Living in a rented house has a lot of benefits – rent doesn’t fluctuate with interest rates, I’ve never had to pay huge legal costs when I move and if, heaven forbid, the boiler breaks down, I don’t need to pay to fix it. I wrote a long time ago about my attitude to car maintenance, (it involves satsumas), and I’m not sure I’d be very good at being in charge of a house.
The downside though is that it can be hard to really stamp your mark on your home. All of the walls in our last three houses have been white and I’ve had to resist the urge to splash the pink paint around. Instead, I try to inject splashes of colour through furnishings and accessories. I am basically Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen in a dress.
I thought I would give you a little tour of some of my favourite colourful spots in my home, to prove that renting doesn’t have to mean boring.
Painted picture frames
I painted these all by myself, with chalk paint, and was very proud indeed. I collected up a lot of the random pictures we had around the house, all in cheap frames, and chose two contrasting colours that I thought went well together. Because I only needed a small amount, I got away with just buying a tester point of each colour, meaning the whole thing only cost about ten pounds.
Colourful blankets
I am totally in love with this Avoca mohair throw from House of Fraser, not least because of the label.
It’s wonderfully soft and gives a really lovely feeling of cosy luxury wherever I put it. It would look amazing against some crisp white bed linen or a lovely grey sofa.
(Note to self: buy white bed linen and do whatever people do to linen to make it ‘crisp’)
Bathroom accessories
Whenever I stay in a hotel I always love using the big, thick, white towels but at home, against the white background, I need something jazzier. When we moved into our new house in Taunton I may have accidentally splashed out on a new bath mat, hand towel and two bath towels, all with orange foxes on and pink trims.
Coloured glasswear
Possibly one of my very favourite bits of the house is this mini set of shelves in my kitchen. They are painted white and make the perfect backdrop for all of my lovely coloured glasses and bowls. They are pretty much all from LSA – my go to brand for anything glass.
Funky phone
I have done my best to embrace the mustard yellow trend, (which possibly happened a year or so ago, but I am a little out of touch), with a funky retro phone. It has all the style of the old models, but is push button, meaning if I ever find myself having to call 999 it won’t take me three minutes just dial the numbers.
What are your favourite ways to bring a bit of colour into your home?
Disclosure – I was sent the blanket for the purposes of this post. All opinions are my own.