to stay in here for long, but again I am not hating it and as I haven’t decided on what furniture I want it is staying.

In the corner is a folding table that I found in a vintage store nearby. It is my dinner table but I have yet to use it for that purpose!

Then we have the leather sofa which is from the old house but it’s a lovely soft leather and really comfortable and works well with my ideas for this room. All the side tables and the main coffee table are also old and all from Ikea.

In terms of decorative items, plants as you can see are a key feature. I absolutely love plants and this house loves them! Many of the pots are from vintage shops and the baskets are either from Homesense or small independent shops near me.

I also have a healthy candle obsession! Homesense is fantastic for affordable, lovely smelling and great looking candles! Otherwise I just have lots of little things I have collected over the years.

My new rug is from La Redoute and it’s the Afaw Berber rug – the one with the cult following and its own Instagram account (yes…true!). The other golden cow, as I call it, I got years ago at a design fair. I am thinking I need something warmer and cosier here for the winter months.

So that’s the living room, I love sitting on the leather sofa with my feet up looking at Buddha in his new spot surrounded by green!

It all started in the hallway…

To start my blog again, I wanted to focus on my home. It has been the only thing I have been obsessing over for the last few months and my shopping has totally focused on home stuff! So I thought it would therefore be only right to start at home!

I want to start in the hallway of my new home. I absolutely love this space, it is probably my favourite in the whole house, although its impossible to choose favourites! This post is going to be a whole heap of photos, I warn you now! I love all the details and how they all come together, old and new, simple and complex…

So lets start before, this is what the hallway looked like when I first viewed this house. I could tell it was such a lovely feature but it needed some love!

So thats exactly what I gave it, a lot of love!

The main feature is of course the amazing wallpaper – parrots and palm print! I had been planning some sort of palm print so when I saw this one I knew immediately it would work.

Keeping the wall of the staircase and the ceiling white really helps makes this room feel light and bright and still really spacious. I replaced the carpet with laminate which allows so much freedom to go mad with the print!

The wallpaper is from Wallpaper Direct.

This telephone table is vintage and I found it the day after we moved in at a second hand furniture charity! I adore this piece, the old dark wood and floral upholstery clashes in all the right ways with the rest of the room!

On the telephone table I have a brass pot (for my keys) from Sri Lanka (my parents’ donated it to me!) and a lovely lamp from John Lewis. The runner is from Homesense. The plant stand is from Ikea.

Above the telephone table is my collection of vintage prints. Again I love the contrast of old and new.

The other side of the hallway starts with this corner where I have a gorgeous hanging plant and a basket with gold sequins for umbrellas & other bits!

I love the brass and ceramic hooks I found on eBay – to be used for coats or hanging plants!!

Each hook is different and so unique.

And then we come to my shoe storage unit. I knew I needed something for my daughter to keep her shoes in and also her school bags. It’s from Ikea but I changed the knobs (again from eBay and new knobs is a theme throughout the house!).

I love that its white and clean and fits perfectly without taking too much space away.

Cant live without some White Company scents!

This is Frida and she is beautiful and I couldn’t believe the background matched my wallpaper – it was meant to be!

I got her from Junique.

So thats my hallway! It gives me so much joy when I open the door and walk into this space. It is a total representation of my style and I adore it!