Lockdown may be lifting, but we’ve all spent months mulling over our homes. With more time spent indoors, it’s been easier than ever to identify what works in our current set up – and what doesn’t. And while a luxury Harron Home might be a great starting point, people are keener than ever to make their mark on their property.
We teamed up with one of our customers, Carla Bradley, to discuss how to treat your home as a springboard for your ideas and visions.
“My taste is really varied,” says Carla, “so it’s important to me that everything has a simple, clean and modern base that still look sleek once adapted a little. Our kitchen is quite industrial, whereas the rest of the décor is relatively simplistic. That said, we’ve a young son – three-year-old Tommy – and busy lives, so we’ve had to work hard to make the most of our space.”
My taste is really varied so it’s important to me that everything has a simple, clean and modern base that still look sleek once adapted a little. Our kitchen is quite industrial, whereas the rest of the décor is relatively simplistic. That said, we’ve a young son – three-year-old Tommy – and busy lives, so we’ve had to work hard to make the most of our space.
To make the most of your space, Carla offers the following tips.
1) The thing I get asked most about in our house is the playroom – we converted half the garage. We split the integral garage down the middle, so the front is storage and the back is the playroom. We boxed in the boiler and combined it with shelves and storage for toys. Then we painted a chalkboard wall under the stairs. My little boy loves it!
2) We converted one of the bedrooms into a dressing room. We put in fitted wardrobes for hidden storage, as well as a dressing table, cabinet and day bed. I work long shifts, so it’s lovely to have somewhere to get ready on a morning away from the main bedroom. Most recently, I’ve panelled the walls in there to give it a chic extra touch.
3) We’ve put rustic tiles on the walls in the kitchen to complement the natural stone feature wall. We knew we wanted it before we even moved in, and it’s why we decided to go with a more industrial style kitchen. We’ve also changed the flooring in the hallway and kitchen to make the space more our own.
4) My husband has been working from home through the pandemic and probably will be for the foreseeable, so we’ve turned the spare bedroom into an office. We’ve redecorated with neutral, natural textures and calming colours. We wanted to make the space work for us as much as possible.
5) I spent a lot of time on Instagram while Tommy was little, looking at how to do his room. I ended up painting mountains onto the wall and put a tepee in there. We wanted it to be in keeping with the rest of the house – light and bright.
When he needed a bigger bedroom, we had to repaint the mural in the new room. So that’s my number 1 tip – always give your child the bigger bedroom or you’ll end up having to move them anyway!
You can follow Carla on Instagram @no53_thewindsor.