The Ins & Outs - Polly's Naked Christmas & Festive Garlands

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Polly explains how her naked Christmas will work with Mr Big and we discuss BIG velvet bows and festive garlands.Jojo talks us through stair runners and whether or not they should match your carpet.Plus, Polly lets us know what to do with soggy tubers!This week's episode is brought to you by Best Heating! Whether you're planning a renovation or searching for your perfect piece, Best Heating got you covered. Make sure you check them out at https://www.bestheating.com/ and us the code INSANDOUTS15 at checkout to get a MASSIVE 15% DISCOUNT.Best Heating discount Terms & Conditions•⁠ ⁠£500 minimum spend•⁠ ⁠Single use only•⁠ ⁠Valid until 28/02/2025•⁠ ⁠Works on sale items too!InstagramPodcast - @the_insandouts_Jojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonProducer Andy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/Pod Rowe Productions - https://www.podrowe.net/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Innes and Outies and welcome to this week's episode of the Inns and Outs with myself Jojo Barr and the gorgeous Pollyanna Wilkinson. This week we are sponsored by Best Heating, keeping us toasty all winter long with their knockout selection of radiators in various shapes, colours and sizes. And they have very kindly given us a discount, ins and outs 15, which will give you 15% off at checkout. In this week's episode, we talk Christmas burnout. The juggle is real. Festive garlands, Polly's naked Christmas, soggy tubers, I delve into radiators on the windows and where the stair-owners need match your carpets. We talk big velvet bows

and rolling ourselves in glitter. So let's dive on in. Well hello! Hello! Oh my god! What are you doing here? I'm in your space. Yes, you are. Welcome. Why does this feel so strange? Because we never record together anymore. We're right here looking at each other. Guys, I'm sitting at Polly's desk right next to her. I can touch her. And it feels very peculiar to be filming a podcast next to her because usually we're very remote. So this is most odd, but lovely to see you.

Welcome to my little setup. I'm not just here to film a podcast with Polly this morning, guys. I've actually been here because I've been, we're putting some finishing touches on your house, aren't we? Talking about some fun stuff because you're really under a lot of dust at the moment, pal. You're in a lot of blankets, a lot of dust. And I think you are just, yeah, you're really under a lot of dust at the moment, Powell. You're in a lot of blankets, a lot of dust and I think you are just, yeah, you're feeling it, aren't you? So we're hiding over in this beautiful garden office, which is so, so calm. It's quite peaceful, isn't it?

It's so peaceful. I feel like it's really one with nature down here in your garden. Well, just wait a little bit longer. I've just refilled the bird feeders and the squirrels will be here soon to mock us. Oh really? Yes. So lovely looking back at your house that's covered in scaffolding. But it will one day soon be very beautiful and I'm very excited. So I've been here with Paul picking her sofa fabrics, Ottoman fabrics, curtains and blinds. Yeah. A few bits like that really. Bit of art chat. Bit of art chat.

Obviously we've just released some new artwork on our House 9 website. I mean, that's a shameless plug. That's a shameless plug. I think that's allowed. That's allowed. I want the, is it the cowgirl? The cowgirl. Is that what it's called?

The cowgirl. She's so cool. She's coming home with me. She's meant to be like a little force of resilience, you know, like a kind of badass woman who's just going to go out there and get it. Love that. Yeah, that's it with Olivia Saul. Olivia Saul, go and check her out. Go and check out our new art pieces. They're very exciting.

