Creating A Room For Living, With John Lewis & Partners

May 30, 2019

This blog is proudly part of a paid partnership with John Lewis & Partners.

I think if you asked most people what they use their living room for you’d get an answer that required more than a few commas. In 2019 the living room needs to be a lot of things to a lot of people. It can be where you eat your dinner, where you play with your kids, where you watch films, where you read a magazine or to some, it’s even where you work. This shift in the way we live in the spaces we have is something John Lewis & Partners are looking to address with their latest campaign, Room For Living.

They’re inviting you to take a second look at what your living room means to you, what it should be and what purpose you need it to serve. There are five concepts in total, each designed to address specific needs that we have on the space. The saying goes that the kitchen is the heart of the home and I really believe when that phrase was coined it was absolutely the truth, however for me in 2019, the living room is that heart of our homes.

When John Lewis & Partners approached me and invited me to think about my own living room and what I need from that space, it came at a time when I was trying to work out the answer to that exact question. For me, my living room has long since been a weekend room. After work and the gym I might spend an hour, if that, in the room on a weeknight.

That was the first thing I wanted to address with the room, it should be a space you want to head to and spend your time in. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my living room, it just didn’t give me what I needed in a practical sense or create an environment I felt like I wanted to relax in. For the first time (ever) I started by making a moodboard of fabrics, colours and imagery that I’d be collating for the day I own my own home and looking at them to see what I could actually work into the room now.

http://aptechsoft.com/3ds-max/autodesk-3ds-max-2008-software/ Karten zahlen beim Blackjack acheter des cialis authentiques here go to link go site Buy Generic Atenolol Fast Shipping Order Generic Acyclovir UK A few things I noted from what caught my eye:

Texture was very important.
There was a very definite shift away from grey into more neutral tones. (Don’t worry, I won’t become millerbeige)
Soft, subtle hints of colour were there for the first time. Sneakily.
The straight angular lines I typically go for were getting a little softer, a little more natural.
Everything was feeling a little less formal, a little less rigid.

After I’d surprised myself with my own personal non-grey growth, I tried to approach the space as something new, by thinking about what I remember or associate most about living rooms over the years.

Growing up my favourite spot in the living room was laid on the carpet, in front of the fire. I’d lie there reading my magazines or watching the television for hours. At my Grandma’s house I would lie on the floor, awkwardly sandwiched between a wall and an armchair, and beside the heating vent. There’s something comforting about it. It’s probably because it reminds me of being a kid and it was the first thing I scribbled down here. I suppose it’s about being at absolute peace and comfort with a space ultimately. I wanted to take the room back to having that sense of contentment and comfort.

I knew if I removed the conventional coffee table from in front of the sofa and brought in a soft tactile rug, I would be able to do it again. You might think it’s a little odd and that’s okay. It makes me really happy, laid on the floor, leafing through a new magazine with a cup of tea beside me. A coffee table may well drift back in at some point, we’ll see how it evolves over time. Until then, I now have a footstool and a beautiful oak sidetable to pull in when I’ve decided it’s a night for the sofa rather than the floor.

During this process I also decided I needed to address three real issues in the room currently: storage, comfort and somewhere to work. I have very set rules about working in my home. I don’t do it sat on the sofa and I don’t do it in bed. Neither of those places are for work. I decided I needed a desk, somewhere to be about work and somewhere to be creatively stimulating! Equally I also believe it needs to be somewhere that is solely for that purpose. When you step away from it, you should leave work behind.

The Sofa.

The sofa that now sits in the room is the Belgrave Grand Sofa, upholstered in linen blend entitled ‘Habour Blue Grey’. It has an oatmeal-like tone, lending it a warmer appearance than the stark grey fabric that covered my previous two sofas. My main reason for changing the sofa was comfort – the Grand sofa allows me to fully lie out if I want to, something the past two inhabitants of the room haven’t been able to let me do, despite my distinctly average height of 5’9”.

It’s a small thing but the ability to lie down after a long day in somewhere other than your bed is so rewarding, I 100% believe having somewhere you feel perfectly comfortable is vital to your wellbeing.

As I mentioned before, I’ve had quite a few sofas in my time. When selecting the Belgrave I really took my time to not only test it out for comfort, but to think practically about it. The arms are narrow and unobtrusive, meaning you get the largest seating area possible. My last sofa was only 8cm smaller, yet had a whole 30cm less seating area!

The Sideboard.

Truth be told, this Design Project sideboard has been on my John Lewis & Partners Wish List for a very long time. It’s an incredible piece of furniture; all dainty brass handles and elegant mid-century-esque legs. The black top contrasts perfectly with the solid oak, but more important its tray-like design gives you the perfect surface to pile high with magazines and books. It addresses the storage needs I have for the room, concealing everything I don’t want to be seen with ease. Macbook chargers, rogue DVDs I can’t find the box for and photo frames that may or may not have fallen from the wall and you’ve still not got round to fixing, that sort of stuff.

Alabaster Vase, Design Project Lamp, Puritan Vase

Colour.

I’m not delusional, I’m aware my version of ‘colour’ isn’t exactly going to be considered colourful by most. For me however, this room shows a decidedly different look. I went for dark navy blue and soft plaster-like shades as the accents, used sparingly throughout the room. Neutral tones sit beside the various shades of grey I’ve always been drawn to and a stronger emphasis on wooden pieces of furniture helps to take away from the heavier black that used to be here before. All together the colour palette works to take away the cold edge of what was here before.

Texture always has to be key to everything I do, so everything I selected was to create a subtle contrast. Basket weave cushions, the deep pile of the rug, the woven jute of the footstool; they’re all working off the same palette but doing so with a different texture.

Design Project Cushion, Scandi Wooden Tray

The Desk.

Right now I’m actually sat at the desk, writing this blog. That’s precisely what I wanted this space for. I don’t want to be sat on an evening in my chilly dining room writing a blog or editing images. I’d far rather be in here, surrounded by images I’ve torn from magazines and softly scented candles. It’s perfect. It’s a large room and realistically this space could have held a larger desk, but this being a room about Wellbeing, I didn’t want that aspect of it to be too prevalent. It’s a part of the room, but work should never be what the living room is all about.

The Anton Leaning House desk is perfect if space is at a premium, it’ll tuck neatly into the corner of a room without much fuss and took all of five minutes to put together. Always a plus. The floor space it takes up in the room is so minimal, it’s seriously perfect for the narrow alcove here.

I can’t claim to be a particularly big fan of most desk chairs. I also don’t have the space or the luxury of being able to own a chair that will only ever function at a desk! The Croft Collection Kinross Spindle Chair I’ve teamed with the leaning desk is in fact a dining chair, one that will work perfectly with my vintage Ercol chairs in the dining room when there’s an extra guest for dinner.

The Art.

The wall behind the sofa has always been a big problem for me. There’s an ugly radiator sitting there which for me dictates where the sofa has to go, but there’s also an awful lot of wall there to try and fill. One day I’ll get round to creating the wall hanging I’ve been banging on about for years, but until then it’s been adorned by a series of prints with a much softer appearance than the room’s previous artwork. The stark black and white photography has gone for now. I’ll always love those images but it’s nice to have something a little less arresting to look at.

