The Ins & Outs - Designer Blunders & Patio Stone Wonders

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

On this episode, Jojo makes an embarrassing design fail at work, while Polly gives some great tips on patio stone.We go into the bedroom with Jojo's advice on different shades and Mr Big makes his first appearance on the podcast! Plus, we discus knobs and handles, when to use which and where?InstagramPodcast - @the_insandouts_Jojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonProducer Andy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessi Cruikshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend. I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails,

suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens.

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So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello, my friends, and welcome to this brand new episode of the ins and outs with myself, Jojo Barr, and the gorgeous Pollyanna Wilkinson. On today's pod, we're going to be talking about my basic design fail, balancing the juggle, handles on knobs on your doors, bedroom shades, tips on patio stone and Mr Big makes his first appearance So let's jump in

Hello Hot Stuff We've not caught up this week at all We actually haven't spoken What's been going down? So full of snot haven't we? We have What's been going down? I just got back from a really successful

photo shoot and shooting our York project and it is just I think I get prouder and prouder as a work mama I just I walk into our projects now and I just feel like oh this is so nice and I know that's I put it mean that in a big-headed way but I'm like that we're really good at what we do I hope but it's a little hard to say that I feel really proud yes um it's lovely to see it because these clients were just absolutely the the best just the better just the loveliest loveliest loveliest young couple and they were just awesome to work with and they really let us kind of go on it um and I think I said that before but it's just so so special going back to photograph it and then yeah having a full two-day suite to photograph

this from every little inch of it it's been brilliant so I'm feeling I'm very happy I got back very late last night about 11 o'clock with a very full car um and then of course wake up this morning to car troubles and I've got my little one sitting next door in the chair so she'll undoubtedly come and interrupt and say hello but anyway so apart from that um oh gosh i don't know how you fill me in and then i'll i'll think of some more you know interesting fun things to talk to you about in the studio we are in plant sourcing mode so this is a crazy moment when we're trying to plant source for a garden. And we've got, I think it's 3000 plants for this garden we're doing at the moment and

hoping to plant in April. And it's not as simple as just emailing one nursery and sourcing 3000 plants. We use quite unusual plants and try different things. So trying to find these, you know this with sourcing for interiors, trying to find all of these niche plants and the perfect trees and the right size shrubs, it is the most time-consuming element of the job, I think. It takes weeks of back and forth with different nurseries and photos and visiting and finding. It's really undervalued and underestimated,

I think, actually, as part of the work. If I had a day to offer, I'd love to come and be a fly on the wall in Polly's studio just to see what you get up to because I'd be so interested to see how different the outs are to the ins when it comes to designing.

Because I'm sure... I think the parallels are there. The parallels are there, but obviously I've got no experience in... And I thought it was like picking shrubs and things like that it is I still I think it'd just be fascinating well you know in the way you once said you've got to be really careful when you're buying a sofa because is it left facing or right right facing it's things like that it's things that you trip over with such as if you've got

tight access into a garden and you're ordering a tree and you forget to check the pot size or the girth or can you can two or three burly people pull that through a side return rather than using a telehandler it's all of those things which in the early days you go oh my god I've ordered something that's too large it's not going to fit through the space so it's the details yeah so it's yeah there's so much detail it takes a huge amount of time but obviously it's the funnest bit because we're finding all the plants so that's that's what's happening work-wise do you know it's funny you say that because one of the one of the biggest mistakes that you can make in very basic design is not checking that furniture can fit through doorways yeah yeah and the funniest thing is is

that we had a sofa picked up and out of storage and brought back to our office. And it doesn't fit through the office door. Oh, my God. The irony. The irony. And this is like, we're in an eight person studio. Come on. We're in an eight person studio and there's half of the sofa sitting in the corridor outside the office.