They are. So tell me, how are you, my darling? I am on my knees. I'm not feeling 100% actually, but it's, yeah, I'm shattered. I need a break. And yesterday, I was just feeling really under the weather. And I was like, oh, I'm shattered. I need a break. Yesterday, I was just feeling really under the weather and I was like, oh, I just need to go and lie down. But the builders are everywhere now. There is not one room where they aren't. So I was like, I'm going to go get into bed and I've got this sad little curtain from the old house sort of on hooks as my door. So I just sort of scuttled in there and closed the curtain

and tried to have a nap. But it's not very easily done when there's like music going and they're banging and they're chat, which is hilarious. I love listening to them. But it's just very noisy. I know this might sound like sort of real sort of, you know, first world problems, but I have to say when you're living in a house, when especially when you're on your own as a woman and you just want peace, it's amazing how intrusive it can be just having blokes walking around the house, the doors open, because the doors are permanently open. There's lots of noise, lots of people coming in and out and just voices and banging. There's no escape. So if you're feeling poorly, I know that neurovirus is going around at

the moment. Oh, I might get away from you. No, I don't have neurovirus. Actually, no, I don't mind having a bit of that before Christmas. Really cleanse the old colon. No, no, no. We're back on the poo chat again. None of that. None of that. I don't have that. But I live in fear of it whilst all

of the bathrooms are under renovation because that would be a cruel, cruel mistress, wouldn't it? It really would. We've got a load of blokes in the house. Oh no, don't want that. So yes, it's all getting a bit much. It's a busy time of year as well, isn't it? I'm going to say especially mums, but I think when you're trying to work, manage the kids and keep the magic of Christmas alive, family, you've got planning family lunches or traveling around the country to see family members. And it's an awful lot, buying presents and such a consumerist month,

isn't it? It's a massive consumerist month. It's a hugely consumerist month. And I feel like we just, it's, and everybody's Christmas. I have to say guys, I feel, I always feel a slight strange guilt, is it, about showing too much on Instagram and about my life at Christmas, because I feel there are so many people that, you know, don't have, you know, these things. And I just, it's such a crazy time. And I don't think we ever know what goes on behind the scenes. Other people are going, you know know what they're going through. And my house is a complete shit show. Well, same, same.

I mean, anyone that thinks my house looks lovely when they see it on Instagram, I'm telling you, it's smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. Is it? Yeah, of course. I've got two kids, it's just like red pen all over the sofa, that rocky bed. There's just piles of shit everywhere. There's like mess. But that's life. Mouse entrails. Mouse entrails. There's a cat shit on the kitchen floor when I came in this morning. Merry Christmas. Nothing more with the cat flat. Everything was open. No reason it's just shit on the

kitchen floor, but there it was. Maybe it was sending you a message. A present for me. I don't know what's going on anyway. It was just, but chaos. It is, life is chaotic and it's busy and it's messy and life is messy. It gets very busy at this time of year. I think everyone needs to give themselves a day off. Yeah. I would like several days in bed. I just want to watch really bad Netflix in bed with my cheese advent calendar. Just working my way through that. If you're home on your own and no one's around and you just have a real hunger for something,

especially around the time of the month, what do you go for? Food-wise? Yeah. Cheese. Is it cheese? It's cheese. I love- Tell me.

I love a cheese and marmite sandwich but toasted. I stick it in the air fryer. Talk me through this? So I get my bread, toast it a little bit, butter, loads of Marmite. I love it more Marmite the better. I'm a real sauce fiend. And then I layer in the cheddar cheese and then I stick it in the air fryer so it goes all melty. Hold on. So it's like, it's not a sandwich. It's not two pieces of bread. We've got an open sandwich. No, you're right. Actually, I don't need you to put a top on it. It's an open sandwich.

I do it with crumpet too. Stop it. Crumpet with melted cheese and marmite. Pop it in the air fryer. Pop it in the air fryer. Never thought to do that. And it just tastes really nice on the top and bottom. It's a real, yeah, I love that. I genuinely, I think if Brad wasn't around, when he goes out, he goes off to see mates where he's got like an event on in the evening. I just eat shit. I'll just eat anything that's left over.

Yes. Any excuse not to cook. Love that. Yeah, I love that for us. No, I'm on my knees at the moment with the last minute school emails about it would be nice if everyone wrapped up a pair of socks for charity. Obviously, very pro charity. No, no, no, but it's sort of like go and buy something because we're all doing a secret Santa surprise or something like that. And you're like, Oh God, I have to go and do more errands. Lots of errands. All for a great cause. But it's just, it's those bits. The juggle.