I’ve always loved this piece by Picasso and it sits perfectly within the calm, neutral ethos of the room for Wellbeing. It joins a piece I already owned and another new addition that is one of my favourite finds from John Lewis & Partners latest collection.

My mum had a double cassette of Elton John’s greatest hits that we would play on the way to school pretty much every morning. I remember listening to Your Song very specifically and it happens to be one of my favourite songs. When I saw John Lewis & Partners were selling a print of the song lyrics I knew it had to appear somewhere.

And just because people always ask me…

Why is there no TV?

It’s in the alcove to the other side of the fireplace and is not something you’ll ever see here or on Instagram. I don’t like the look of TVs and the one here is pretty small for the scale of the room. I find them rather obnoxious in rooms, so we’ll just pretend it doesn’t exist if you don’t mind.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more of the room on Instagram as it evolves and I take the time to live in it and see how it works for me – something I believe is important with all spaces. In the meantime I’d love to hear about what your living room is for you and what you need it to be. I’m guessing, like me, it’s the most multitasking room in your home.

Whilst John Lewis & Partners have paid me for my time spent styling, producing and writing this blog, they haven’t paid for my opinion on anything. My home has always featured so many of their pieces, from the bed I sleep in every night to the mug I drink my coffee from every morning. I’m proud to be working with them to produce this content.

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Interiors, My Home, Shop

How I Got A Better Nights Sleep

April 23, 2019

Ah, sleep. We’ve been here before on the blog haven’t we? My troubled journey to getting a better nights sleep has been fairly well documented over the years. On a very simple level, I apparently just don’t need as much sleep as other people may do in order to be fully functional. However, for a very long time the sleep I was getting was far from enough; most nights were broken and restless.

In that department I’m apparently not alone. In 2018 The Sleep Council conducted a survey to get a better understanding of how we deal with sleep as a nation. 35% of us have experienced problems with sleep for five years, with 10% for more than 10 years. The NHS guidelines state you should get between 7 and 9 hours sleep a night, something I find quite laughable to be honest. I’ll get more like 5 to 6 on a good night.

I’ve tried a lot of different ways of improving my sleep over the years. There’s been cherry juice and meditation with Oprah, multiple mattresses and a plethora of scented sleep candles. Over the past two months however I feel like I’ve finally got into a better rhythm with my sleeping. I’m still wouldn’t say I’m surpassing the 6 hour mark, but for me I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.

The Gym.

I go to the gym each night after work and if I haven’t been for whatever reason I completely notice the difference in how I sleep. Likely it’s down to simply being kind of exhausted and ready for sleep, but I think part of it is down to simply having a set routine. I know so many people are morning gym goers and come a weekend, so am I, but unless I also head out for a later afternoon run I never feel quite as ready for bed.

Blue Screens.

iPhones now have the functionality to switch to a night mode, supposedly helping your brain switch off as you wind down to sleep. For me however, I’ve gone cold turkey. Come 10pm my phone goes face down on the bedside table and I try my best not to lift it until morning. I can’t claim to be a huge watcher of TV through the week but I’ve also made the rule that the TV goes off at 10pm also. It’s an easy one to follow for me but appreciate for others that might not be so easy or indeed, welcome.

Reading.

I’ve always been a huge consumer of magazines and books but of late they’ve been mounting. The stacks of unread magazines and Amazon book suggestions were getting rather hefty, so as part of my new sleep routine I decided to tackle it. Before bed I try to get in 30 minutes of reading, whether that be a book or a magazine, it doesn’t matter. I just try to do something that doesn’t involve a screen. If I’m exhausted however, I tend to leave it and get into bed for 10pm. I appreciate to sum that could be excessively early but I will wake when the sun comes up, without fail. So going to bed later won’t mean I’ll get up later, I’ll just get less sleep!

Caffeine.

I remember years ago watching The Oprah Winfrey Show and a sleep expert saying realistically you should stop consuming coffee after 3pm in order for it to be out of your system by the time you sleep. That’s always stuck with me (most things Oprah say do to be fair – big fan) and generally I’ve always been good at that. What I am less good at is limiting my caffeine consumption prior to that. It’s been a real challenge but now you’ll find me with one or at the most two cups of coffee first thing on a morning. After that it’s peppermint tea. It’s tough but I also want whiter teeth, so I keep myself going on the idea of that!

The Mattress.

I’ve been in my current flat for three years now and in that time have had four mattresses. I’m fairly picky with what I can sleep well on; squishyness isn’t for me at all and in general memory foam just makes me feel odd. When Simba got in touch and asked if I would like to improve my sleep by trialing their product I was a little skeptical. A year or so ago I trialed another mail-order mattress and unfortunately it only lasted a week. Far too soft and sinky for my liking. The good thing about Simba however was that I was able to go into my local John Lewis and actually trial it before I accepted the kind offer.

Now, trialing mattresses in a shop is a very weird experience and I’d like to talk about it. Why is it that when you’ve finally plucked up the courage to get on one and lie down on it that the sales assistant comes over, looks down at you lying down and asks if you want help? I am not in a position for a particularly lengthy chat and before you arrived I was psyching myself up to rolling over onto my side and trialing it that way. It’s an odd experience but I’m very happy I was able to do it for the Simba. I’ve had it on the bed now for almost a month and am actually very impressed. Whilst the mattress was gifted my opinion hasn’t, as always, been purchased by doing so. Unlike the other mattresses I’ve tried (I won’t name names) Simba also has springs to support you.

The construction also means that should you be sharing the bed with a partner their movement shouldn’t impact you, even if they happen to be prone to tossing and turning. It can’t sort out someone’s snoring however, sorry. They aren’t cheap – there’s no denying it. When it comes to pieces of furniture to invest your money in, if you think about it, your mattress will likely be the place you will spend the largest amount of time. Your mattress should be everything you need to get a good night’s sleep.

If you’d like to give the Simba mattress ago yourself you can get £75 off your purchase by following the link here.

A New Routine.

My recent obsession with skincare and YouTube reviews lead me to finding a new pre-bed routine. It’s not just about improving my skin to be honest, the act of having a routine you do every night before bed seems to help? I suppose it starts to make your mind feel like it’s winding down. Brush your teeth, cleanse your face, moisturise, hand cream, sleep spray, bed. I’ve always been the kind of person who responds well to a set routine and for me, I think the act of self care is a big part of what’s been helping me get to sleep quicker.

This Work’s sent me through one of the Deep Sleep Pillow Spray some time ago and since then I’ve gone through countless bottles and gifted countless more to friends and family as a result. It could be that it’s a simple placebo effect, but for me scent is such an integral part of our home. I smell that familiar vetiver scent and instantly I think of sleep. I spritz my pillows with it before drifting into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

The above steps might not work for you, we’re all different and I’m certainly no doctor. It has worked for me however and if you are having trouble sleeping or switching your mind off, maybe give it a go. Aside from improving my sleep, trying to use my phone and TV less on an evening has been a really good experience. We’re so dependant on these things now, it’s nice to just have some quiet time. Visually and acoustically!

|1.| This Works Bath Soak |2.| Pukka Sleep Tea |3.| John Lewis Croft Bedspread |4.| Jo Malone Lavender & Lovage Candle |5.| This Works Sleep Spray |6.| Clarins Re-Charge Sleep Mask |7.| John Lewis Two Tone Bedspread |8.| Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

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Interiors, My Home, Shop

Why Minimalism Doesn’t Have To Be Boring. millergrey x French Connection Home

April 14, 2019

This is a sponsored post produced in collaboration with French Connection Home

Some of the most rewarding pieces of content I’m able to create are those that challenge me. The process of creating an image is exactly why I do what I do, it’s my favourite part of running my own blog. That quiet afternoon spent moving around furniture and framing shots, filling mugs with coffee and lighting candles.

