Category Archives: interiors inspiration

The calm and then the storm

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The almighty job of renovating our kitchen has begun. This is the room we have wanted to do the most, but it’s the most expensive so far so we have had to wait. Here’s how the kitchen was before we started work. This picture makes it look a lot wider then it is! And cleaner! And less shabby!!

The cupboard under the sink housed dog paraphernalia (it’s amazing how much stuff two dogs can collect) and various house cleaning products. Oh and some salad and mixing bowls, and some vases! The corner cupboard to the left was where all our crockery was stored. It was treacherous opening it as most stuff was precariously balanced. If you ever felt like baking all crockery needed to be removed first before you could get anywhere need the baking trays!! It was usually enough to put you off any spontaneous baking. We also kept our pots and pans in here too. The wall cupboard to the right housed our boiler. The wall cupboard on the left housed glasses and food. It was a tight squeeze so we also ended up with a shelving unit from the shed in there too for more food and drink storage.

On the floor there were the original tiles however as the kitchen is in the old extension on the back of the house, it doesn’t have proper foundations and the tiles are pretty much straight on top of the ground. It got very cold in there in the winter, you could feel the cold creeping up your shins. The fact there was no heating didn’t help either! Jus and I would take it in turns to run in there to make a cuppa when we first moved in! We did have lino down when when we rented the house, until my Dad’s dog Mimi came for a holiday. She took it upon herself to remove the lino one day and tear it up into little pieces in her bed. We aren’t sure if Bramble and Holly were also involved but the fact that Mimi collected all the little pieces in her bed didn’t help her defence! We had to buy the house after that!

The original layout of doors and windows in the kitchen meant it was difficult to make good use of the already small space. It measures 2m 90cm by about 2m 20, and has two doors and window. To make better use of the space Jus and I had the doorway into the room moved to the centre of the wall, when we had work done on the dining room. Click here to see that post. 

We have now gone from the picture above to this…

and then from that to this…

We removed the kitchen and the plumber has replaced and moved the boiler. Our original plan had been to simply move the original boiler as it worked fine, however finding a new flue for our cheap boiler was proving expensive. The boiler was about 5-6 years old already so would possibly have needed replacing in the next couple of years. It worked OK, but at the moment we have an electric shower, which will be going. Running a bath off it had never been great so running a shower off it as we plan to would have been difficult. So we reluctantly had to pay out for a new boiler much sooner then expected, and this added a significant amount to our kitchen budget. However it is done now, and there was always the potential that moving the old boiler may have damaged it anyway. The pipes running to and from the boiler have also been moved to allow for the building work we are currently having done.

Today the builders and Tom have raised the floor so it is suspended and insulated and therefore hopefully much warmer. They have also bricked up the old back door and put a window in, and removed all the old plaster off the walls. Tomorrow they will be knocking the wall out under the old window, and turning it into a door. The brickwork is also being changed so the back door is opposite the entrance into the ktiichen to allow 60cm of kitchen cabinets either side. Hopefully turning our postage stamp kitchen into a much more user friendly galley kitchen! Hooray!

Meanwhile the rest of our house looks like this…

We didn’t dare start the work without knowing we were able to buy the kitchen on interest free finance first from Ikea, and then it was delivered far quicker then we imagined. So that is in the dining room, along with all our food, crockery and other kitchen things, plus the builder’s tools and materials, and all the stuff that was already in the dining room. Lets hope we aren’t living like this for too long. And yes that last picture is the silhouette of Toms keys marked out by the dust that escaped through the dust sheets and into our living room. It is everywhere!!

decisions, decisions

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I have failed at keeping to my resolution of regular blogging! The front bedroom is coming along slowly, in between work and yet more doggy illness! The receptionist at the vets knows us too well! She even recognises my voice on the phone. Not a good sign. Holly has had a fever and been quite unwell, and despite various tests and overnight stays at the vets we still don’t know why. Fortunately after about 10 days she started to get better and is now getting back to her usual crazy self. It was very worrying though. Luckily whatever it was didn’t seem to affect Bramble, although she wasn’t impressed that Holly was fed special smelly canned vet food and she wasn’t! Anyway back to the bedroom…

Tom and I made Holly a little nest on our bed while we put coving up, painted the ceiling (white) and painted the walls (also white). I can’t enough of the Dulux Trade super matt white paint, it makes the walls look so flat, even though it’s an old house and the walls are very bumpy! It is looking very bright and fresh in there but could do with some finishing touches to make it cosier. The things we still need to do are get the gas pipe that is sticking out of the floor and running along the wall buried, remove the two random fuse boxes on the wall and in the cupboard, move the radiator, move a plug socket, make a headboard out of old pallets (if I ever get round to it), wallpaper the chimney breast, finish sanding and painting the skirting boards, make curtains, and carpet it, phew. I am still keen on the grey and white theme, possibly with touches of yellow if it’s looking too cold or boring.