It's a lot. We whinge about the juggle. That's a lot. You're going to try and make it. A lot, don't we? You're going to try. Sorry guys, we whinge a lot about the juggle. I think everyone feels it. Everyone's feeling it. I just feel like we're mid-December. And also, don't you just want time to slow down at this time of year? I actually just want to just enjoy it, but it's the most chaotic time in the studio as well. With the old Christmas deadlines. But my favourite time of year is from about the 22nd through

to the 28th when just no one emails you. Everybody is on holiday. The only time of year that everybody is off. So good. Love it. Peace. No one's expecting anything from you. Where are you for Christmas? I'm at home. We've got quite a controversial one. I've got the Tiddlers in the morning and then Mr. Big and I in the afternoon on our own and we're going to have naked Christmas. I'm at home. We've got quite a controversial one. I've got the Tiddlers in the morning and then Mr. Big and I in the afternoon on our own and we're going to have naked Christmas. Oh yeah, there. Cheese. We probably won't be naked Christmas. You're going to eat cheese off Mr. Big. We're just in debate at the moment about whether I think

we're going to go rogue. I don't think we're going to do traditional Christmas dinner because we're like, well, it's just the two of us. What do we feel like? Will you put Christmas hats on or pajamas? What if we feel like it, I guess this is the beauty of naked Christmas. So you're actually going to be naked? Probably not. That's not very sanitary and it's cold. But I guess it's just the spirit of naked Christmas is that there is a freedom to do anything. We could eat Chinese food on Christmas Day if we felt like it. We could, I don't know. You could if you like.

Pizza, whatever, caviar. That's a bit fancy, isn't it? But there are no rules, are there? No, no rules. We're not hosting anyone, ain't no one to dress up for. No, but then it's kind of about the kids, isn't it? You could do what you want. I think this is what I mean about Christmas. Obviously, I'm not having naked Christmas with the children. Let's just be really clear about that. This is when they go to their fathers.

Kids, come on, close off. I think people think that there's so much pressure around making Christmas perfect. And this is what I mean about Instagram showing this perfect image of Christmas. I'm about to put a real op about my beautiful Christmas table. Don't get me wrong. It's going to look like that on Christmas day. The reality of what the rest of my house looks like and the shit tip that is and not everyone's Christmas is going to look like that. I just think there's so much pressure to buy and make everything look great and just fuck it. Indeed. Do you know what I mean?

Have a naked Christmas instead. Fuck it. Get naked. Do what you want to do. Do what you want to do. I don't even know what that looks like. Just chuck glitter at that shit. Yes. Do you know I once went to a festival called the Secret Garden Party? Yeah. And it's basically like Peter Panland where grown adults run around like children.

Yeah. And there was this basically this giant glitter machine. So, it looked like something from Willy Wonka's factory. And you basically lie down on this bed, you slide into this machine, and then they press the button and it just dumps whatever colour glitter you've chosen like gold on you. And then you get out and you are top to toe glittered. You're going to be finding that glitter in crevices for months. Oh no, no I absolutely did. But it was wild fun. Wild. It does sound real funny. Yeah, it's really funny.

Maybe I'll look into that for naked Christmas. Yeah, maybe. I think you should. So there's that. And then, oh my God, I had the funnest weekend. Tell me. Mr. Big surprised me. Mr. Big took me out for dinner in London. Nice French restaurant. We got absolutely off our face on martinis. Good, good. I can't hack that level of drinking anymore. And then he was like, oh, surprise, I've booked a hotel so we're staying in town overnight.

How lovely. It was so nice. Oh, where did you stay? The Londoner. Is it good? It's amazing. Right in the middle of town is incredible, incredible hotel, but right in the middle. So we're just wandering around Soho, martini to martini, finished with the espresso martinis, which I'm not sure was the best idea. I don't know why people drink espresso martinis.