I’ve always been a rather meticulous planner when it comes to creating an image. Sometimes there’s an element of chance to the perfect image arriving on your screen but for the most part each and every piece of content I create has started life as a rough sketch on the page of a notebook, or a hurried note on my phone as I sit on the bus to work.

As soon as I received French Connection Home‘s email inviting me to see how I might go about styling their latest collection within my home, I was scribbling down ideas and mentally rearranging my furniture to make way for the marble coffee I’d already seen a few weeks previously in ELLE Decoration.

Large Cane Glass Vase, £55 & Medium Cane Glass Vase, £45

Quartz Fringe Cushion, £45 & Metro Mug, £7

This post isn’t about entirely revamping a room in my home and it doesn’t feature any great feat of DIY, instead I wanted to showcase how the look and feel of a room can be changed by the addition of a handful of new pieces and a re-style. My living room is something that (if you follow my Instagram in particular) you’re likely very familiar with, so in the process of styling the collection I wanted to offer it up in a new light.

Working with French Connection challenged me to look at how else I could make the space work and how I could change up its look and feel without having to lift a paintbrush. Living in a rental property means I have to be a little bit smarter about how I decorate – my landlord is not someone who would appreciate me going rogue with a roller.

The pieces I chose from the Spring/Summer 2019 collection were all selected for their texture. French cane, a kaleidoscope of knotted wool, soft matte leather and a cool slick of white marble. All were new ground for me and lead to a whole day of re-styling my living room – one of the most satisfying days I’ve had in a long time.

If you’re not too familiar with French Connection‘s homeware range, then you’ve done yourself a disservice by not having explored it sooner. Whilst this may be a sponsored post, my opinion has in no way been purchased, of that I can assure you. If you found yourself in my home prior to this collaboration you’d have come across several pieces from past collections, including a frosted glass vase that has made its way into countless Instagram posts atop my mantlepiece.

I’ve always felt like their pieces look like they have history, have lived a life and been a part of your home for years. The Eclipse Leather Pouffe you see here couldn’t display that point any better. The leather sourced to create it has a soft, irregular quality to it that makes me infinitely happy. There’s nothing shiny and new about it, its raw edged construction gives it a soft, comfy feel. Furniture you’re going to sit on, touch and experience in such a tactile way should be inviting. This is an inviting footstool. Is that weird? Maybe that’s weird.

Eclipse Leather Pouffe, £150

Quartz Fringe Cushion, £45, Chunky Knitted Throw, £80, Large Cane Glass Vase, £55 , Medium Cane Glass Vase, £45

The French Cane Chair I selected reminds me of a piece I grew up sitting on, albeit delivered with a Scandinavian twist as part of French Connection’s rejuvenation of the material. When you’re working with a minimal colour palette, having an array of textures becomes ever more important. French Cane is a new one for me, but the soft honey-hued cane against the pale grey of the bookcase works to knock back the ‘newness’ such a straight-lined, modern piece of furniture can deliver.

French Cane Chair, £395

The Agadir rug is one of my favourite pieces of the entire collection. Rugs are something I’m often asked about over on Instagram. They’re never the easiest thing to settle on for a room, after all how do you really know if it works until it’s in and down? Whilst it may seem a little more neutral in appearance online, the Agadir is in fact a snow white with marled grey. A quietly chaotic mix of knots, plaits and flat weaves, it’s the kind of muted pattern a colourphobe like me dreams of. If you’re a minimalist who can’t fully commit to absolute minimalism for fear of it being too austere, I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Agadir Rug, £175

I live my life in a state of monochrome and yet it’s somewhat baffling I haven’t owned a piece of marble furniture until now. The Banswara Marble Coffee Table found itself shifted around the room into a multitude of new homes throughout the process of creating this blog, something that was not in any way easy. The fine iron frame beneath the marble top counteracts the weight of the piece, allowing the rug beneath to still have its moment. If your room is on the smaller side pieces of furniture that have space to breathe are ideal. Heavy blocks of furniture shrink a room immediately.

Banswara Marble Coffee Table, £375

Carved Elipse Bowl, £35

All of the French Connection Home pieces you see featured in this blog were chosen by me and kindly provided by the brand for me to style with. I’ve mentioned it previously, but I don’t take on sponsored work lightly. I loved styling the images you have seen here and am proud to partner with the brand to bring them to you.

If you’d like to explore the full Spring/Summer 19 Collection you can do so online now. Should you need any help in selecting which pieces to bookmark, I’ve included an item of my favourite pieces below, because sometimes you just need a little nudge in the right direction.

|1.| Linea Rug, £75 |2.| Trumpet Vase, £45 |3.| Washed Velvet Cushion, £36 |4.| Rattan Chair, £495 |5.| Rattan Screen, £495 |6.| Terazzo Candle, £65

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My Home

10 Things You Might Not Know.

April 6, 2019

As 2019 arrived I decided I was going to try to broaden the conversation here on the blog and on millergrey in general. I can’t lie, it’s taken a little while to get off the ground. This year hasn’t been the best for my blogging mojo that’s for sure. (I too hate that I used the word ‘mojo’ in a sentence, but it arrives solely due to the fact I can think of no better word, so let’s allow it.)

I thought I’d start by explaining a little more about why the blog is ever here in the first place and who I am. I don’t know if this is a little odd, but it feels like something I’d like to do, to clear up a few things about me and answer some of the questions that I receive. It feels a little self-indulgent but I assure you it isn’t meant to be. I’m not one of those who is particularly ‘present’ in the content I produce, so I appreciate that for the most part it might appear like a series of detached images. Maybe this helps and if it doesn’t? Feel free to pass entirely on this one.

1. You likely won’t ever see me talking to the camera.

All advice I have ever received about ‘growth’ on Instagram has been that I’ll need to be physically present in my content in some capacity. That a personality and face helps sell content and create a brand people wish to be a part of. I get that, faceless content can likely only resonate so far. I admire those who have the self-confidence to do it and especially admire those like Lisa Dawson who are so sure and confident in who they are that it’s become second nature to turn the camera around and have a conversation. I admire it immensely, however it will never be me.

I despise seeing photos of myself and and you can read into that what you will! Every now and then a photo makes it to my Stories, usually with immense trepidation and immense regret seconds later. I’ve tried to push myself to do it a little more lately, but it’s a real effort. On my Instagram feed I’ve made two appearances in as many years and on both occasions I was mostly hidden. There are no plans to make any further appearances, which is one why makes a reappearance here. I have Instagram and my blog because I love to take pictures and style scenes, that’s what my content is and likely always will be. If it curbs how far I’m going to be able to take this amazing opportunity, then that’s something I’ll have to accept.

2. I do indeed have a full time job.

Whilst it would be great to say millergrey was where I could devote all of my time and energy, it’s not my day job. I work for a Digital Marketing Agency five days a week and for the most part spend my weekends producing content and working on the blog. It’s an entirely different role to what I’ve done before but it’s one that works perfectly in harmony with what I try to do here.