And we're like, can we take the doors off? Should we take the door frame off? And the office landlord's like, you just need to get rid of the fucking sofa now, please. And we're like, we take the doors off should take the door frame off and then the office landlord's like you just need to get rid of the fucking sofa now please and we're like okay sorry about this so can you believe it yeah i mean you just took the eye off the ball for your own studio i mean i'm not gonna take i'm not gonna take claim for this mistake i'm just saying sure sure sure what's what's theirs is mine what's mine is mine not mine yeah it lands on you my friend that's yeah that's the hazard of being the boss it does but anyway it's quite amusing I don't get annoyed about things like that I mean it was just quite funny so we've got half an L-shaped sofa

sitting in the office what do you do with it um I actually think I'm going to put it on on it was the sofa from um Chelsea Flower Show last year oh god I love that sofa yeah and we're going to sell it so it was I need to stick on Instagram really because actually it's such a great sofa it's beautiful do I want it I have to say you might want it let's chat yeah let's talk about that in the build um yeah okay what's been going on else otherwise oh my gosh I had such a busy weekend so I've had the smalls since they broke up they've been off for almost a week now so that's been chaos trying to juggle motherhood and work and I must admit I don't feel like I've really won at that we've not had any sort of lovely days out darling you don't

ever win you never win I started listening to that book four thousand weeks that you told me to listen to and I started listening to that on Audible and it says exactly that I think we're so caught up in trying to win this juggle and it there's no such thing you never win you can't ever beat it I just want to take them out on nice day trips and things but then you like actually number one the cost of taking them out on a day trip to say the Tower of London or London Dundas is extortionate I'm not sure how grateful they'd be. And also, it's just a day where I need to work. So it's really tricky because I want special memories, but I also need to work.

Do you know what? I watched this brilliant thing the other day. I can't remember if you saw it. And it was basically about the fact that here in the UK, tell me if you agree with this. Here in the UK, we are slightly obsessed with keeping up with the joneses and going taking our kids to activities so the weekend comes around we're all fucking exhausted because we've all been working or you know running around looking after the kids anyway and then we suddenly feel the need to plan the entire weekend around our kids like taking them to play dates taking them to a soft

day taking them to the climbing center taking them to a soft bay, taking them to the climbing centre, taking them to museums. And then by the end of the weekend, you've had no you time and you're absolutely exhausted. You're basically at the end of every day, you're exhausted. Yes. And how the Europeans do it, I think it's something, I think it's maybe the French do. I mean, they're just cool, aren't they?

But they basically, the children basically do what you you do so they go to the shops with you and they and those are the activities where they're learning life you know valuable life lessons and things and the the stuff that they really need to learn they're learning in the week at school but it's actually i just think i took so much from that and there was a mother here in the uk that thought i'm going to do this i'm going to split my weekend where i'm going to do the activity one day the second day it's just my day my weekend where I'm going to do the activity one day and the second day. It's just my day. It's my day.

And whatever I do, the kids can come with me on my day. So it becomes, since she's been doing it, she's been so much less stressed. I grew up in the country and we didn't really do activities at the weekend. We were just like dossing around at home. I feel pressure to do activities at the weekend, weirdly. And I'm the same. Actually, the kids love being in the garden they love just pottering around sometimes i say do you want to go out and they say no and are there any ways i want to take them out so they can burn off some

burn off some energy but actually the you almost i think we get so obsessed it's probably different when you're living in a town or a city because you know you're in a in a smaller house maybe without a big garden so you need to get them out into a park or something but it's so important that we set time aside for ourselves and don't feel the need to do everything around our kids otherwise we just burn out no you're quite right yeah it's a it's a balance i mean every holiday comes around i think how am i going to tackle this oh my goodness but look this weekend was so fun because as I've mentioned, I'm building the garden at the moment. And if you listen to the podcast,

you'll know that, but otherwise you won't. So we're doing it backwards insofar as I can only do half of the garden and I've ordered my hedging and I ordered this beautiful Carpinus hornbeam hedge. And I thought this is gonna be easy. I'll just dig the trench myself and I'll install the hedge units.

