12 May 2015

Making a house our home

As I've said before I am desperate for our own home and we are in the process of saving up our deposit, it's on my to do list.   I cannot wait to get stuck into decorating exactly how I want and as outrageously as I want which I can't do in our rented apartment.  Recently I have fallen out of love with our little nest, I think purely because I want our own place so badly, especially now I'm starting to feel a little more broody.  There is simply no space to spare here and so a baby is just out of the question.

Instead of letting myself get down in the dumps over it I have had a stern word with myself and learnt to love it once again. No, our home may not actually be our own but we have put our stamp on this place and  learnt to be creative with the space we have (which really isn't much).  

So here are my top tips on how to make a rented house your own, and therefore a home.

My favourite accessory for every room is candles!  You cannot have too many candles.  They come in so many shapes, sizes, colours and scents that you will be hard pushed to find something you don't love.  They quickly inject a little bit of style into a room whilst also adding warmth and comfort no matter the time of year.  At the moment my favourite is a church candle that is housed in a big lantern I was very kindly gifted by a client.  I do also love our white vase/plant pot style ones, they lined the aisle on our wedding day and now have pride of place in my bedroom.




Photographs.  Enough said I think.  I can't wait to cover a wall, or maybe two, in photos once we get our own place but for now we have them scattered throughout the apartment in many different style frames and set out in different ways.  They are also really easy to rotate and update. We do have a few on the walls too but again as we are rented most of them are sat on any surface space that's free.



We also have a digital photo frame so we can display more photos than we can put up in this place. I love that this means lots more pictures get viewed and they are constantly changing.  Luca quite often asks me what is happening in the photos that pop up on it too which is lovely and a nice way to tell him about days we have had out and things that happened when he was too little to remember.



As well as photos, a canvas or too can bring life into boring, empty spaces. This one is in Luca's bedroom and helps add a 'super' splash of colour to his walls.  In our bedroom we have a big canvas of one of our wedding photos above our bed (which you can just about see in one of the photos below). 


As a person who was quite possibly a magpie in a former life, I cannot get enough of fairy lights.  They are not just for Christmas let me tell you.  We have fairy lights in both bedrooms and also in the kitchen.  We have multi-coloured balls strung up in Luca's bedroom that I have had for years. They are great for giving off a soft, calming light to read books by before bed and help get Luca settled and relaxed as he drifts off to sleep.



These beauties below are in our bedroom and are my favourite by far.  We have them draped across the headboard and they make me feel relaxed instantly whilst also making our bedroom feel very romantic too.  They cast some amazing shadows onto the walls from the pattern cut into them.




These ones are in our kitchen, they look fab even when they aren't lit up, adding a little hint of kitsch.  





They are also battery powered which means we now have a little bit of light in the corner of our kitchen where there are no power sockets.  Battery powered fairy lights are great for lighting up awkward spaces and you can even use them outside on a nice summers evening. 
They were also a lifesaver when we had a power cut a few weeks ago, everyone should own battery powered fairy lights for this reason alone.  These lights and those bad boys above were kindly sent to us by UK Christmas World. It took me ages to decide which ones I wanted as there are so many to choose from.  Seriously, if you don't have fairy lights in your life then you need to rectify this immediately and like I said, I promise you fairy lights are definitely not just for Christmas.

One thing I don't do is ornaments, they are just extra things to dust in my eyes but we do have a few nick nacks scattered around the apartment.  I love things that have meaning and memories attached. For example we have some male & female carved heads and a hand carved shell (can't remember from which fruit) that we brought back from our first holiday together to Jamaica.  



My button bouquet I made for our wedding is on proud display, as is my late Papa's camera. 



In Luca's room he has his piggy bank, hand painted by myself and Ant, when I was only a few months pregnant with Luca.



We also have two speech bubble chalkboards in the kitchen, handmade by my father in law for our wedding guest book photos, which Ant quite often leaves us messages on before he goes to work on a morning.  It's so lovely to find these little messages when we wake up.



Lastly, soft furnishings. A cushion scattered here or there make anywhere feel more cosy whilst bedding can inject personality even into the blandest of rooms.  

Get creative, boring seat pads on your kitchen chairs update them, get your kids artwork framed and on the wall or replace a vase with a vintage urn or watering can. 

Although there are tons of things I would love to do with this place, I'm pretty proud of our little home and think it feels like ours even if it isn't. It's cosy, comforting and reflects our personalities as a family perfectly. 

So until we get our own place we will quite happily stay here.


Disclaimer: The fairy lights were kindly gifted to us by UK Christmas World, but as always all opinions are honest and my own.

5 comments:

  1. Ah such a lovely post Franki! Are you sure we're not separated at birth?! Because I couldn't agree more with this list of yours. I don't do ornaments but I most definitely DO sentimental, I'm obsessed with candles and fairy lights and would cover every single inch of our walls in photos if I could...(actually!).

    Lovely post. Thanks for sharing. xxx

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  2. It sounds like we could possibly be! I'm the same with the photos I can't wait to have our own place to actually do it, whether the hubby likes it or not. :-) xx

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  3. Beautiful :) I love your chalkboards :) xxx

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    1. Thank you Hannah. I can't wait to see your new place x

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  4. I like room candles too.

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