As money is tight we went for the Ikea Aspelund wardrobe and set of 3 drawers. The drawers were on offer for only £59 and they are quite sturdy. They are a pale grey colour but the handles aren’t the greatest so I am planning on changing those. The matching wardrobe is the perfect size for one of the alcoves, and was also reasonably priced at £139 but that is not sturdy at all, no matter how much we tighten the screws it still wobbles about. However it will do for now as we have much more important things to shell out for like the kitchen. It’s a shame because I like the simplicity of the wardrobe and the colour. It is really heavy as well so has been a nightmare to move whilst painting the room. I am on the search for some vintage suitcases to pile on top. More pictures of the room coming soon when I have got round to doing the skirting boards!

Until then we have a decision to make. Many of my friends know that once upon a time I worked for Laura Ashley in a few of their homeware stores. Admittedly when I started at the age of 16 I wasn’t overly impressed with their chintzy fabric and flowery wallpaper, but over the years I grew to be a huge fan of the brand. I also love black and white photographs so was considering wallpapering the chimney breast in the Laura Ashley Pimlico wallpaper, a selection of photographs from old fashion shoots.

After painting the room all white I have been enjoying the feeling of calm in there so have started doubting my choice. I have always loved the josette wallpaper, especially in the dove grey colour. It has a lovely matt finish and the pattern is a chalky white colour.

Click on either image to go to the Laura Ashley website. Tom prefers the Pimlico, but I am leaning towards the Josette. What do you think?

gallery indecision sorted

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Jus and I have some great framed pictures that we have collected over the years. They are a mixture of our own photos, and photos or artwork by others that we have collected on our travels. When we go somewhere new we always try to get a piece of artwork by a local artist, it doesn’t have to be expensive just something by someone local that reminds us of the place. It’s something we started a couple of years ago when we went to Barcelona together. It has been fun seeking out local artists on trips since, both abroad and in the UK. All these pictures have been sat in a basket waiting to go on the wall above one of the sofas. Jus and I both love gallery walls, and we kept lying the pictures out on the floor in various arrangements, but just couldn’t come to any decision about where to put them on the wall. Plus after sanding and filling and painting the walls for days I don’t think either of us could face hammering a loads of nails into them.

Then I remembered Ikea do these great little shelves for your pictures, and they are only £8.29 too. This way we get to change our pictures and rotate them as often as we like, this is about a third of the pictures that need to go up! We are on the search for a letter ‘J’ for Jus. They are apparently quite hard to get hold of. We are planning on spraying the letter T another colour but it can stay red for now as it does bring out the red in the pictures. We are both really pleased with them and they got the nod of approval from Tom as well, bonus! 

laying laminate flooring for girls

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We’ve had a few emails with regard to laying our laminate floor in the living and dining rooms so I thought I’d do a bigger post on it and some of the lessons we learnt. In fact hey wait a minute. Jus has been saying she wants to start writing a few posts and this was a big DIY eye opener for both of us. I wasn’t very well at the time so Jus had to take control of this one. It makes sense then for her to tell you all about it!!

So, when Erica told me she had found some laminate that she likes and that we were going to lay it ourselves to save some cash I thought “Great! How hard can it be!?”. Let us just say that actors get paid to smile and make it look easy in the adverts, a little cottage in Knutsford with the blind leading the blind is a whole other story. However, when you are starting from scratch and with a little bit of patience you can learn some handy tricks along the way, and by the end of the second room it was a doddle!