Easy. They arrived and each hedge unit i swear to god is about the weight of me um and i tried to grab this is a bit like the sofa thing isn't it this is a bit like the thing they are so heavy that i tried to pull one with a tree hook which is like um a metal hook that you kind of hook into the the wires of the root ball and drag it did not budge it did not did it was mr big not around to help you thank god mr big was around but even he swooped in on his white horse he drove up and saw them and just like let out a groan and i'm like oh god this is gonna be a nightmare because they're so heavy we've got no machinery um yeah but you also when you're like a dog with a bone when you get like when you get your teeth into something you're like that's it i'm gonna my husband just walked past so handsome oh what a dish oh he's such a dish

isn't he it's weird i purr so heavily on my husband no it's lovely so did you get these giant did you get the hedges in the ground did Did you manage to do it? We did. It took a solid day to dig the trench because I went and positioned the hedge over where an old tree was. So this, oh, the roots. What a nightmare. Anyway, it's in now. It looks fabulous. But that was hard graft. We're building it together.

It's quite sweet, really. We're building it together. So it's sort of slow going. Yes lovely yes it is how lovely sowing sowing seeds and planting and this is how romantic that's what i've been up to in the garden um i feel like there's this real trend that people love and actually it's really interesting because when i dress for photo shoots when I style our projects for photo shoots I I go maximalist in some areas but generally tend to go really minimalist if I'm doing a tablescape and you know what tablescaping is yes darling I know what tablescaping is but let's tell people in case they don't tablescaping which is I think it's just a bit thought it's literally when and there are professional tablescapers are people that dress your tables to look like they're absolutely dressed to the

absolute nines for your sort of lunch or dinner for your guests and it's quite an art it's a real I think it's a real art to get really right but you need so much stuff and i think stuff for your table can be very expensive if you want to get it looking gorgeous but i am i'm just so bad at it like i just don't do it at home and i don't know whether that's because i've got some really really small kids and i don't have you know around the clock help you know and i just i don't know if i can be awesome i get friends around i just want to stand in the kitchen glugging wine and chatting. And you know, you know, some people get their tables looking absolutely immaculate.

And there's part of me that wants to be like that. And then there's part of me that doesn't. Dude, I feel the exact same. Do you know what I feel? There's a fellow garden designer. It's keeping up. It's slightly keeping up appearances.

I feel it. I disagree. I feel like my friends will be like. Yes and no. And so far as I think it's a lovely practice and it's so, I think there's nothing more lovely about going to a friend's house and them saying like,

they've made a really beautiful effort and it looks beautiful. I also think there's nothing more lovely than going to a mate's house and going, put your slippers on, we're ordering a curry. Yeah, sorry.

And excuse the mess. So, you know, they're both lovely. I have never mastered the art of a tablescape and there is a garden designer who I really admire. Butter Wakefield she is an insanely talented designer and I love everything she's amazing yeah she's also got an incredible eye for interiors and she does beautiful tablescapes and I just look at them and think I will never I've seen them able to master that they're so

feminine ever I think that's what it is if I I like the ones that are not over style they almost have this way of looking slightly slightly rough and a bit whimsical and and quite very English country garden and there's lots of little pots with tiny little wildflowers in that is just sort of mismatching as well as sort of a curated mismatch that it's it's the mismatching it no we need to do a course on that don't it's like the glass but but it's like the glass it's all the mismatching glasses and cups somehow it just looks absolutely amazing I find it's like a it's essentially like interior design on a table yes it's an art or essentially for you it would be like planting sort of I can weave plants down a table and i love to do that and that's this is the time of year for that where you sort

of get loads of lovely little terracotta pots and fill them with different bulbs and things that's magic i love okay jojo we need to do a series of things then we need to do jojo and polly do get the colors done jojo and polly learn to tablescape but when when when should we do we've got to plan these things for we say we're going to do them we can't be those people that say we're going to do something and we don't do it. We've got so much free time. I mean, oh my God, we could just do it any day of the week. What about Monday?

No, I'll be away on Monday. I'm actually joking. Monday is the worst day for me. Is it time for some questions? I think it's time for some questions. Some innies and outies questions. Okay, Jojo, one from Annika. Do you like knobs do i or handles for internal doors oh gosh sorry do you like knobs or handle dot dot dot or handles for internal doors

here's the answer i like both and it very much depends on the door um and the property itself so it's the uh architectural features within the house is why we choose a knob or a handle. I tend to choose a handle in a house that's a little bit more, I'm going to say grand. So I think knobs go nicely and beautifully in like cottages and smaller properties. But I think there is no right or wrong you can use handles or knobs but I do think it's worth considering the style of your door. I'm laughing because looking out my window Mr Big is walking through my garden and he is wearing one of my jumpers he's currently wearing uh what I think might be a tea store jumper. Shut up take a photo of that immediately.