Isn't coffee supposed to wake you up four hours after you drink it? Well, funny you should say that my friend, because I fell into bed about 1am. And this one can't make this one up. 4am woke up, boom, I've left the oven on. Oh, for fuck's sake. I was like, I've left the oven on, my house is burning down, I'm going to be homeless. Oh my god, that's Martini's house. I was awake for two hours saying, should I get in an Uber home?

Do you know that there's a scientific reason that why if you wake up in the middle of the night, your brain catastrophizes everything. Why? Sorry, I don't know the scientific reason. I just read this from the day. Just that there is one? I'm really good at listening to podcasts and hearing these really interesting facts. And then I can never remember them. Take a little nugget of it, but not the performance.

Yeah. And I'm like, oh my God, I've got this really great thing to tell you. And then I know enough about it just to tease it. And then I can't tell you the rest. But basically, we wake up at night and we catastrophize our thoughts. Well, I had visions of needing to live in the studio because the house was burnt down because of the oven. Very nearly got an anubio home, but I was like, no, it's fine. Ovens don't catch fire that often. No, that's quite stressful.vens don't catch fire that often. No, that's quite stressful. It's very toasty in here.

It is very toasty in here. You've got your lovely best heating radiators. Those are the Milanos. They are the Milanos. And those are the sexy little Windsor. They've gone in all of the rooms now. Is that what it's called? The Windsor valve? The valves are. The sexy little wooden circle. Yes, it's sexy. So not just the sexy radiator, the valves. The valves are sexy.

They're beautiful. I didn't realize I was getting those. They're the things, the valve, everyone knows what a valve is. It's the thing you turn it on and off with at the side. But it's not just a little chrome thing. It's antique bronze with a little wooden wheel. Yes. Stunning. It's beautiful. So they're in every room in the house now. I have a warm house, a dusty, warm house.

Do you know what I like about them as well? They're sort of matte finish. So they give off a really nice sort of, they just blend nicely. They're not sort of garish radiators. They're absolutely dreamy. I think they really show up the rooms. You know what it's like when you do up a room and not another one. They show up the ones with the hideous 1960s radiators. Well, we're on the topic of best heating advice and their radiators. You'll notice in a lot of our projects, we put anthracite radiators in. Yes, you do. You do. So we use the anthracite range. It's a very dark gray and it's matte. Sometimes the reason being, and they do lots

of colour ranges now, so it's much easier to find colours that suit your room choices, the colours that you're putting in your room. But we go dark because actually sometimes seeing something dark, you don't see it. If you have a bright white radiator on a wall that's not also bright white, the radiator will actually stick out more than the black thing. It's a bit like black windows. If you actually have a white window, you see it more than a black framed window. It's almost like your eye doesn't acknowledge it. I see, yes.

It's a really nice feature. When you have something beautiful, you can make a feature of it. So is there a rule then? Is it go white if you've got light walls and if you don't? No, I'd only ever go white radiators if it's sitting on a bright white wall. I always want my radiator to match the wall and if you can't do that, then I would lean into either going with like a bronze or an anthracite. I want to make a feature of that. Okay.

Yeah. White radiators are not the one. Good tip. Yeah. Otherwise you wantators are not the one. Good tip. Yeah. Otherwise you want it to match the wall. Yeah, fair. Clips rooms are fun because you can go blue or green or yellow or anything on the radiators. So there you go. Have you got any house Renault updates for me? I've got two very small bits for Renault news, update news. Number one, we get our planning back on our garage next week.

Oh my God. I know. So that's really exciting. And if we get the go ahead, we get our planning back on our garage next week. Oh my God. I know. So that's really exciting. And if we get the go ahead, we're going to start in January on the garage. Holy moly. Holy moly. No messing around. No messing about. Well, I say no messing about. It's taken us three and a half years. That's messing about. And then the other exciting bit of news, I just had both our doors replaced, our external doors. Front doors. They ain't cheap. They ain't cheap. But I'll tell you what, we've had them redone and originally they were solid with a little round, sort of almost a little porthole window. And they completely blocked