As always, Erica led the way and had already found the best deal for realistic looking wood effect laminate having seen it our friend Jenny’s shop House in Knutsford. The Homebase Richmond Oak Floorboard effect laminate was originally a midrange price choice, but Erica and Tom managed to hunt it out at 20% off, with a further 10% off, also saving money on the underlay, which was half price, in one swooping visit to Homebase. Steal! However buying it at this price did have it’s draw backs and it wasn’t until we first started laying it that we realised there were two slightly different versions of the same product with one type including a black rubber filament on the joins. All this amounted to was that we had to lie a certain line at a time, rubber, no rubber, rubber, no rubber, and so on. Lesson learnt here, be careful when buying sale items! Make sure they are the same batch/type/product before you open the packaging.

I came home one evening to find an eager Erica and very tired Tom making a start on the floor. In preparation for the big floor fitting, we had already stripped the old skirting board from the rooms. In that previous week we had the builders round to screed over the uneven and damaged, but beautifully original, quarry tiles to create a perfectly flat even surface for the laminate…with the odd dog print. After laying enough underlay (with 5mm gaps between each sheet to allow room for the foam to spread under the weight of the floor), they started fitting the slabs of laminate together. Starting in the right hand corner of the room, with the grain of the floor laying towards the daylight into the room, they gently knocked the planks together end to end, making sure that there was enough of a gap where the floor meets the wall so the laminate can expand if needed. One line down, however many too go…sound easy?

(Note from Erica – all health and safety and manual handling enthusiasts please ignore the above picture! I have since treated myself to a lovely workbench and my back is very happy!)

It is recommended that this is a two-man job and the advice could not be more applicable. Not only did we need to take turns sawing the laminate (although this was a job most suited for Tom), you also need the patience of two people. To continue with the rest of the floor each line needs to be slotted and knocked in a piece at a time. By slotting I mean connecting the laminate plank, to the previous line, along the length firstly going under, then up, then in…a manoeuvre that sounds easy enough but requires patience and a firm but tactile touch, hard when you are tired and frustrated! Once slotted, you then do the same with the next piece, leaving a centimetre gap between the two ends so you can knock them together to lock into place along the width.

Ever the organiser, Erica had picked up a specially designed laminate fitting kit from B&Q, a godsend and must have! This includes a specially designed block to slot on the end of the laminate so you can use a hammer without damaging the joins, and subsequently the whole plank. It also includes a piece of metal shaped like the letter ‘s’ that you hook onto the end of the laminate once you reach the wall, giving you enough space to knock the laminate into place with a hammer. However with all the huffing, banging, and broken ends, the laminate planks became more and more precious and the battered plastic block was starting to hinder the process. So, after gaining this tip off a friend, we ended up using laminate cut offs instead! As they slot so neatly onto the planks, you can thwack the cut-off has hard as you like without ruining the delicate fibres of the joins.

We had already finished one room and it was up to Erica and I to finish the living room off in one evening. We started using the usual process but our tired, flimsy arms were not getting us anywhere! For those of you that have had the pleasure of laying your own laminate, you are probably very well acquainted with the ‘knock one plank in, another pops up’ game…and as you can imagine, our patience was starting to wear thin. After some tea and a stare at the floor in despair, we decided to try and fit the planks together another way. Instead of knocking the planks in one by one we decided try and slot the planks in as one big line, after slotting them together width ways. Low and behold, it was a process that suited us girlies much better as it involved a lot less banging and popping!

(Another interruption from Erica  - to all photography enthusiasts apologies for this poor picture quality, it was on my phone, late at night and we had to put the table back in there soon after. Better quality pictures are on their way once the skirting is on.)

We now have a beautiful floor to show our hard work, and it was more then worth it. The only other tip we can give is for you to invest or hire in a circular saw or jigsaw that will enable you to cut the laminate easily in a straight line…especially if you don’t have the strength of a fireman to do the sawing for you! If you fancy saving yourself some money, and have a weekend spare for some hard graft with a friend or two, then we highly recommend you consider laying your own laminate in exchange for dusty hair and a huge sense of accomplishment.

Having lived with the floor for several weeks now, we can also point out how easy it is to keep the floor clean, even with two crazy mutts. No longer needing it’s help after moving into a carpeted house, our Mum gave us a fantastic cleaning tool, a micro fibre flat head mop! As you are advised to avoid spills on your floor (especially within the joins), this mop is the perfect partner as it enables you to swiftly mop the floor using what is a effectively a damp cloth on a stick. Genius. 