Because he didn't bring anything to to do the garden and it's just it's oh my god that's absolutely sorry that's really tickled me can i just drop i'm allowed to drop something about the tea store quickly because so the tea store for anyone that knows is my basics brand which is actually what i'm wearing one now because i live in them and um we went quiet for a bit because it's been we've been so busy with other stuff and we're we're relaunching because it's been we've been so busy with other stuff and we're we're relaunching again it's the whole lot is coming back in stock including the the socks finally the best socks in the world yeah finally they're all relaunching in may um and we've got

two different colors as well collegiate colors they are so cool anyway the whole collection is coming back so for all my t-Store lovers out there, so excited. And then we'll get Mr. Big, his very own T-Store jumper. Amazing. Sorry, that distracted me. I mean, what a nice view. This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessie Crookshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend.

I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at

your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Okay, sorry, master digress. Right, should I dive into an outie question? Right, my love, we've got one here from Abby. Hi, Polly and Jojo. Love listening to the podcast, especially as we're renovating at the moment. An outie for the garden queen oh the garden queen like diamond hashtag that what to do about drying washing in the garden is a rotary error always an eyesore i know it could

be hidden behind something but we don't have a huge garden 20 meters long by eight meters wide do you have any clever ways to include a space for washing drying into a garden design if you can't hide it down the side of the house or behind something thank you so much because the rotary runs drive me wild um and we very rarely use them we use the retractable washing lines wherever possible so we would install a post somewhere in the garden and a post somewhere else in the garden and then that way you can pull it out when you need it and then it rolls back when it when you don't need it the problem with the rotary one is it's such an eyesore. It really draws the eye.

I'm all for us drying our washing outside, but I'm not there for putting a rotary as your focal point in a garden. That is putting function above design. So the clever thing to do is to have a retractable one. I can picture your worst nightmare. So you look outside. There's a path that runs right down the middle of the garden Christ I mean that alone game over to the right of it you've got a whirly dryer whirly gig yep to the left you've got a very small red plastic car toy I do love those and then over in the and then over in the end of

the garden probably at the end of the path is a is a trampoline oh and there's some there's some fences all the way around the garden that have been painted black yes all of which are different colors and also there's a really big shed which serves no no purpose but to hold old paint tins yes how do you feel after me saying that how do you feel inside well that's that's the before shot it's like a therapy session no it's very simple things. I mean, the rotary, if you have somewhere you can tuck it outside,

by all means have a rotary. But if you've got a small garden and wherever you go, you're going to be staring at it, either have a retractable one or have a rotary that you can take out and put back in. So you sort of put a hole in the ground

and it can come and go as you please so that it's there when you need it and not when you don't. Love it. OK, Jojo, I've got one from Victoria Lloyd. OK,oyd okay hi victoria hi jojo i love the podcast and don't miss an episode i'm normally devoted to poly but have an interior question that is stumping me our master bedroom is a terrace loft conversion it gets lots of natural light through three large windows down one side it's a relatively large bedroom our headboard is a neutral linen wishing now that i've been braver in choosing a color i could introduce color through soft

furnishings but wondering if i wondering if i should be braver now and add some color to the walls maybe a calm blue and should i paint the ceiling the same color it's a modest ceiling height i'd be grateful for your thoughts many thanks and love to you both okay colors in bedrooms i'm always one victoria for ensuring that whatever you put in your bedroom your bedroom is your sanctuary it's where you go to sleep um it's maybe where you go to rest to read and therefore it wants to feel yes very calming and therefore i never want to introduce too much color. However, something like a soft blue. I'm not a huge fan of blues personally. I find them a bit cool. I don't see blues in your schemes.

