PRETTY YOUNG THING

We are hoping to buy our own place in the next few years, at the moment we are renting so I am restricted when it comes to decorating so I tend to buy new accessories to refresh our home.

I'm always looking for ideas and inspiration for our future home and I thought i'd share a few products and ideas I have for our living room. I actually really want to buy a few new bits and pieces for our current living room to brighten the place up a little.

Right now alot of our accessories are black and white as the sofa is black, when we buy our own sofa  I want to go for a grey sofa and will most likely have alot of grey accessories. I think grey is really classy and clean. Right now I plan on buying some grey cushions and maybe a grey rug to incorporate it into our current living room and then we can bring these items with us when we move. By using accessories to add colour to a room it makes it really easy to change a colour theme and is more affordable than replacing all of your furniture.

I'm loving window shutters right now and think they look so clean and stylish, much nicer than fabric blinds. Thomas Sanderson stock window shutters for any window, I think these Bay Window shutters look so nice, I like traditional bay windows and think the shutters make them look gorgeous.

I really want to buy some new furniture and accessories, alot of our furniture is quite cheap, it's pretty much all from Ikea and i'd like to add some new pieces to our living room. This nest of tables would be perfect, they are white with a little wooden top and would look fab in our living room. We have a coffee table right now but I think I'm going to get rid of this to make more room.

I'm on the lookout for some nice new bits like a new lamp and some new cushions and a throw. I want to make our living room look cleaner and more modern. We have a lot of black and white and patterns going on and I think I want the room to look more grown up with crisp clean furniture and accessories.

I'm always looking out for new bits and accessories to refresh my home and always looking for new stylish ways to keep my home looking trendy, clean and new.







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Spring is on its way, well, according to the calendar anyway, the weather seems to have other ideas. But whilst we wait for it to show its face in terms of sun and warmth, there are some small additions and chances you can make to your home to ensure it’s ready for spring.

These are the simple ways to update your home for spring this year.

Change your cushion covers and throws
Cushions and throws are easy ways to add some colours into your rooms, and whilst heavy jacquard and velvet fabrics work well through autumn/winter, changing them for linen materials and printed cottons makes them ideal for spring/summer.

Switch from deep and dark colours through winter to lighter and brighter shades in the summer months.

New bedding
Give your bedroom a new look with some printed bedding or a clean and crisp new set. Again choose something bright and light that will give the room a clean feeling that we associate with the brighter days of spring.

Flowers
Floras for spring might not seem revolutionary, but it works. As much as we love the idea of plants throughout the house, make your home spring-ready with the addition of flowers. Whilst it might not be cost effective to have fresh flowers in every room, add in some fake ones to the spaces that you don’t sit for hours.
Keep fresh flowers in your living room or kitchen, and then add in some fake ones to your bedroom, bathroom or dining room. This way you’ll add some instant colour to the space and won’t have to worry about replacing them regularly.

Colour
Add bright colours or pastels to your rooms in the forms of vases or other trinkets, perfect if your rooms are mainly neutral shades as this will definitely make them more spring ready.

Rearrange furniture
Give a room a new look by simply moving around the furniture if you can. It’ll take a little heavy lifting and effort, but it won’t cost you a thing and you’ll give the space a whole new look.

Solar garden lights
With the days getting longer, and hopefully the sun making a more regular appearance adding in some First Lighting solar garden lights will make your garden instantly more appealable. If you have some lights outside you’re more likely to utilise the space once the sun has gone down, and solar garden lights are easy to install and incredibly cost effective too.

New scents
Change the scent of your rooms and home by adding in some new room diffusers and candles. Keep things light and fresh which are perfect for spring and summer.

Remove clutter
If you’d prefer your home to be bright and clean for spring, you might prefer to pack things away like cushions, throws, vases etc. Remove bits of clutter from the rooms and keep things tidy this season.

Replace curtains
Change the curtains in your home from heavy fabrics, to lighter and thinner design which are great to let even more light into the rooms. Perfect for when the sun is shining the whole day.

Bring more light to your hallway
The hallway is the first place that guests will see, and if your hallway doesn’t get a lot of natural sunlight, it might be best to add some lights to the space so that it’s bright and light throughout summer. Interesting and fun table lamps will add novelty, or keep things fuss-free with wall lights.

Buy a new rug! You wouldn't believe how much difference a rug makes to a room. I'm actually on the lookout for a new rug for our living room as ours is just getting old and tired. I'm after something light and neutral so if I change the colours of the room that it will still fit in. By going for a nice light colour i'm hoping that the room will look fresher and bigger. We have carpet in our living room so i've used the infographic below to help pick out the perfect rug. We have quite thin carpets so I think a nice thick rug will add some texture to the room.