Thanks Jus! Your first ever blog post on twosisters! I hope it’s the start of many.

Here’s a little round up of things we learnt

1. If you are laying over tiles put a self levelling compound containing latex over them first to create a flat surface. If you are laying over floor boards make sure none of them are loose and that no nails are sticking up.

2. Make sure you are buying the same batch, or that they will at least fit together!

3. Get the best quality underlay you can afford as this should prolong the life of your laminate and make it quieter and warmer.

4. Remove the skirting boards first if you can (no matter how real it looks that beading is a laminate giveaway), and get the laminate out of it’s packaging 3 days beforehand (or whatever it says on the pack) to let it acclimatise. 

5. Lay the laminate in lines pointing towards the daylight coming into the room and/or along the longest straight wall. It made sense for us to do this anyway as our laminate runs from the front door in the living room through to the back of the house. When you stand at the front door it makes the house look so much bigger. It also meant the laminate lay across the floor boards in the living room giving the floor more strength and less flex.

5. If you can afford to buy or hire an electric saw, or at least get a work bench! Breeze blocks are not recommended! If you can’t hire a saw at least know you will finish the job with arms (sorry, one arm) like Jennifer Aniston, or at least a little more toned then you were! 

5. Be careful when knocking the boards together, even the fitting kits you can buy can damage the end of the boards. We found it better the use a cut off end piece to click onto the board you are fitting and hit that using the block in the fitting kit instead.

6. In smaller rooms, e.g. our living room, it might be easier to slide the pieces in one row together at their short ends first, and then click this long line of boards onto the previous row. This is fiddly and takes patience to get all the boards to click together properly, but we found you are less likely to damage the boards by knocking them together, and it is quieter enabling you to lay laminate well into the night without waking your neighbours up! We also found that sometimes no matter how hard you knocked them together some boards just wouldn’t click together properly end to end. 

So there you have it. A rather large post on laying laminate floor for girls! We hope you find it helpful and it made some sense. Let us know if it doesn’t!!

With regards to the Richmond Laminate, I am so pleased we picked it over some of the cheaper options, it really does look quite real. The finish is textured and not too shiny, and the planks are so convincing, some even have knots that look like they have wood filler in them like a genuine wooden floor. The edges are slightly darker too so it looks like the gaps you get between floorboards. If you want to see it in the flesh go to our friend Jenny’s gorgeous shop House in Knutsford and check out her floor! 

new love affair with Pinterest, neon with neutral, and grey with yellow

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Pinterest has been winking at me from various blogs and websites for a while now, but I had resisted it’s flirting as I already spend way too much time on the computer. With my blog, facebook, google reader, hotmail and twitter I don’t have the time for another online relationship!

However Pinterest knew how right it is for me and persisted in it’s chasing. Eventually I couldn’t resist a little fling, and now I’m hooked. It wasn’t until I actually gave it a go that I got what it’s all about. I already spend so much time browsing the internet for inspiration and then saving images to my computer, or pages as bookmarks, or to my reading list. This just gets them all together in one place. Such a good idea. Great for mood boards and decorating inspiration. 


So far I have been collecting image ideas together for my retro kitchen unit soon to be desk. The exterior will be neutral to blend in with our light airy dining room but I want the inside to reflect me as it will be my little space in this little house I share with my sister, boyfriend and two spaniels!

There are times when I just can’t resist a pop of bright colour but I do believe less is more. I first came across the idea of neon highlights on the Pocketful of Dreams website (that’s my wedding obsession coming through there). How gorgeous are these DIY neon flowers? The mixture of neutral and neon seems to be appearing with the Spring fashion in the shops too. Like this neon border scarf at Gap.

I might have to treat myself to this!

I love the contrast of neon against neutral and have been thinking about adding some neon pink highlights to the interior of my desk. Pinterest has enabled me to collate my ideas and see if it would work. I have started a board called ‘nod to neon desk ideas’. Yes I could paint the entire inside of the desk neon pink but I don’t think this will achieve the subtle pop of colour I’m after. I will probably get migraines from sitting at the desk whilst spending all my time with my new love Pinterest too!

You can have a look at my nod to neon desk ideas board here.