3. All I ever wanted to do was work in Fashion.

For the best part of eight years I lived in London and worked in the fashion industry, having studied Fashion Design up here in Newcastle. I graduated in the middle of the recession (2009) and to say it wasn’t an easy time to be a graduate then would be an understatement. I was incredibly lucky to land a job before I had even graduated and in the space of a few months moved from my life in Newcastle to living in a flat with complete strangers in West London and working in the design team at Karen Millen.

Design turned out not to be for me, which was a pretty tough thing to come to terms with. For as long as I can remember I had wanted to be a designer. I’d made tin foil outfits for my toys as a kid, I’d sketched out designs in my text books when I should be doing multiplication; it was what I had always wanted to do. Working in design at Karen Millen taught me an awful lot but ultimately it wasn’t my taste and designing something that isn’t your taste and doing it well is a true talent. To remove yourself enough from the situation that you’re still giving someone else exactly what they want genuinely is a talent I admire. It’s sadly just not one I had.

After six months I moved into the brand’s PR and Marketing teams and began a rather muddled job of working in the press office but also styling the photography for the website and various other projects like lookbooks and campaigns. As well as design I had also always been obsessed with magazines, something that continues to this day. You’ll be more than aware of this if you’ve studied any images on my feed and seen the mountains of them that fill my flat. Moving in the world of photography and styling felt like a much better fit and my aim was to try and get into an editorial team of a magazine ultimately.

After Karen Millen I moved on to a company who couldn’t be more different if it tried. In the four years I spent at Sahara London I was able to visit and style shoots in Lake Como, Ibiza and Tuscany. I have amazingly fond memories of my time there and it was the place I felt like my creativity was best put to use.

4. I left London and came home.

One night in early September, having stayed later at work than normal, I was walking home from the overground station when someone attacked and stabbed me. I am incredibly lucky that two men saw what was happening and ran to help, chasing the guy away and waiting with me till the ambulance came. I’ve no idea who the men were, they declined to be questioned by the police, but I’m incredibly grateful to them. I stayed in London for almost a year after it happened but life wasn’t never quite the same. I stopped going out after dark and began to politely decline invitations to do things, I stopped running in the park after work, I wouldn’t put my headphones in if I was outside the house; I stopped living like I should have been living. So, I decided to move back home to Newcastle. Newcastle isn’t my technical ‘home’ I should point out, I’m originally from Middlesbrough. I moved to Newcastle when I was eighteen for University and knew straight away I would be back here someday. It has always felt like home to me.

Moving back to Newcastle came with a lot of sacrifices – mostly being all of my friends were there and my career was there. I’m still very close with some of the friends I had down there since moving back, others sadly haven’t stood the test of distance quite so well. Career wise I tried to hold out for something that felt right and settled on an online menswear retailer based in the city. I accepted a copywriting job there, said my goodbye to London and moved back.

I have never regretted the decision to return to Newcastle. I am far happier here than I ever was in London.

5. I started the blog to save my sanity.

I went from a job that celebrated and indulged my creativity to create images and content to a job that had me chained to a desk for long hours in, to be perfectly frank, a rather awful company. I hated it.

I hated it, but it gave me the blog and it gave me Instagram because I hated it. I was determined to do something that used what I was good at and what I liked to do. I would go to work, do my job, leave, come home and get on with styling and taking pictures. After eighteen months I had well and truly had enough of the day job however and decided to look for something else. By this point I was starting to get through the first pieces of sponsored work for my Instagram feed and launched the blog. I moved on to the job I’m still in now, two years later.

6. I say no to a lot.

There’s a widely acknowledged fact in this industry that posts that are sponsored or labelled as an ‘ad’ are much less successful with audiences. Engagement is lower and as a result so is the reach. I imagine that’s due to many different factors to be honest, but it’s always a little sad. Whenever I produce a piece of paid content I can assure you more time and effort has gone into it than those regular posts that fill my feed and blog. There’s a client involved and you’re trying to deliver a brief whilst still producing something you feel happy with and are hopefully proud to be posting. There are a lot of things that land in my inbox and for the most part I say no. Over the years of doing this I’ve learnt what content I want to produce and what product or brands fit within that little white world.

At the start I played around with a number of paid campaigns I wouldn’t accept now, mostly to gain experience. I don’t regret them in any way as they taught me a lot, but I certainly wouldn’t accept a campaign for a vodka brand now. (It happened once, the bottle was all white and I got to make a fancy cocktail. It was fun, but it wouldn’t appear now!)

Those campaigns I do accept I do so because I’m looking forward to creating the imagery. Sometimes it’s a total challenge and vaguely scary, which is when it can be the most fun.

7. I have absolutely no training in photography.

I’ve spent a lot of my career with photographers, art directing and styling, but actually photographing things? Not so much. I’ve learnt what works and what doesn’t over the years but I’ve no training as yet. I’m sure some people will be able to spot that a mile off and my hope is in 2019 to take a course to get a little better at it all! Auto Mode can only carry you so far.

8. I rent.

The flat that fills both my blog and my Instagram feed is rented. When I first moved in the flat was painted magnolia and a little bit shabby but I saw past that and said I’d take it immediately. Three years and a lot of white paint later and it’s been a lovely home to have been a part of. My lease is up in November and I’ve made the decision that I’ll be moving on. I fancy a change of scenery but also will likely need to find somewhere a little cheaper if I’m ever to have a deposit saved to buy somewhere myself. Being Victorian and really not well insulated, the flat comes with some very high energy bills come winter!

9. You never see my bathroom or my kitchen.

Neither are worthy of being photographed and are the flat’s real downside. The kitchen has green tiles, black work tops and fake beech cupboards. It also doesn’t contain a single drawer, which if you ask me, it’s insanity. Where does your cutlery go?! (Artfully styled in an empty Diptyque candle vessel in this case.)
The bathroom, whilst being white, is truly bizarre. The shower is back to front: hot is cold, cold is hot, on if off, off is on), the bath takes around 2 hours to fill and the tiles are sketchy to say the least. You’ll never see them arrive on Instagram and I think it’s probably the thing I get asked about the most!

10. ‘Insta-reality’ isn’t really for me.

There’s a real trend at the moment for people showing you how their homes really look and the mess they can be. That’s likely also not going to be something I’ll be doing any time soon. I like to fill my feed with images I’ve spent time creating, ’cause that’s what brings me joy. I don’t want to see a messy living room any more than you do and whilst I appreciate the idea of not showcasing unachievable lifestyles, I just take it that everyone who follows me has the common sense to know that sometimes things are a little less tidy.

And that’s all really, that’s me.

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Interiors, My Home

Making The Most Of A Small Space With Habitat.

March 3, 2019

This is a sponsored post produced in collaboration with a brand I genuinely love, Habitat.

Habitat Metal Trunk

If you also follow me on Instagram you’re likely to have seen snippets of my bedroom over the years. The bedside table perhaps, or the side of the bed and vague hint of a window. It’s a tricky room, not just to photograph but to really do too much with. Small and badly designed; the bed can only possibly go in one position, it receives no direct sunlight, the only plug socket is in a useless position and an ugly radiator restricts what furniture can even be brought in.