the light out of the hallway. Had that replaced with a lovely six-panel, six glazing window at the top. So much bigger piece of glass. You can get suddenly all this lovely light in the hallway. It's beautiful. Does it feel less safe having glass? Yes. Such a funny thing. Even though you've got windows that are gigantic. It's the oddest thing. I said this to Brad actually. it's very strange. There is no difference to having great big open windows, but for some reason when your door is suddenly half

glassed, it's adding a whole new level of openness. Yeah. Well, because I guess you could smash it and try and open the door from the inside. You wouldn't be able to smash these. It's a bit like this is really reinforced glass. But it's a psychology thing, isn't it? It's a psychology thing. Are you painting them or are they raw work? They're painted. They're beautiful. What colour are they?

One is French Grey. Lovely. And the other one is shaded white. Delightful. I know. So that I'm just, they are stunning. When Brad is like bowled over by something, I know I'm really onto a winner. I'm like, oh my God, he literally stops and he's like, Oh my God, they're amazing. I cannot believe how transformational these are. Do you find when it's your own house, it's harder to design for? Oh my God. Absolute paralysis. I say this to clients all the time when I have my lovely

expert clients and I have my one-on-one consultations and people are like, Oh, I just don't know. I feel like I'm nearly there, but I just can't make decisions. I'm a designer. I've been doing this for 18 years and I still can't make decisions in my own house. You need to lean on experts to help me. That's weird, isn't it? It is. It's really, I think also because you're used to living in, especially when you actually think it'd be easier if you bought a house and you designed it without having lived there. But when you live somewhere, you start to become used to the way things are. And therefore to suddenly have to make a decision on what it's going to change into is actually a much harder decision,

even though it's better to do it that way around. I always say try and live in a house first because actually you'll know, especially like light is so important to me. And any design light is one of the most important features when considering design, where the sunlight comes in, where the sun rises and where it falls. And therefore, when you live somewhere, you get to see what are your favorite rooms in the house? It might be really unexpected. Yes. It's the same in the garden. I can't commit. We need to start doing the garden scene. Are you the same?

And it's just, I can't commit because there's so many choices and I know all of them and I've seen all of them and I've got so many favorites that going like, pick your absolute favorite for your own space. Can you design anyone else's? No problem whatsoever. Send me in straight away. I'll be able to give you all the answers. But when it's your own, it's difficult. I'm looking at a Polly's garden now, by the way. And it's so reassuring to see that everything looks quite dead and brown. It's not just us. We've talked about this before. It's not dead. It's the beauty in decay.

It's the beauty in decay. And I'm seeing lots of decay in Polly's garden. But I had something else I really wanted to ask you about. Ask me. Oh, it's all fours. I've read the book you read. Oh my God. It's really good. and then it gets really fucking weird. Such an odd book. I was really taken by it and then halfway through I was like, you're losing me. This is weird. It goes really weird at one point.

I recommend you guys read it though. It's sort of an exploration of perimenopause and conventional marriage. Women who might have hit a sort of, women who might have hit a midlife crisis era, I'd say around mid late 30s. Mid late 30s, early 40s. I want to say that happens. I can't deny that happened to me. Did it? I'd say, oh, it's when I got divorced and I went on a bit of a bender, wild one. Did you?

Oh, I went wild. You went wild? Yeah, I had my wild years because I didn't have those when I was younger. I was always in relationships. Yeah. And then when I had my divorce, I didn't know who I was. I had to go and find myself again. How did you find yourself? I let other people have a... find me.

At the end of the piece. I just had a wild time and it's what I needed and I found myself. Would you call that a midlife crisis? Would you not call that a reawakening? Oh, it was absolutely reawakening. Yeah, it was a great reawakening. It's been rebranded now, hasn't it? The midlife crisis isn't a midlife crisis anymore. It's not a crisis, is it?