I’ve also started an inspiration board for my bedroom which I plan to start in March when I am next on annual leave. At the moment I’m thinking mainly white, with grey (of course, the love affair with grey continues), lots of black and white photos, maybe an alcove or fireplace in the Laura Ashley Pimlico wallpaper, and then adding hints of soft yellow to keep it pretty and fresh. I may just stick to the grey and white colour scheme, but Pinterest is allowing me to flirt with this yellow idea for now.

See my shades of grey and hints of yellow bedroom board here.

To get me started on my room I received a lovely new set of bedding from John Lewis from my family for my birthday this week. It will finally replace all the hand me down bedlinen I currently use! It’s too nice to get out of the packet and actually use yet though. I’m still looking at it through the packaging! I think this will fit in perfectly with my colour scheme. i love white bedding, it’s so clean and fresh. The grey stripes add a a nice touch. The seersucker texture is lovely too. I love a mixture of white in different textures, it’s subtly interesting. I’m going to mix and match the pillowcases with others, and add a grey throw to keep it cosy. Hmm and maybe a pale yellow cushion….or two?

Are you having an affair with Pinterest too? What’s your current colour obsession?

felted wool jumper pouffe

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A while back I found a new website called

The Other Duckling

and I have fallen head over heels. Have a look. Some gorgeous things and some great inspiration. Especially those knitted pouffes. To die for. Plus the lady that designs them is called Erica, I love finding people that share my name!

Mother goose can knit. I tried to learn at Solfest one year, I felt very domesticated, but I struggle with anything beyond a scarf, actually I haven’t even finished one of those yet. If I’m honest I don’t think I have the patience to knit. I’m an instant results kinda girl, the reason I take more photos these days then I paint. I can’t afford one of those gorgeous pouffes but if I could I’d get the duck one straightaway.

So instead I had planned to have a nice little chat with mother goose and see if she fancies rustling up a little cover for my little, unloved, rubbish tip find pouffe. The handiest little thing I ever came home from the tip with. Anyone else nearly always leave with more then they came with? I know you aren’t meant to take things away from the tip, a stupid rule I think, but surely there is nothing wrong with pouncing on the innocent man about to throw this in and asking if I can have it? It’s not the prettiest but it sure is handy as a foot rest, extra seat when we have guests or place to put a tea tray down. It has been sat around the house for about 3 years now waiting for me to decide what to do with it. 

Then the other day in John Lewis I spotted these…

Click on the pictures to go to the John Lewis website. I have hinted for the one above for my birthday. I was quite surprised at the price. I expected it to cost more then £40. I also saw and fell in love with this by Donna Wilson…

Don’t think I’ll be getting that no matter how much I hint!!

So back to my tip find pouffe. The felted pouffes in John Lewis and Kirstie Allsopp’s Christmas craft programmes (did anyone else see them, so good) inspired me to try and make a felted wool cover for my pouffe. Here’s how it turned out.

And here’s how I did it.

Firstly I went into town and scoured the charity shops for any 100% wool jumpers, in the right shades of grey of course! I managed to get 4 at a total cost of £20, although I only used 2.

Then the hugely rebellious bit. As someone that has mega OCD tendencies about the clothes washing I found this both scary and exhilarating to do! I put them all in on a 95 degree wash, with a couple of rough old dog towels to duff them up a bit. They came out half their size and nicely matted into felt! Hooray! Prior to felting them one of the jumpers had fit perfectly around the pouffe as if it was round someones waist, so whilst it was damp I stretched it back over it and cut it into shape. Again very exhilarating and scary cutting wool like that but as it had matted well it didn’t fray, phew!

Whilst the felt was drying Tom took me to Hobbycraft as a treat to buy a clover felting tool (I’m a cheap date!). It’s craft heaven in there but I didn’t want to buy my wool for darning from them as I believe it supporting local businesses when I can, so went to the beautiful fibre and clay in Knutsford for some. When the rest of the felt was dry I cut a circle out of the light grey jumper for the top of the pouffe. 

Using a wooden heart decoration I cut out small heart shapes for the edge of the pattern out of the sleeves left over from the jumper covering the sides. Then I cut out circles, diamonds and arrows, and arranged them on the light grey circle. I pinned them into position and then using a clover felting tool and piece of foam attached them together. the felting tool has five barbed needles that push fibres from the top piece of felt through the bottom piece of felt matting the fibres. This did take a while as the jumper fibres weren’t that matted to begin with, I probably should have boil washed them a second time. Fortunately this is the kind of thing you do in front of the TV just make sure you put the foam on a metal tray so you don’t felt the shapes to your leg!

