A few of our favourite things…

So many people contacted us to say they enjoyed our little Q&A a few weeks ago…so we decided to follow on from by sharing a few items in our homes that we love the most and why!

Both Sarah & I are massive lovers of interiors and can get lost for hours on both instagram, pinterest and home magazines and are often running things past each other when it comes to our houses. We all love a little nosey so here goes…

DONNA – LIVES IN A VICTORIAN VILLA IN HOVE, EAST SUSSEX

Rose Paintings

I collected all of my ‘rose’ paintings from flea markets , I absolutely love anything that has a pink rose in it!

My Mary!

My mum bought me her from a country fair that we went to, I’d been looking for one for years, and she’s the exact image i had in mind, serene but with lips & cheeks!

My Dutch doors

These were bottle green when I bought them, and I had the larder built to fit the doors…I bought them from a salvage shop and fell in love with the fact that they are 7ft tall and the slats!

My ‘rose’ mirror

Bought for me by my friend Lee who always buys me gifts that I adore… Even though it was probably intended for a bedroom, I have it n my kitchen because its too pretty to hide away x

A couple of my Favourite books...

Coastal Living Beach house, because I live by the sea! and I’ve always loved Rachel Ashwells Shabby Chic Interiors, she loves pink, frills and roses as do I!

My beautiful Glass Fire guard

Another gift from Lee, . I felt like crying when he gave me this, it’s one of my most treasured objects. He found it in a charity shop!

Yep, more roses,

I used to spend a fortune buying real roses every week, ( I now but Aldis roses for £2 and they last ages look fab) but i bought these imitation ones from Susie Watson, whose shops I could happily move into!!!

My trio of plates

All from my local high street charity shops, these were way too pretty to keep in the cupboard, so they are hung in my bathroom .

My little chest of drawers and matching glass cabinet,

It’s lived in every room in my house, I can always find a use for it – it’s currently in my guest bedroom and the glass cabinet holds all of my period hats ( mostly which Lee has given me over the years).

The little wooden crib on top was my mums as a little girl

Aww… The white Wicker crib

This is a family heirloom , 3 generations have slept in this crib, it was my mums, then mine and my siblings and lots of cousins and then all of our children… I can’t part with it, even though I get fed up with it taking up so much room. It’s useful to hold all my old eiderdowns in!

The floor standing mirror that sits in our bedroom

This was a bargain, it had a cracked mirror, so I bought it for £70 and replaced the glass, hanging from it is a little lace dress that was my mums, a sparkly scarf and of course some fairy lights!

My bedroom curtains

My clever friend Lara made them and I LOVE them, I told her exactly what i wanted and she can up trumps! We used 4 sets of Ikea curtains and some pom poms from amazon ( I love pom poms by the way!) to make them… I love the floppy top that hangs over, this was the key feature I wanted.

My Nan’s jewellery boxes!

The one to the right was my dads mums (Beatrice) whom I never met as she passed away before i was born, but it has a ballerina & plays music, and still has her hair slide and some clip on earring in that she used to wear, plus a big red glass dress ring that I love to wear. The velvet was my mum’s mum ( Kathleen) and I remember always going into her room and emptying it out, it still holds all of her dress beads! and I loved the little key!

Book Nook

I created this book nook for the boys a few years ago, from a large inbuilt cupboard that was on their landing, i think it’s so cute and colourful and it makes me smile every time i see it.

SARAH – LIVES IN AN OLD SCILLONIAN COTTAGE ON BRYHER, ISLES OF SCILLY

We bought our house 4 years ago along with 3 holiday cottages and have been renovating ever since!! It is a little trickier to photo everything so beautifully like Donna’s house, as it is not entirely finished and still needs a little ‘dressing’ but here are the things that I love most :

My Glitterball

My lovely friend Kate bought this for me – she owns a lifestyle store in Essex (vintagesgtyleliving.co.uk) and is constantly on the hunt for interesting bits and bobs – she knew I had always wanted one and she found this beauty at Ardingly Antiques Fair – I love it and it sits above my dining room table.

My Vintage Chandelier –

Until the glitterball came along – this had pride of place above my dining table and in my previous home…I found it in a skip and sprayed it all up and often change the colour of the candles to suit the seasons – it even gets dressed up with baubles at Christmas!

I am in the process of moving it outside to hang from one of the palm trees in my garden but you can see it here…

Flowers

One thing I miss the very most about living on the mainland are florists. I used to visit Petals in Berkhamsted every Friday for my fresh flower fix and post to my instagram each week as #freshflowerfriday – To make up for it, I now have a growing collection of really good fake flowers from Neptune and also Fox Flowers – I change them around constantly and mix with fresh foliage from the garden and whatever I can find growing.

Log Burner

I love log burners – they are so homely and as our house has no central heating, we knew we wanted one in the lounge. I love it so much because it is a real feature and completely warms up our lounge, dining room and kitchen. This one is from Cornwall Wood Burners.

Tiles

I absolutely love the tiles around my log burner – I found them in an inflight magazine on a BA flight to Norway last year and ripped the page out and kept it.

I love them so much that they now feature in one of our bathrooms in Firman’s Cottage (one of our holiday rentals).

Larder Cupboard

When we designed the new kitchen for our house, the only thing I absolutely knew I wanted was a big larder cupboard with a spice rack! I labsolutely ove it and sometimes just open the doors and gaze in ????

Outdoor Shower

Not strictly in the house but ‘part’ of the house – I love my outdoor shower.

Living by the beach, it is pretty annoying when sand constantly gets trampled through the house so we build this on the decking – I wanted it it to be rustic and it has hot water too – my husband is a runner and uses it regularly…

Artwork

I love this piece of art that we ‘won’ at a silent auction a few years ago. Our friends Darren & Anna Gough organise an annual charity event in aid of Veterans for Wildlife – one year Phil and I went alond and ended up drinking FAR too much and bidding on too many items.

In the car as we drove home from London the next day, the phone kept ringing to tell one of us that our bid had been successful! We were a bit silent from Bristol to Penzance but am so glad we now have this – it is so different…I love it!

Light up Letters

I love my light up letter S that I have in my office – I actually have 2 (my iniitals) that my husband bought me from Bespoke Light up Letters for Christmas one year – the other is in our spare room. (and this is Nelly one of my cats).

Doug Hyde Collection

I collected these pictures a few years back when we lived in a big old Victorian house with high ceilings – they suited the house perfectly. Unfortunately, they do not suit our current house and the ‘look’ we have opted for, so I have them scattered throughout the holiday cottages…

Light shade

My great big lamp shade that I bought from one of my favourite shops in the world Kiln Studio in the tiny village of Port Isaac in Cornwall – our lounge has a very high ceiling and I needed something that would fill the space a little…

Leather Chair

My gorgeous leather chair – I bought this chair from one of my best friend’s approximately 14 years ago – and it has been my go-to chair for reading, child cuddling, thinking, laughter and tears ever since.

It is now in my office and has been scratched by the cats, marked by time but I love it and don’t ever want to get rid of it.

Photo

Finally, one of my most treasured pictures of all time is one that was taken the moment we landed on our tiny island home back in February 2016. We arrived in a storm (with our cats in tow) and had no idea then that it would be the best thing we ever did! I am in the process of getting it framed.