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We are hoping that in the next 5 years we will own our own house. Right now we rent and we plan on renting for a few more years. We have discussed mortgages but as i'm only working part-time we are better off waiting until I go back to work full time when Amelia starts School. I don't think it makes much sense for me to work full time as we would have to pay for childcare for Amelia and i'd rather spend this time with her. I thought i'd share a few ways in which we intend on saving money. We need to save money to pay for deposits and renting fee's and we currently live in a part furnished apartment so we will need to pay for furniture and other appliances.

First up is making cut backs.  Do I really need to buy that pair of boots? Going out for extravagant
meals. It's good to look at your statement and see how much you really spend on unnecessary purchases for example those £4 coffees twice a week add up, you can buy a whole jar of coffee and put it in your own to-go cup. I was spending £17 a month of a cinema car that I don't use and wasting £30 a month on my gym membership.  I know it's not the same but if you want to save money you have to make these simple changes. By making these little changes like parking a little further away from town or why not walk to the shops instead of driving?

Meal Planning - We waste so much food and it's because we never plan our meals. Plan your meals for the week and write a shopping list. Then go to the supermarket and just buy whats on your list, I find online shopping is a good way to save money too because you don't get tricked into buying those £1 offers at the end of the aisle. Also by doing a weekly shop you use less fuel going back and forth to the shops and you tend to eat what you have in rather than going to get something else for dinner.

Shopping around  - why pay more for something?  You can browse different websites online and find out what stores have the best prices and offers on those products that you need. Going to shops like Home Bargains or Savers for your household goods can save you loads compared to the supermarkets. As I mentioned above we rent a part-furnished apartment so when we move we are going to need to buy everything from a sofa, fridge-freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer. It's good to shop around online and there's websites like latestdeals.co.uk who have loads of really good deals on appliances. Another way to save money is to look for vouchers when shopping as you can save lots of money by looking to see if there is a voucher before you buy, even if it's just a free delivery code.

Buy secondhand - There are so many products that you can buy secondhand, one of my friends bought a secondhand sofa and its lovely. It's a huge grey corner sofa and I would never of guessed it was pre-owned. You can find some really good deals on furniture, I bought our Ikea dressing table second hand and it looked brand new and it cost me about £20 instead of the retail price of £120.

Even after following my money-saving tips we will still need to look at a service like Zippa Loans to buy some of the furniture and to put towards a deposit. This way we can manage the monthly repayments. I think we will buy a new fridge/freezer and then look into getting a second hand sofa and some wardrobes. I think we could bring our washing to our parents for a couple of months and then save up to buy a washing machine instead of paying out loads at the same time.














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Our baby girl is due anytime now, my due date is just under 2 weeks away but I have a feeling that she's going to make an early arrival. We have started to get her nursery together but she won't actually be sleeping in there for a few months yet as they have to sleep in your room for the first 6 months. Her room so far has a cot and a few toys and her clothes but its very neutral and plain and I just want to add a few pretty girly bits to make it look pretty and girly. I'm not planning on spending loads of money on her room as we rent so won't be living here forever.

I thought i'd just do a post featuring a few room ideas and products that i've spotted that I want to get or have got already for bubba's room. I will be doing a nursery tour once i've got a few more bits and once her room is finished.

I want her room to be pretty but not over the top, I just want a few nice simple prints and patterns. I'm thinking a pink, white and grey colour scheme. I will be keeping the walls white, as I mentioned above we are renting right now so I don't fancy spending lots of money painting. I have seen little reusable wall decals online so might get something to add a little bit of colour/ pattern to the walls. I was thinking maybe some polka dots in pink or rose gold to add a little something. I am planning on putting up a couple of picture shelves so I can have a few nice prints on the walls. I've picked out a couple here, the prints will be quite simple and I will get some plain white or black frames from Ikea.

We do need to get a blind for the nursery too as we only have a little curtain up at the moment and I want to get a blackout blind so that the room is really dark during the day so it's easier for the baby to sleep. Ambition Blinds have a huge selection of blinds including a selection of blackout roller blinds and vertical blinds. Around the window area I want to hang some bunting or fairy lights too to make it pretty and girly.

I've actually got this rug from Amara ready to pop in the nursery, It's a nice grey and white rug with stars on so it's neutral and could easily be used in any room, not just a nursery. I think the grey and white will pull everything together and it's a really decent size.