I cut a circle of padding for the top of the pouffe to make it a bit comfier. Once all the shapes were attached I used some dark grey wool to attach the top using a blanket stitch. I am really pleased with the result. The pattern seems to be well attached and staying in place at the moment! I haven’t allowed anyone to sit on it yet though!!

The breath of elephants…

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Wouldn’t want to smell it but I love elephants, and as you may already know, the colour grey. I am terrible for picking paints based on their names. Farrow and Ball do a paint called Elephants Breath, one of their best sellers, and I think the name perfectly describes the colour. When it came to choosing between shades of grey for the living room the name eventually swung it. In true feet first style we just went right on ahead and bought it without trying a tester. Every £3 counts, and we would have only spent even longer procrastinating over colours. So once the coving was up, and the ceiling had had a few coats of dulux supermatt white, our living room was transformed by the breath of elephants! It really is a beautiful colour and changes according to the type of light in the room. I wanted something light, as this is a really bright room all year, but also soft, warm and cosy, and of course grey. This ticks all those boxes and, after finding the farrow and ball eggshell slightly disappointing, I was really happy with their estate emulsion. In some lights it is a bit pinky, or lilac in colour and I did worry this made it a bit too bedroomy at first, but then the light changes and it’s a creamy darker grey again. The next job was to fit the laminate floor which I’ll cover in another post. There is still lots to do, like fitting and painting the skirting boards, fitting a wood burner, repointing the fireplace, stripping the front door and making curtains etc, but we stopped the big jobs in the run up to Christmas, so here the living room is half finished and all dressed up for new years eve. The rug was from Ikea and was only £49.99. I really like it but not as much as the dogs do, they think it is their new bed. So far it is holding up to their dusty paws well! And at that price I can handle having to buy another in the future when the dogs have wrecked this one. The lights are from Laura Ashley and were £17.50 each in their autumn sale. We don’t have an overhead light in this room, it had been removed by a previous owner, and we didn’t replace it because we like the ambience the 3 wall lights create, plus they don’t reflect off the TV! These ceramic shades are so pretty and they cast lovely patterns across the walls.

todays pickings

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Today a very exciting package arrived. I love eBay especially when it leads to gems like this. I have wanted some old coffee sacks for a number of upcoming projects, and I wanted to keep these a secret until I had used them in a variety of exciting ways, before proudly unveiling them in the blog. But I am terrible with secrets. I purposely ask friends not to tell me any, they bubble away inside me just waiting to burst out! I managed to get these beauties for about £2 a sack. Some people are selling them for ridiculous prices on there so I have been sat waiting and watching for weeks. Then these popped up and I made a hasty mobile bid with seconds left whilst on my way to work, I pulled over of course, but don’t tell my manager this is why I ran in at one minute to the time I was meant to be there, it was all that traffic that had left me huffing and puffing on my arrival! The listing had said there would be a variety of designs. I have ended up with 8 different designs so much better then I expected. From all different countries too. What do you think? My first project is the dining room chairs. I’m off for the next couple of days so hoping to get them done and will be blogging all about it soon.

Happy campers

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Work on the house is going slow at the moment due to work commitments on both our part. I am also off camping tomorrow to Devon with Tom for some much needed time off. However I am always looking for house inspiration and will be updating the blog as soon as I’m back. In the meantime I’ll be doing some research for my next art project. Inspired by work by Box Brownie Trading (love love love).

My friend Jenny sells some of their things in her amazing shop House in Knutsford (check her website out, or if you can, go there in person as she’s so lovely). Her shop had a fire over the Christmas holiday and she recently reopened. I spotted a similar piece to the one above on her opening night. If we weren’t saving for project ‘entire house’ I would have bought it there and then. Instead I decided to use some of the many canvases hanging around the house to make some of my own personalised text paintings. I’ve been on the look out for sayings, lyrics and poems that I could use. Jus has been on the case too. I’m building up a good collection of interesting words and when we get back from camping I’m looking forward to getting started. I’ll upload step-by-step pictures once I get it finished. Erica xxx