So if you do like, you don't really know. If you're going to go blue, I'm more of a green gal. So I would, I love, I tell you, if you do go with a blue, it's just wants to have a little hint of green or sage in it, because I think it creates a feeling of calm. Blue is actually a colour that invokes, it is a calm colour, but it invokes sort of concentration. And I think the green then invokes sort of feeling calm. So I think something a bit more like a sagey green is really, really beautiful. You could even go with a sort of a slightly farrowball you

know blue gray or something would look lovely if you've got lots of lovely light coming into the room you can get away with you can get away with going a little bit darker in the color because it's going to appear lighter in the day and then a bit moodier at night so and especially against a linen headboard you can do almost you know neutral in the headboard you can do almost anything yeah you could go with anything right i mean that's the good thing about going with that yeah I'd say a nice sort of a really soft sagey green would look beautiful she's asking if you could take it up and over the ceiling if you've got coving I would tend to take it I would put it on your skirting boards because I just love that I just think skirting boards walls you potentially take out your coving as well if you don't know coving take

it up and over the ceiling but it I sort of tend to say it depends how dark it is. If it's really dark, well, the darker you go, the less likely I am to take it up and over the ceiling. Understood, yep. But just know that every wall in that room, the paint colour will look different. So the north-facing side of the room will look much darker than suddenly when you look at the room that's got lots of light and it's going to look very light so just

play around with some paint swatches on the walls okay I think that's a good tip so I'm just going to add to that because I'm curious so if if she chooses to go with say like a sagey green or maybe like a bluey green on the walls what would you advise she do in terms of things like throw cushions and sort of dressing the bed to bring it? Because she said she wants colour. So what is there sort of a complementary colour she should be looking at so that it feels like a room with colour in it? Yeah, a really lovely question. So basically the colour that you put on the walls, the colour that you put on the walls, you want to pull that through onto the bedding. So where you've got your lovely oatmeal

headboard, say you've got your, let's go, say sagey is sort of sagey blue green on the walls find complementary patterns that come through or you know that have that color in it as well that go on the bed it could be that you have a back cushion that is slightly sagey velvet or something and then the front cushions have a lovely cadizy pattern of some sort doesn't that could have oatmeal to pull the headboard in. And then double up on your throws. One of the throws can have a bit of that sagey colour in. And the other throw wants to be sort of like either a pattern with a bit of oatmeal as well. So it's kind of about the layering.

Lovely. But you want to layer with the wool colour and headboard colour. Do you just keep it to two or do you bring in a third colour? No, you can bring in a third colour. You could bring in a third colour. You could bring in some dark browns. That would be lovely with a little sage. That would be dreamy, wouldn't it?

Browns, slightly caramel colours. You could even bring in a bit of mustard yellow. It looks beautiful with sage. So don't be afraid to mix those. Mix them together. I'd say three is probably the magic number in a bedroom just because I think you want to keep it quite calm. There you go, Victoria.

I think you've got a plan. Okay, Paul, over to you, my darling. Got you go, Victoria. I think you've got a plan. Okay. Paul, over to you, my darling. Got an RT for you here. Samantha Guy. Hi, absolutely love the podcast. It's so funny. Thank you.

RT question. How do you pick the right colour stone for patio area to complement your home? I have a red brick house with dark window frames. Any help is hugely appreciated. Thank you. Well... This is where the innings and out a verge it merge isn't it this is it this is why we started the podcast this is what it's all about baby the number one thing i will look at is what's going on

in the room adjoining your garden so that's quite often a kitchen not always um so what is going on in the floor inside is a number one because if you've got pale greys or dark greys, then it doesn't mean we'll match it. But we might sort of make sure that what's going on outside has a bit of greyness going through it. What I prefer to do, particularly with red brick, and I find red brick quite tricky, I prefer to pull out the pointing pointing between the brick which is usually a buff tone and so we will go with buffs on the floor with red brick I think it works very nice I don't particularly like red brick with grey paving I find the contrast red and grey I don't think that's a nice pairing whereas red and buff I think is kinder because usually um your pointing is is more of a beige so red brick go for a beigey buff tone so you could get that limestones come in all sorts of ranges of of beiges and buffs as do