You might not be aware but I rent the flat that features throughout the blog. Because of this the only changes I can ever really make are superficial ones. Sadly I’m not in a position to be moving around electrics and eradicating radiators. I decided late last year it was about time I took a fresh look at the room however, hoping to not only improve the way it works as a room but to try and give it a little bit of style. Up until now it’s been the most minimal room in the flat. I moved in, painted it white, hung a mirror and a few frames and then climbed into bed.

With a little help from Habitat’s Small Spaces campaign I’ve been trying to address some of the issues that are fixable. It’s very much still a work in process and there’ll be more content to follow as I make more changes, but the bare bones of defining how it works as a room are definitely now in place. I’d love to offer up some huge reveal with drastic changes warranting gasps and shocked face emojis but unfortunately that’s not going to be happening here. Whilst there are some stylistic changes, the real focus here is simply making things work better for me and to make the most of the space that is actually useable. Style is all good and well but a room has to actually work for you.

So, what did I do?

Habitat Franklin Chest Of Drawers

Invested in storage.

Storage is a very real issue for me in this flat. I’m a minimalist who also likes things. It’s a conundrum. The flat has no built in storage anywhere – no useful cupboard or handy nooks. Nadda. The chest of drawers I used to have in place were subjected to a very strong level of hatred for several years. If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know I’m a big fan of the Swedish house of blue and yellow, what I am not a fan of however is the fact every single piece of furniture from there that contains a drawer will inevitably have its bottom fall out. It blows my mind that they still haven’t solved this problem.

The first thing I needed to do was to update the drawers. The previous drawers were rather heavy looking, with only a small gap between them and the floor. That means a big oak piece of furniture went straight on an oak floor, making everything feel heavy and clunky. After much deliberation I opted for the Franklin chest of drawers from Habitat. They’re actually larger and longer in size than what was previously in the room but their elevation off the floor due makes it appear much lighter. They’re also a very, very good quality piece of furniture.

Habitat Franklin Chest Of Drawers

Over time I’ve been slowly working my way round my flat, updating pieces of furniture I bought when money was more of an issue with solid, quality pieces of furniture that will last. Sometimes they’ve been amazing eBay finds and sometimes they’ve been things I’ve saved up for. I firmly believe that furniture you actually use should be where you invest your money. A wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a chair you’re going to sit in regularly… If you can save money on smaller items that see little wear and tear, then by all means do! In the case of drawers however, I open and close each of those drawers at least twice a day. They need to withstand some use.

I used the opportunity of working with Habitat to select a piece of furniture I absolutely know I’ll have for life, but more importantly that I’m confident will actually last!

The piece comes with beautiful turned oak handles but I couldn’t bring myself to part with the black and white ceramic handles I found a few years back, so I did give it a little bit of an update there. The original handles are going to be making their way to another piece of furniture very soon…

Habitat Patsy Gold Large Mirror

Doubled the light.

The tiny mirror I’d hung beside my bed when I first moved in was never really all that practical. What working with Habitat made me realise is that I was missing a huge trick in not using a mirror to bounce what light there is back around the room!

The room gets absolutely no direct sunlight other than in the evening at the height of summer, so for the most part it can feel quite flat. The only window is positioned on the back wall, parallel to where the chest of drawers sit. Placing the large Patsy mirror above the chest of drawers not only creates a dual purpose piece of furniture (hello nice dressing table set up) but it effectively gives the room a second window. It’s such a simple trick I’m quite disappointed in myself for not having done it earlier but we’ll try to dwell on my own stupidity. Whatever light does come in is now bounced back to the other side of the room. If there’s one change I’ve made that’s made the biggest difference, this is it. Patsy has worked wonders.

Habitat Franklin Chest Of Drawers

I went for the large gold version and couldn’t recommend it enough. Again if you’re familiar with my flat, you’ll know I have a bit of a thing for round mirrors. Four out of the six rooms feature a huge one. I’m quite fine being a one trick pony.

Habitat Patsy Gold Large Mirror

Only useful furniture allowed.

If I (weirdly) had to rate my furniture on its popularity, my bedside table would be Prom Queen. Never have I received more messages about something in my flat. I love it, you love it, but is it practical? No. Storage wise it was almost useless. It offered nothing more than a tiny drawer in which to keep my handcream. In a future home where storage isn’t quite such an issue it will come into its own. For now it has gone into the spare bedroom to greet my many guests, most of whom don’t come with storage needs.

Habitat Metal Trunks

In its place now sit two large metal trunks. They’re not conventional as a bedside table I know, but the storage they offer is invaluable. The drawers house my clothes, the chests house all those other things you forget will take up so much space. Bedsheets, towels, the vast selection of winter scarves you seem to have amassed throughout the years. Stacking the two on top of each other brings it to the ideal height to place your cup of tea and a book on.

Habitat Metal Trunks

A bedside lamp could easily be positioned on the trunks but instead I’ve gone for a wall mounted fitting, kindly gifted by the lovely people at Original BTC. (There’ll be more on those and the additional changes I’m planning on making in the next bedroom blog!)

Beneath the bed a series of striped fabric covered boxes now house everything from unread books to shampoo that makes my head itch but was too expensive to just get rid of. An altogether more attractive set of storage than the cardboard boxes that had been there previously.

Habitat Jericho Under Bed Storage

Habitat Jericho Storage Boxes

What’s next?

I’ve temporarily hung some frames and the beautiful Elle Hookwood plate a friend bought my for my birthday, but I’m still yet to get to the bottom of how I want the room to look. Ultimately I want to update the bed to something wooden with fine spindles. Perhaps there’ll be a picture ledge above it, I can’t decide. For now at least the room is actually functional.

You can shop all of the pieces featured here from Habitat via the links throughout the blog post. Just to note, these are affiliate links. This doesn’t cost you anything but just provides me with a small commission should you go on to purchase anything featured here!

If you’re trying to work out exactly what to do with your own small space, you’re in luck. Habitat have created a handy hub of ideas and inspiration. Visit the Small Space Living feature here.

Habitat Franklin Chest Of Drawers

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Design, Interiors, My Home

My Bedroom Plans. Moving Away From The Minimal.

October 28, 2018

When I first moved into the flat here I decorated simply to make things more to my liking than they presently were, rather than each room ever being a fully realised idea or concept. If truth be told, I’m just not that kind of thinker. I’ve typically always tried to let things evolve over time after the initial white-painting spree was completed. That way it gives you chance to work out what it is you need over time, gradually building up the room to a fully evolved space.

After painting the living room white I immediately moved onto the room I’d chosen as my bedroom, again painting it white simply to banish the magnolia. Technically I live in a three bedroom flat, with what is used as my living room intended to be the master bedroom. That was never going to work for me. For starters it’s too large. Secondly it houses the flat’s only original fireplace; it had to be the living room. I opted for the slightly larger of the two other rooms for my bedroom. It is by no means a big room and that’s kind of how I like it. I don’t like bedrooms to be huge and filled with things – I like them small and cosy, neat and peaceful.

After the white paint had been sloshed over each wall I built the simple white metal bedframe I’d ordered from John Lewis (because truthfully it was the cheapest I could find that wasn’t some kind of garish chrome), moved in the bedside table and chest of drawers I already had and hung a few pictures. In my head at the time it was a sort of temporary measure. The drawers, whilst being partly made of actual real life solid oak, had succumbed to the fate that all IKEA products equipped with drawers do all the same, despite the lack of chipboard. The bottoms fell out and they were rendered all but useless. In the back of my mind I knew I’d change everything at some point… but three years later and I still haven’t.

