My New Blog - Re-Love Your Home

The last few weeks have been super exciting for us at Sussex Home Stylist HQ. We’ve started to work on some some really exciting new projects, our own project is coming on a storm and I’m now working from my very own home studio / office which I’m beyond excited about.

I’ve started sharing how things are going with my different projects and the best feedback I get is most definitely from the Mum’s on the school run who are always excited to see what updates we’ve done on our house and how our various projects are coming along.

As a relatively new, small business I often get caught up in ‘doing the actual work’ as opposed to the ‘marketing and talking about all the exciting stuff that’s goes on’ as that in itself can take up so much time. So I’ve decided to start my blog up again. Nothing fancy, just an update to my geeky friends and followers out there who get as over excited as I do about a nice looking lounge, a sexy staircase or a cosy cushion. For those of you who share my love of a Facebook Marketplace bargain or a new Ikea Hack. I’ll put it all on here.

Re-Love Your Home

I’ve called it the Re-Love Your Home Blog, because quite simply that’s what I love to help people to do. Let’s be honest It’s all been pretty depressing of late. I know a fair few people who have been thinking of moving or about to do some major work on their house and they simply can’t do it right now financially, or are sitting tight to see what happens. And in the whole process they’ve fallen out of love with their home. It happens a lot.

Loving your home, whether it’s just you, you and your partner or a busy house full of kids, is SO important. It’s your safe place, your place to comfortably be you, where you create a home that makes you and those around you feel comfortable . Somewhere to celebrate all the good stuff life has to offer and a place to come back home to when you’re exhausted. The place where all the little mundane things happen. The special things that in years to come will be the ones that you remember. Home needs to feel like one giant pair of fat pants! The best ones you ever had. And then depending on your taste while it feels like fat pants it needs to look more like a Big Night Out thong, fancy French knickers or…..you get my drift. I’ve over egged the underwear analogy. I’ll move on!!

The hope is that every other week (and we’ll see how it goes) I can give you some good, affordable home tips and tricks, share cool before and after pics on some great projects and maybe even share a bit of love for some other small businesses and cool people to follow too.. Nothing too long - just enough to digest over a cuppa

My Projects

So I’ll kick off with a run down on projects. I’ve been doing some work on a beautiful old Edwardian double fronted building in Worthing that is going to be an exciting new venue for a new business. I can’t say too much about it yet but watch this space, you’ll be the first to hear when its ready. I’ve been working on a proposal to re-jig the downstairs of a family home in Steyning as the layout just isn’t working. And I’ve been helping a ‘downsizer’ to make home in her lovely new house in Horsham, stripping back some really modern features to make it a warmer and more cosy space.

I’ve been working for a while now on a family home in Shoreham. They came to me at the point of having signed off with a builder on an extension out the back and a loft conversion and needed some help designing each room from the colours through to the sourcing. We’ve pretty much finished the design work now and the loft conversion is about to knock through so I can’t wait to see some of those designs come to life over the next few weeks. I’ll share some photos. My client LOVES colour and they’re about to start kitting out their bedroom and bathroom is a wonderful rich dark green. Photos to follow as soon as I have them, I can’t wait to see it.

Our project is coming along great guns this week - It’s all about the flooring. Those of you who follow regularly will remember the rather special hall carpet. As I type Rob’s beavering away in the house finishing off the hallway floor. He’s then working on his office and moving into work on the lounge for Christmas. It has the most amazing fireplace. I’m not sure if we’ll have a log burner in for Christmas but I’m on the case with that this week so I’ll know soon.

Then of course there’s my home studio. It’s been my first week working in here and I absolutely love it! It’s the space above our garage so it’s separate to the house and away from all the distractions. Rob’s delighted to get all my samples out of the house and I’m loving the peace! there are a few finishing touches left to do but it’s pretty much there. For now anyway - in my book nothings ever finished! I’ve taken some photos and I’ll make sure I share them next week.

New people to perve on!

I haven’t done this before but I thought I’d share some of the people I like to follow as it’s always nice to refresh the old feed once in a while. I’ve been a keen followers of @mishkashoe for a long time now she comes up with some great ways to get a high end look for less. Thanks to her Ikea built in shelf hack, she’s just saved me a small fortune - or rather helped me to get the shelves I wanted that I couldn’t afford otherwise. Thank you Michaela!

The other person I absolutely LOVE to follow is @woodandhomeaccents. The States have some great interiors people to follow and I love seeing the amazing transformations of furniture into some amazing pieces. Give her a follow you’ll love it.

@mishkashoe does all her own DIY creating a gorgeous neutral home

@woodandhomeaccents absolutely nailing a cabinet renovation

This weeks advice: In the Frame

I love my home to be full of personal things and I have more frames than you can throw a stick at. Some really special pieces I’ve had framed professionally and I have to say it really does make the world of difference. For those of you super local I can’t recommend Tony at All Things Covered in Henfield enough. His quality of work is great and his prices are really reasonable.

But what if you can’t afford to have each frame made bespoke? I’d be flat broke if I did. This week I found some really good value frames in The Range while I was rooting around for Halloween decorations. They have some very plain and simple frames, perfect for individual pictures or gallery walls and they’re super cheap. Ikea and Dunelm are also great for frames. Be careful not to just ‘plonk’ the cheaper frames on a central nail in the wall as the frame will start to bow. Use picture wire and hang the frame from that so the frame retains its shape or use the hook on the back properly so there’s no pressure on the frame at all. One thing to note: a lot of the cheaper frames use Perspex now instead of glass. Make sure you peel the protection cover from both sides of the Perspex off before you fix it in the frame. or you won’t be able to see your picture clearly! Trust me….it happens!

One thing you can do to really elevate the look of a framed picture or photo is to use an oversized mount. You can buy these really cheply online or Dunelm do some in frames already. They change the look and make a simple frame look much higher end and it’s really inexpensive to do.

McGee and Co showing us how an oversized mount works wonders

Right - I’m off to London today to see The Book of Mormon. I can’t wait I’ve been wanting to see it for years. I hope this was interesting - let me know if it was, I’d love some feedback. If there’s anything else you’d like to see, hear me talk about, know how to do with your home please just add your comments below and I’ll make sure I cover them next time. And if you want to get alerted by email when the next blog goes live just fill in your details below and I’ll send you a link over when the next one is ready.

Have a great weekend!

Hannah Searle4 November 2022The Sussex Home Stylist2 Comments