sandstones so you could get um i mean yorkstone is absolutely dreamy the most expensive option but obviously a lovely buff and yorkstone works really beautifully with red brick as well um so but do just check what's going on inside your house because if you've got a very grey interior it might be that we choose a more neutral buff which is where those greys and beiges are mixed together and it just sort of is a very pure neutral which you can get from porcelain limestone and to a degree a sandstone also sandstones tend to be yellower do you know sometimes another way like i'd say if your interior is gray and you can't change your interior to say you have gray interior stone yes or you know and you don't just can't change that what you can do i think as well outside is bring garden furniture that say like a black iron or something to cut,

to kind of, you, I always think it's that, um, that theory, that color theory of wanting to ensure that whatever the color you see a tie, don't you? There's always got to be a tie.

So if there's a sort of, if you did have a gray inside and you don't want to bring that outside, cause I totally agree with you, Paul, I really don't like the look of gray against red brick it looks really cold yeah it looks a bit harsh somehow um i think it's because red is quite a traditional material and gray feels slightly more contemporary so they can kind of fight with each other i mean the thing with using gray is if you've got a really modern gray house maybe you've got sort of silver timber or things then

obviously it's got something to speak to but if you've got a red brick with buff mortar what's it speaking yeah so it's got to speak exactly exactly even even if it's like planters that might be zinc and it's sitting outside it's going to help pull the those grays around the place exactly your eye isn't like that's gray that's red that's but you know so i think you can break it up can't you yeah and we'll do things like we'll look at the knobs in the kitchen and make sure that anything sort of metallic features outside sort of echo that if it's a bronze or a copper or so there's lots of ways of doing it but specifically with flooring it's not just the material of your house it's the mortar as well so there's always something that you can tie it to it's also must be quite hard for you when the house is done and

they've gone with say a porcelain tile in the kitchen where it's it's a it's not tumbled it's just a polished um uh tile and then you have to go outside and you want to do something that's a bit more tumbled and a bit more soft but the contrast between the two can look quite jarring can't it well we probably wouldn't do tumbled then but i really like the look of a sawn limestone that very crisp 900 by 600 format but in a natural product because I think you can do a crisp finish with a natural product and that looks beautiful yeah um so often we'll do that in that instance but equally I think as soon as you move outside as long as the tones are the same we wouldn't go for a riven finish and riven is when

you've got um that sort of undulating profile on the paving like you get with sort of beautiful old reclaimed Yorkstone if you've got a very contemporary interior because you can't have this sort of very sleek smooth interior and then suddenly go to sort of oldie worldie outside that looks very bizarre um so it's all about just sort of matching those profiles and the tones thanks Paul okay back inside we've gotten from sv how do i make my newly tiled loft ensuite feel warmer and more inviting through accessories it's only 1.4 by 1.8 it is tiled with an off-white tile on walls and floor which looks lovely and has texture but it lacks warmth and feels bland and cold i limited with space available on floor but i do have a wall space above my toilet and on the opposite wall there are three lit niches niches niches two are in the shower any ideas welcome thanks Sue. So

first of all I I'll always say Sue I'm if I could have jumped in before you started tiling I would have said always leave always leave a wall untiled the reason being is if you tile every wall no matter how small the room is you only really need tiles in the wet area so unless this is literally a wet room where every single wall is going to get soaked yeah don't need to tile every wall of a shower room okay just you don't by by tiling everything what you've done is you've you've almost created a cold a sort of cold quite little echo chamber and especially because you've gone cool white you know got white tiles um and no matter how lovely the job is it will feel cold yeah and you can't then you can't put you're not going to suddenly put a picture on the wall because that'd be a bit bonkers in a very

small loft space so the way to bring in now textures really through things like your your linen so it's your towels it's your a nice bath mat it's putting in a lovely little wicker basket like a little bin basket that's wicker um is that gonna look strange against white tiles because that's like quite naturalistic versus something which is no i mean i'm not i'm not saying go very rustic i'm saying go something that's a bit more it's like a title weave. Gotcha. Little wicker bin basket. Okay. The towels that you use,

go with sort of little French, you know, the sort of like ham arm towels, something as soft like that. What kind of color would you go for? Add something with a bit of, go with something with a bit of oatmeal or something. Yeah, I was going to say,

would you go with like a beige? A little color, could have a bit of stripes through it, could be something. You need to add something. Don't just put bright white towels in there. Otherwise it's going to feel a bit, again, you're adding another colour. So like a beige-ish towel and a basket.