I’ve never really doubted that I’m a type of minimalist at heart: the bedroom in its current state is perhaps the biggest evidence of this. My wardrobe lives in the spare bedroom, so furniture and ‘things’ are pretty scarce in the room. A few months ago I made the decision to buck my ideas up and start work on deciding exactly what it is I wanted a bedroom to be, thinking from the ground up.

Did I want a colour on the walls? Did I want a wardrobe in there? What sort of beds do I actually like? Having never had to think about it previously I quickly came to realise that in the efforts to make everything not magnolia I lost my own taste a little. I love white, don’t get me wrong, but if this wasn’t a rental flat and it didn’t have to remain ‘neutral’ then I’m not sure I’d actually have entirely white rooms.

Are you shocked?

I’ve been in the flat so long now I’m no longer worried about straying from the neutral colours of white or beige. If my landlady dislikes it, I’ll paint it back. It’s a small room. So, exactly what do I want to do in the room? That’s the million dollar question. I am certain I wasn’t something a little softer in its look and feel, with natural elements carefully weaving their way into the minimalism. It’s never felt cold to me but in reality it actually is cold. The winter months are pretty icy thanks to badly fitted windows and a heating system that isn’t regulated by a thermostat. My options are on and off.

And so, the plans. I made several moodboards. Very unlike me. The interior world loves a good moodboard, however for me they’ve never held too much fascination. Likely due to many years spent being made to produce them through college and university…

The Bed.

After much deliberation, I think I’m a wooden bed kind of person. Fabric beds fill me worries about dust mostly, padded headboards make me flinch somewhat and the idea of Divan bed just brings back University room nightmares. So an Ercol-esque wooden bed seems like the best option here, allowing plenty room for storage beneath it also. Not cheap and not that easy to come by it would seem. Made.com’s Penn Bedframe in Oak seems to be about the best (achievable) example of what I’m thinking of.

Although given any budget, Ercol’s Shalstone Bedframe would likely be getting my hard earned pennies.

The Floor.

I was lucky enough to work with the lovely people at Artha Collections earlier in the year, receiving a hand woven Arrow rug as part of the partnership. It’s beautiful – cosy, warm and just the right size. That will absolutely be staying and has in part actually dictated the ideas I’ve had for the room as a whole.

Artha Collections Arrow Rug

The Drawers.

The bottom of these drawers have been sellotaped, nailed, glued and screwed. It’s time to cut my losses and get rid. IKEA HEMNES, you’ve been a loyal friend these past five years, but no. You’re out. The monochrome striped handles (an amazing Zara Home find a few years back) however, may be staying on whatever comes in to the replace them.

The Bedside Table.

I’m so torn. I love this piece. I wanted it for months; pinning it to boards, bookmarking it, attempting to save for it… and then it went. Gone. Only to reappear three months later in M&S’ final reductions for the bargain price of £102, instead of the original £450 price tag. For that reason alone I want to keep it, but no. I’m being bold here. If a better option occurs, it’s gone. Maybe.

Artha Collections Arrow Rug

The Walls.

From the moodboards I’ve been creating grey seems to be a common theme, shockingly. The jury is out on whether or not I want a grey bedroom however. Neutral tones, whilst being very prevalent in the ideas here, aren’t something I feel comfortable with painting a wall in. In short, I just don’t know as yet. There’s a lot of pinning still to be done here clearly, although The White Company is constantly assisting in this task..

I’ve also always loved the soft putty-like grey of this project from the beautiful blog Avenue.

I do know that I want the walls to be much less minimal then they are currently. That much I’m sure of. I don’t want anything quite so statement as a gallery wall but I find myself drawn towards images of bed frames encased in large-scale artworks, generally always sitting on a picture ledge. That looks like it’s the route I’m going down. Choosing the artworks for the space is however something I know will take me months on end.

The Lighting.

Here I’m more certain of my tastes. I’d like a wall mounted bedside light, angled over towards the bed. The only problem I face here is that it can’t be wired in but instead must be one that plugs in and is simply wall mounted. This does narrow down the options quite heavily it seems, but aesthetically, I feel I’ve nailed what it is I’d like at least. Half way there.

Watch this space. One distinctly less minimal bedroom coming your way soon. Ish.

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Design, Interiors, My Home, Shop

Making A Difference with Artha Collections

September 4, 2018

Artha Collections Arrow Rug

For a while now I’ve been exploring how possible it is to purchase products for the home that have a reduced effect on our environment and actively promote change. I believe we all have a responsibility to ensure we have as little impact on the planet as possible, along with an even more important responsibility to ensure we buy with our brains and support sustainable manufacturing.

At the same time I believe you shouldn’t need to sacrifice any element of style in order to do so.

Over the past few years our attitude towards conscientious homewares has definitely changed, there seems to be a much greater appetite for it now, something I’m incredibly happy about.

For the most part the highstreet doesn’t seem to want to get behind the idea, either ignoring the issues entirely or hiding behind tiny capsule collections that come branded as being conscientious whilst really only making up 1% of their offering.

Finding the pieces and brands that do offer something more evolved isn’t easy, which is something I would like to try and assist with on millergrey. Perhaps it isn’t an issue that everyone concerns themselves with, but whilst I have a space like this blog I’d like to know it was helping in promoting those brands who are making a difference.

Artha Collections Arrow Rug

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to work with Artha Collections through Positive Luxury, an incredible collective of progressive brands who challenge the mass produced nature of the fashion, homeware and beauty industries and champion a selection of brands to trust.

Artha work with highly skilled artisans around the world to produce handmade homewares, offering women a chance to select their own working hours in order to ensure they can provide an income for their families without adversely affecting their home life.

The rug that now offers my feet a cosy place to land every morning was created by a single weaver, with its design adapted from traditional rugs in Ndbele tribal villages. When it arrived it seemed a shame to be relegating it to the floor, despite looking perfectly at home.

Artha Collections Arrow Rug

I’ve been toying with the idea of redoing my bedroom for some time and think the arrival of the Arrow Rug may just have confirmed that plan. As soon as I had unpacked it and rolled it out on the floor I knew it had to make it to a wall. Exactly how I turn it into a wall hanging is something I’ve been investigating via the medium of Pinterest ever since.

The plans for my bedroom makeover are something for another post (I might even moodboard, who knows), but for now the rug is making each day that little bit comfier in the room as it currently is.

If you’d like to find out a little bit more about Artha Collections and Positive Luxury you can visit their site.

Artha Collections

|1.| Arrow Rug |2.| Khullu Throw |3.| Petal Row Cushion |4.| Petal Row Cushion |5.| Storage Basket |6.| Karakul Rug

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Design, Interiors, My Home, Shop

The Secret To A Getting A Good Night’s Sleep This Summer.

July 22, 2018

This is a sponsored post produced in collaboration with Bedroommood.

Bedroommood Percale Bedding

Ah, sleep. That ever elusive must-have we can never quite seem to get enough of. I’m forever envious of those who can fall asleep in any situation, position or condition. Children included. I am the polar opposite of those people. Rarely do I manage to obtain six hours sleep a night, let alone the eight hours we’ve all been drilled into believing is essential in order for our bodies and minds to function correctly.

