our house

I live in a little thatched cottage with my husband. We've been there more than a year now and it's finally starting to feel like a proper home. I'm not at all moved or excited by homes where everything matches, everything has been thought out to the last detail and all the furniture and accessories are tasteful but boring. To me that's not really a home - home should be full of stuff that has a personal resonance; it should be a bit rough around the edges and guests should feel like they can spread out and relax in it. I resist putting things in the house that are merely decorative and bland, acquired from this or that trendy shop and which adorn a thousand other homes. I want people to look at my home and ask me questions about what this object is, or what that picture means. I have an eclectic, slightly mad interiors style with pops of random colour against neutrals - I don't care, nor have the patience for colour matching. I love vintage and antique furniture and never buy something just because it is inoffensive or cheap. For me, home should be a place where you can express your tastes and not care about what other people think about it. This combined probably results in a chaotic, ill-thought-out jumble, but it's my jumble and I like it.

I'll maybe put up some pictures of our house one day. It's quite dark, with low ceilings and small windows so it doesn't photograph very well but I'll try.


For now, here's a little arrangement on top of our sideboard. The little dog was one of my husband Mark's childhood toys, the wooden type blocks were a 25th birthday gift from some lovely friends, and the vintage pressed glass jug was from a charity shop in London. The coloured print is from PinPals on Etsy, and the picture you can just see behind is an original drawing by a friend. This picture was taken on the day that Mark was out in the garden chopping a tree down and the branches of blossom were salvaged from the wreckage. I should have taken the photos a couple of days later when the flowers opened to splendid effect.