Maybe stripes, yeah. And a basket, a little basket under the sink perhaps. Because it's in the loft, I'm going to assume that you have a VLUX window. And if you have a VLUux window, you could do something really sweet where you have a little ruched cafe curtain that sort of, again, just adds a little bit of softness. That's a really nice thing to do. Essentially, you have your Velux window and you have a bar,

a little sort of brass bar at the top and a little brass bar at the bottom. And then this lovely little ruched French curtain. A little ruched loom. lovely little lovely you can pull open so you can still let lots of lovely light in but that's a really nice way to add permanent texture okay also this one's an annoying one but i don't know where to buy these what about things like toothbrush pots it depends how much space she's got on the top but yes again toothbrush pot just needs to be almost like a could be a sort of could almost feel i know stone's gonna feel cold but it needs to have something with texture and a different color to the white so don't then get a white pot put your toothbrushes in um but yeah that's a nice idea moving on should we head a i think we haven't done many questions today are we

but you know what we can't always cover too many questions we'll cover we'll cover we'll do a quick fire round at some point see yes we will and we're actually going to be taking a week off now little little holiday break just so that we can rest up jojo can get over her snot yes i can get over my snot so tell me um what's in and what's out this week okay so in is dividing your perennials now is the time and it's the easter break so it's a great time to do it get out in the garden dig up your perennials so things like geraniums and napeta and oh so many different choices and dig them up whack a spade through them and you get free plants lovely yeah i'm gonna say in homes it's gonna be your table scoping it's gonna be lovely

table settings for spring you know really make an effort with your table set up like you've got a family coming over let's all get really involved in a really lovely big table setting well we need to learn how to do that but yes that sounds like a lovely idea yeah okay and then yeah like I said out has got to be just cold and snot oh bless you and can I hay fever to that, which is a terrible thing to suffer from in my profession? Starting. I think it might be starting at the moment, isn't it? Oh, yeah. It's probably starting.

Maybe that's what this is, actually. Could actually be what it is. Maybe it's a combo of both, darling. Brad gets one of those injections in his arse every year. Does he? I was wondering about getting that this year, because I've had enough. Oh, my goodness.

He used to have it so badly. It's been life-changing for him. It's been life-changing for him. It's been life-changing. Oh, you've inspired me. Paul, a little game changer. We've got a game changer. This is really fun. This is from Lily.

Lily sent in on Instagram some photos of her new DIY project inspired by the ins and outs. We spray painted the kids goal black and it really does blend in a lot more and make the garden look a little less sports facility. It does actually look brilliant. She's painted. It's gone from being a white net to being to being all black. Oh, well done. Bravo. Although hilariously, I did get some kindly gentlemen messaging me saying it makes it harder for the

kids to see the goal well maybe that'll make them better this is it i think their eyesight's pretty robust at that age they'll be fine yeah i think they'll be okay thanks though thanks so much okay so keep game changers coming in guys because we we do absolutely love them so what have we got so far? We've got painting your fences black, painting your goalposts, clearing off your windowsills. I'll tell you what mine would be.

I've spoken about this a lot before, but my game changer for you guys, because it's coming into spring, and if anyone's thinking about having a little change up of like indoor cushions, please, for goodness sake, I say it all the time, size up with your inners.

I said size up with your inners i said size up with your inners okay so if you have a 50 inch cushion cover yep uh you want to fill it with a 60 inch filler that's great and it will make give you a lovely fat plump cushion i want a big fat plump cushion no one wants an old flat ass of a cushion no one wants a flappy cushion, okay? All right, there you go, my loves. As always, dear friends, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share with all and sundry. And we will see you after a little break

in a couple of weeks. We'll see you on the other side. Bye-bye. Goodbye, my loves. Goodbye. Goodbye. The color of true elation. Truly terrible at keeping up with emails. I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration.

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