If you follow me on Instagram you’ve probably noticed a lot of sleep related talk of late, and it turns out you wouldn’t be the only one to have noticed it. For full disclosure, prior to receiving an e-mail entitled ‘Dan, we’d love to sleep with you’, I had never heard of Bedroommood. I’m all for a clever piece of marketing. Bedroommood invited me to rest my head on their sheets and spend a night with them, firmly believing their inclusion in my bedtime routine would result in me receiving a good night’s sleep.

In the summer months the precious six hours sleep I do get become broken, restless and ultimately pretty unsatisfying. After displaying some rather irritable behaviour and becoming sick of finding ways to stifle a yawn at my desk, I took Bedroommood up on their offer and set about exploring exactly what we can do to get a good night’s sleep in the ever changeable British summertime.

Bedroommood Percale Bedding

1. The Sheets.

Bedding seems as good of a place to start as any. In the simplest of terms, you should keep it cotton. Cotton allows the skin breathe and remains cool to the touch, where as manmade fibres such as polyester prevent your body from breathing, working to trap in the warm air, resulting in all of that unpleasant tossing and turning.

I can’t profess to be a bedding expert and prior to exploring Bedroommood‘s range I wasn’t overly familiar with the thread count of my existing sheets. What I can tell you is the 100% Egyptian Cotton Percale Sheets I opted for have a thread count of 300. What I have come to learn from this is that 100% Egyptian Cotton Percale with a 300 thread count roughly equates to a kind of heaven on earth scenario.

There’s a gentle crease and soft, dry handle to the sheets that perhaps the photos will simply never do justice to, but when you’re cocooned inside them and about to drift off, that’s exactly what you need. It can be hard sometimes to understand if a blogger is genuinely enthusiastic about a product or simply following guidelines provided by a brand, however I can say with all honesty, these sheets are a thing of beauty.

Most importantly they have actually helped, since changing over my sheets I’ve had some of the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months. Keen to start to understand why it might be, I checked the care label of the bedding I most frequently use. 40% polyester. Often its included in a fabric’s yarn to reduce the level of ironing needed, so watch out for ‘easy care’ options as generally this would donate the inclusion of a manmade fibre. Instead just roll with the artfully creased look of percale!

Bedroommood Percale Bedding

2. Switch Off.

Once the stage has been set in metres of luxurious cotton it’s time to prepare yourself for the main event. Switch Off.

It’s hard to do I know, but spending the hour before you plan on going to bed reading a book, flicking through a magazine or simply getting on with some mindless chores around the house is an hour well spent. Scrolling through our phones or catching up on Love Island causes our brains to stay alert with the colour and lights its being presented with. (Yes, even Love Island causes some stimulation to the brain.). Switch off, climb into your luxuriously plumped bed, reach for a book from the stockpile you now keep by the bedside table, light a candle and relax.

Bedroommood Percale Bedding

3. Cut The Caffeine.

I remember once watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where she proclaimed never to drink a cup of tea or coffee after 3pm and even that was rare, it should always be something you drink in the morning to allow it to leave your system before your head hits the pillow. Now I’m not the kind of guy to disagree with Oprah, so I follow that rule rigidly.

Instead go for a chamomile or one of the plethora of sleep-inducing wonder teas you’ll now find in your local supermarket, and swap out your afternoon pick me up coffee for something punchy like a ginger and lemon infusion.

Bedroommood Percale Bedding

4. Enjoy The Routine.

This is probably going to be the most controversial point here, but when your alarm goes off? Get out of bed. Don’t lie there and snooze until you’re late and having to brush your hair on the bus. Ultimately this dedication to getting up will pay off in undisturbed sleep. Our bodies understand routine, it’s a simple fact. The more you wake up and get out of bed at the same time, the more your body will allow you to sleep peacefully until it knows its time to get up. Think of it sort of like the night before a holiday and you wake up constantly to check the time and make sure you haven’t over slept. Training your body to the time it needs to get up over time alleviates that issue, it knows what’s coming. After a few weeks you’ll find you naturally wake up before your alarm goes off, with the sleep before hand having been unbroken.

5. Treat Yourself.

Until July 31st Bedroommood are offering millergrey readers 20% off orders with the code DAN20 which is pretty lovely if you ask me.

I went for the 100% Cotton Percale Bedding Set in White, with the 100% Cotton Percale Sheet and two additional pillowcases in Light Grey. (If the site appears in Euros, just flip the currency option to the right hand side into GBP.)

If you do decide to give them a try I’d love to hear how you got on – leave me a comment or head over to @_millergrey on Instagram and let me know how you slept. I’m all ears. Unless it’s after 10pm, then I’m sound asleep, with my phone face down on the bedside table.

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Interiors, My Home

How To Create The Perfect Gallery Wall.

May 12, 2018

How To Hang A Gallery Wall

It’s easy to forget that in this world of highly stylised homes that not everything goes right first time, our homes are as much a case of trial and error as our haircuts or our choice in jeans might have been. There will be times it goes wrong and there will be times you wish to eradicate from existence. My dining room’s gallery wall is testament to the fact that sometimes it just doesn’t go right.

Despite following all of the steps that I’m about to outline below, it was wrong. The layout was unbalanced, the frames too close together and the imagery just wasn’t very cohesive. I’m, perhaps unsurprisingly, a visual person. I see things perfectly in my mind and then when the reality doesn’t allign with that image in my head I get rather angry. The gallery bugged me from day one. I hung the final picture, I stepped backwards, looked up at the afternoon’s work and hated every last bit of it.

Despite this it managed to stay for a full year, mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to readdress it until now.

How To Hang A Gallery Wall

The ground work.

Have an aim. If that aim is for a multi-coloured, eclectic gallery including all sorts of tones and imagery; then great! Spend time collecting the objects and artwork that will fill that space and create the look you want. Find them over time, let the collection evolve. Clicking ‘add to basket’ on a selection of prints from the same online store may well give you a very cohesive, stylish gallery wall, but it won’t give you a very personal one. Spend time saving things, printing out photos you like, ripping out pages from things and save them up.

If your aim is for something deliberately cohesive then define what exactly that means. Is it all one tone you’re looking for, or all one theme of imagery perhaps? Once you know the sort of colour spectrum you want the gallery to go through you can source the imagery to fill it with or in some cases adapt imagery that doesn’t suit to be something that does. Quite often I’ll simply convert an image to black and white through Photoshop and send off for it to be printed. As you might expect most of the imagery included in my gallery wall is rather monochromatic. No-one is shocked by this.

Kate Moss Gold Vogue Cover

Go on a hunt.

When it comes to sourcing for your gallery wall – think outside the box. The internet is filled with retailers of typography prints, but so are the magazines you’ve kept in stacks around your house for the past few years. Buy vintage magazines from eBay (French Vogue is perfect for beautiful typefaces, not to mention editorial images), collect postcards from exhibitions you go to and even rip images out of catalogues if you find them appealing. It might not be apparent from first inspection but a lot of the images that fill the gallery wall in my hallway are actually taken from Toast catalogues.

Gallery wall

Gallery wall layout

An impartial and unsponsored view on frames.