It's a total reawakening, but I do think we change. I think suddenly you hit a point in your life where you're like, oh my God, that's who I am. Oh, penny drops. Don't need to fight it anymore. This is who I am. Don't need to try and convince anyone. who I am. Don't you try and convince anyone. Yeah. Okay, should we do some questions and make each other sorry, we went on and

on there. You know what guys, you know, it's we're not always going to be that entertaining. I'm sorry. Right. Whilst we're on the subject of radiators this episode, I've got a question from Katie. How do you dress a bedroom window with a radiator directly underneath it? She said ideally curtains. I feel like I've spoken about this before. I talk about this a lot, curtains under windows. Use curtains. People worry about this trapping the heat of radiators. Radiators shouldn't be on at night when you're sleeping when the curtains are closed. But what if like me, you get into bed at 5.30? So then I would have a, well, I usually tend to have a blind anyway with a curtain.

So, but it also very much depends where you live and if you need privacy. Right. So curtains, you can go one of two ways. The curtains can either be your blackout and then the blind can be like a lovely sheer that you pull down if it's sunny or you want to block out light or you want to give yourself privacy or you can go the other way. So the Roman blind could be blackout lined and then the curtains could be like a sheer lined curtain. So they're going to be something you pull across when you want to give yourself a posse. It depends what the look you prefer. If you want to go curtains, depending again, I don't know all the details, Katie, but the radiator, if it's sitting underneath

the window, I don't know if it sails past the window on either side, left and right. So it might be that the curtain is going to overlap a little bit. That is okay. It's totally fine to have curtains in front of radiators. Obviously, just practically, if you're going to have the radiator blasting out heat and you've got your curtains closed, that heat is going to be trapped behind the curtain. So it's not going to be very nice. So maybe give it an air like if you fart under the duvet. Yes, exactly like that. Let the heat come into the room first, then close the curtains after you've let the fart escape in time. And then yeah, but totally like curtains are fine. Curtains are fine and always to the

floor. They must kiss the floor. Yeah, I see like another look. Okay, another question. I've got one from Felicity. What does Jojo think of the trend of garlands wrapped around a tension rod? Oh, I love it. This is why social media is such a funny thing, isn't it? Things get picked up and then they become like a viral sensation. So you can basically buy these curtain poles that are like tension rods. Very clever. That you bring it down. So you've got, say, a doorway that doesn't have a viral sensation. So you can basically buy these curtain poles that are like tension rods. Very clever. That you bring it down. So you've got, say, a doorway that doesn't have a door on. Yes.

You can put your tension rod up, wrap it in a garland and then push it right up so that it meets the top of the ceiling. I think they're great. I think they're really lovely. It's like anything. It depends how it's done. It depends what you put with it. It depends if it's tasteful or not. It's got sort of flashing silver lights and I say no. But I think it's a really nice, I think it's a great idea. It's a nice way to get a bit of foliage up high, especially if you don't have any work surfaces. So you haven't got many surfaces that you can put foliage or you don't have a staircase and you live in an apartment. And it's a really nice way to add some fun. I think it's beautiful. Okay, I'm popping out to the garden. I'm coming out to the garden actually

with my oat milk eggnog. Eggnog? It's called oat. I've just discussed, oh my God, I've got to tell you about this. Oatnog. It's by Black Lines and it's called oatnog. And it's basically eggnog made with oat milk. And you pour it over ice, evening drink, OMG. I've never had eggnog. Let me tell you, it is so delicious. You've not had eggnog?

No, is it a bit like warm sick? Not at all. It's a bit more like Bailey's. It's absolutely delicious. Is it? Yeah. And for any OT drinkers out there like myself, it's so good. I can't tell you the problem is you want like three glasses. This is from Juliet. The wind snapped some of my hydrangea heads. I know not to prune until March. Thank you, Polly. But is it an infection risk if I have left? Should I just prune these stems? Thank you. Love the pod. Great question, Julia. No, you're fine. Infections, it's not, infections not going to happen. I mean, what you could do

if they've been snapped is you could get your secateurs and you could do a little snip just in case it's been torn, just so you have a clean cut over winter. But don't take them down. Don't like cut them further down because you're like, well, I'm at it. You could just do a little, little bit at the top if you wanted to, if it was sort of a messy tear. But otherwise, just leave them be. Just leave them alone. You don't have to be doing anything with those hydrangeas right now other than you could nip a few to take inside. I'm so grateful for my crusty old brown hydrangea that's time for you. It's the only thing that holds structure in the garden that looked nice.