I want to get some nice monochrome bedding, i'm loving this half moon pattern and have managed to find some fitted sheets for the cot in this print which i'm really excited about. I will get a few pink sheets too but I was thinking of keeping the bedding monochrome and then getting a few pretty cushions and toys to make her cot prettier. I love this cloud cushion from Sass and Belle and think its perfect for a nursery.

I want to make a DIY mobile for bubbas cot, I've been thinking about making one with clouds on or wool pom poms on. I will be sticking to the pink, grey and white theme. I really need to make a start on this as shes going to be here soon.

That's it really so I think the room is going to be pretty clean and white with little pops of pink splashed around. I want to keep things pretty simple and just add little bits of pattern here and there. I think once she starts playing with toys and reading books that there will be plenty of colour around but for now I just want it to look pretty and be somewhere she can get a good nights sleep.






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* Homesense kindly sent me a voucher to go and pick out a few bits from their Halloween range. I have not been paid for this blog post and the post is honest and my own opinions. 

Today's post is all about my top tips for renting. I've been renting for about a year and a half now and have had a few ups and downs along the way. I found blog posts such as this really helpful when we were looking at renting as if was all new to us and we had only ever lived at home with parents. Below are a few of my top tips for renting, if you have any questions and I haven't covered it below then just send me a comment or email and i'm happy to help or check out the HomeLet website for lots of information about renting for tenants and landlords.

ORGANISATION - You need to be organised when renting, from looking at properties to moving in. When looking at properties you need to know how much you are willing to spend and how much you can afford, you need to know what you want, how many bedrooms?  a garden? bath or shower?

Write a list of properties you want to enquire about with estate agent information and numbers and make sure you have all your documents ready to go! We found renting was very speedy you need to get your applications in quickly, they usually need to see your financial documents and get you to fill out forms with your passport details so have everything to hand.

When you actually move in it's good to go into the empty house/ flat etc and take photos of everything. That way you have proof of what was in the house when you moved in and what kind of state it was in. This makes it easier when your trying to get your deposit back when moving out. Also write a list of these things too just incase you loose the photos as a backup. We have a folder where we keep all of the bills, documents and I have kept this list safe in here.


PAYING THE BILLS - As well as your rent, you have other bills to pay like council tax, utility bills like water, gas, electric and internet. I set up a joint account with Clint and we use this to pay all of these bills. We each put money in on payday and this covers all of these bills so we don't have to worry. Try and set up your bills so they come out at around the same time, all of our bills come out on the first of the month which makes it easy to remember. Use comparison websites to get the best deals on your utility bills, don't just stick with what the previous tenant had.

INSURANCE - You should get some kind of content insurance should you have any kind of accident, this covers your stuff as most landlords insurance doesn't cover your things. Also appliances should be checked regularly. Our boiler and gas appliances are checked every year to make sure it's safe.

TENANCY AGREEMENT- Make sure you have an up to date tenancy agreement. If you have been living at the same place for a while or you decided to have a short term tenancy agreement then have a look over this and make sure it's up to date. You may have originally agreed on a 6 month tenancy but now a 12 month tenancy would suit you better, get in touch with your landlord or estate agent about updating the agreement if you feel it's now out of date.














* This post is in collaboration with HomeLet

We've been making some changes to the apartment and we will be painting and giving the whole place a fresh new look. I've started already with the living room by adding some new accessories and changing the colour theme. We are going to do the bedrooms next and then the bathrooms ( we have an en-suite aswell as our main bathroom)

Our bathroom suites are white and we are going to freshen up the paintwork, keeping it all white and fresh. I want to add some new accessories to give the bathrooms a complete makeover.

I love this huge round mirror, it's from Habitat and is gorgeous, it's on trend and will make a big difference.

I'm loving these copper bathroom accessories and think they will add a really nice addition and refresh the whole room.

I really like this Blush Pink colour right now so might pick up a few towels and accessories in this colour, we have blue towels at the moment so this will make quite a big difference.

This long mirror radiator from DesignerRadiatorShowroom.co.uk comes in a Rose Gold colour which would be so cool and would match with my colour theme perfectly. You can actually head over to the DesignerRadiatorShowroom.co.uk website to enter a competition to win £250 to spend on making your dream bathroom into a reality.

Check out my Pinterest board here with lots more bathroom inspiration and ideas to create my perfect bathroom.

Images taken from Pinterest

* I have not been paid for this post, I was kindly gifted a gift voucher for attending the event. This post is honest and my own opinions and views.

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