So you’ve sourced your collection of images and miscellaneous items. It’s time to frame. As a general rule of thumb if I’m looking for a coloured frame, ie black in most cases, it will likely be a cheaper purchase. The oak frames however I would tend to spend a little more on to avoid any plastic looking ‘wood’ creeping in. Your eye will automatically go towards the wooden frames over the solid black, so if possible it’s a good idea to focus your budget on these.

The majority of the black frames I use have been sourced from IKEA or Desenio, with the solid oak frames that feature throughout my flat being from Habitat.

It’s true they’re more expensive, heavier (Habitat’s tend to come with glass rather than perspex in) and all together a bit more of a mission to hang due to their weight, they are beautifully made, sturdy and built to last. My favourite range, Rona, has unfortunately now been discontinued, so I’ve been making do with the Trieste and Ontario ranges instead.

If you find your images are all a little on the smaller side then make them all the more of a feature by double mounting them, allowing you to place the image within a much larger frame. For mounts I always use The Picture Gallery & Framing Centre. You can select the card, the thickness, the colour and the precise dimensions of the mounts you’ll require, all for an incredibly reasonable price. Doubling up on the mounts is a great to vary the scale of the frames in your gallery without purchasing huge images.

You’ll probably have noticed that I don’t tend to frame all of my artwork, some is simply taped to the wall with Washi tape, sourced from eBay in various colours and designs. Working like this allows your wall to really adapt and change over time. If I find a postcard I love it will likely find itself included in a gallery somewhere, as might a page from a magazine or even a label from a piece of clothing I’ve got. To me working like this just makes everything feel a little more personal and a little less formal!

Keira Knightley Interview Cover

Start on the floor.

Clear some space and lay all of your frames and images down on the ground. Play around with layout and placement of everything, if you’re using different coloured frames it’s a good time to start spreading them out evenly. You might find you need some more landscape images, or some smaller pieces.

Gallery wall layout

Find the centre.

If you’re filling a section of a wall rather than a full wall then mark the wall’s dead centre (or at least the centre of the area you want to focus the gallery on) and fan out from that point. It doesn’t have to be symmetrical, but it should be balanced.

Gallery wall layout

Mock it up.

Once I have a rough idea of the kind of layout I want from laying everything out on the floor, I draw round each frame on brown paper and cut it out. At this point it’s a good idea to also mark on the paper exactly where you’ll need a nail to be hammered in. Then when everything is in place you can hammer it straight through the paper then simply rip it off.

When each frame is cut out of paper start sticking them to the wall with masking tape to mimic the layout on the floor, using your central point as a guide. Here you can start to work on the spacing between the frames. I don’t measure the spacing between the frames but would roughly keep it the same, varying it between smaller frames if they’re going to be sitting as part of a group within the gallery itself.

I definitely recommend doing this on a morning and going about your day, checking back in over the course of the day. The first draft of the layout is very rarely the one I end up going with. Over the course of the day I’ll unstick and move the shapes closer together, higher up or off the wall entirely until I feel I’ve reached the perfect layout.

Thanks to the handy nail marks you made before taping the paper to the wall you can now quickly hammer in the nails for everything, ripping out the paper as you go. Easy.

Sunspel Sunset Postcard

How To Hang A Gallery Wall

Nothing’s permanent.

As my own wall proves, it can easily be changed if it isn’t right. Using the Washi tape allows me to shift and alter the wall over time, adding more things as I find them but also taking things away to leave more space or even be replaced by a freshly framed fine. Let it evolve over time and allow it to become personal. Everybody can have the perfectly manicured gallery wall from glossy online store but only you’ll have the gallery you piece together over time.

Washi Tape

How To Hang A Gallery Wall

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Design, Interiors, My Home

Styling Scandinavian Design Classics With Amara

March 27, 2018

This is a sponsored post produced in collaboration with Amara.

Ferm Living Ripple Carafe

Styling and the process involved in creating an image has always been what I enjoy the most about working on the blog. When I decided to leave London and head back to the North East I left behind a job where doing just that was my day-to-day and pretty much something I took for granted. Now, with that a lifetime away, whenever the opportunity to really play with products and creating imagery arrises I’m always incredibly excited. Never more so than when Amara offered me the chance to style my favourite pieces from their incredible range.

A few years ago I decided to consciously alter the way I consumed things, stepping away from purchasing anything too trend-driven. I like to think the interiors of our home should evolve and progress over time, rather than being subject to entire clear outs when it turns out salmon pink is no longer the colour du jour. I started the year with the idea that I was going to try and make the good decisions and applied that approach to the approach here. Classic pieces that would never be subject to the whims of a trend, or worse still, boxed up and moved to the ‘spare bedroom of shame’ once my affections had wained.

Hay Concrete Flower Pot

Hay Brass Tray

Niki Jones Harlequin Cushion

If you’ve ever found yourself on the Amara site you’re probably aware of the incredible selection of brands they edit collections from. HAY, Normann Copenhagen, Ferm Living, MENU; it’s a veritable feast for anyone harbouring Scandinavian ambitions. Without delay the first category I found myself in was that of Danish brand Skagerak. They’re a label I’ve been following for quite a few years now, constantly saving and pinning images of their elegant designs. Their ethos is to create products that will span a lifetime if not longer. Sustainably sourced and beautifully crafted from the finest materials, everything is relatively quiet in its appearance. Saying something looks quiet is most definitely wrong, but that’s exactly how I’d describe it.

The Georg Stool: the stool that launched a thousand Instagram posts. It’s just as perfect in person as it is sitting on the accounts of some of Denmark’s finest tastemakers. I’m aware this could sound rather odd but if you ever find yourself within touching distance of the stool, feel it. It’s so beautifully shaped, smooth and tactile underneath. It’s exactly how a piece of furniture should be for me. Immaculately executed and built to last.

Skagerak Georg Stool

HAY concrete flower pot

Ferm Living’s ripple carafe and stacking glasses have been on my hit list for quite some time too, equally as perfect for a mid-afternoon G&T as they are filled with water for your bedside. You can decide which.

Niki Jones Harlequin Cushion

Normann Copenhagen Block Side Table

You can explore my full Amara edit and see how I styled them in my own home as part Amara‘s shoppable Home Inspiration gallery. If you haven’t already taken a look, you’re missing out.

|1.| Ferm Living Ripple Carafe |2.| Ferm Living Ripple Tumblers |3.| Vitra Eames House Bird |4.| Hay Brass Tray |5.| Skagerak Georg Stool |6.| Skagerak Norr Tray |7.| Serax Bowl |8.| Hay Glass Container |9.| Hay Large Glass Container |10.| Anglepoise Type 75 Desk Lamp |11.| Niki Jones Harlequin Cushion

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My Home

The Gym.

Blue Screens.

Reading.

Caffeine.

The Mattress.

A New Routine.

Invested in storage.

Doubled the light.

Only useful furniture allowed.

What’s next?

The Floor.

The Drawers.

The Bedside Table.

The Walls.

The Lighting.

1. The Sheets.

2. Switch Off.

3. Cut The Caffeine.

4. Enjoy The Routine.

5. Treat Yourself.

The ground work.

Go on a hunt.

An impartial and unsponsored view on frames.

Start on the floor.

Find the centre.

Mock it up.

Nothing’s permanent.

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