Says the woman that said my garden looks dead. No, but in a brown, sort of shaded brown kind of crusty shit way. It's nice, isn't it? It's a bit of winter interest. So yeah, because I know a lot of people like to take them inside for decorating indoors and you can do that with a few. When they're dry. Just don't completely savage your entire plant. Yeah, good. I did what you told me not to do by the way with the dahlias. Yes.

Soggy as hell. Told you. God, they look awful. What do I do? They look mushy. Well, cut them down. The dahlias are mushy, not the tubers. So cut the whole thing down and compost it and then dig up the tubers. And you can see mine that are on the floor over there. Just whack them in some newspaper and put them somewhere frost free. Oh God, I need to do that. Right. Okay. You're all right. It's not really been cold enough. Are you sure they're still okay? They should be fine.

Okay. Gosh, phew. But I wouldn't leave them in over the winter because I think they might rot. It's very wet. They look like they're on the rotting side. Well, when you dig them up, squeeze the tubers. They should feel like a potato. And if you squeeze them and they're mush, then cut off the mushy ones. You know when I say tubers, I mean like the bulbous root. So if they're squidgy, then they're gone. You should squeeze it should feel a bit like a spud. You'll know what that feels like. What does it feel like? You want it firm. No one wants a squishy one.

Squishy. So it should be quite squishy on the outside, but a bit hard on the inside. No, it should just be fully firm. If it's squishy, cut it off. Oh blimey. Ouch. Okay. It actually does turn spring if you store them and then get them out and they're squishy cut them off too. Okay. I've sort of got a couple here that I'm going to ask you actually, Paul, while I'm out in the garden. This is by the Pied Piper and she's saying, hi, I have lots of spring bulbs to plant in my borders. Any tips to stop squirrels feasting, please? We have

deer as well. Oh, deer is a nightmare. Well, they like the heads, don't they? squirrels feasting, please. We have deer as well. Oh, deer is a nightmare. Well, they like the heads, don't they? They do. Deer really like tulips. So if you've got loads of deer, I usually wouldn't even bother with tulips because they will eat them, but they won't eat alliums and daffodils. Okay, because they're on your knees. Yeah, because they're kind of quite a strong flavor. I'm wondering about this this year

because the squirrel colony in my garden is quite extraordinary because we live really near a dense wood and they're just here constantly. So this year I am going for the, I'm going to mix the bulbs with chili flakes. Oh God, you're really going for it? Yeah, because there's a lot of bulbs going in. So I haven't planted them yet. I'm not going to do them until like boxing day because it's just not cold here and also I don't have any time. I can't be bothered yet. So I'll do it boxy. I'm going to mix them with chili flakes. I'm going to dig them in and I'm going to like sprinkle chili flakes on them. And then what I'm going to do is get some chicken wire and I'm actually going to lay chicken wire over as much of the border as I can.

Okay. As a kind of double line of defense. Because it will really piss me off the amount of money I've spent on bulbs if I just see a squirrel sat on the table feasting. Also, well, the other thing you can do if you've got loads of roses is people say if you cut all of your rose prunings and put them on top, it's sort of spiky things. You're trying to deter them. But I'm told Chili Flakes is pretty successful. Right. Okay. And then I've got another one here. And this one is from Emma. And Emma

is asking, first off, she says she's a huge fan, thank you, equally inny and outy. Should bulbs be scattered or clumped? Again, great question. So my technique with bulbs, empty them all into a bucket of your choice and give them a little zhuzh. Grab a handful and just chuck them on the border. So you said this to me last year and I was like, Oh, come on. You say, chuck, you'd say just chuck them in. And I'm like, when she says chuck them in, she doesn't really mean that. I do.

You really mean it, don't you? I mean, like get a couple of handfuls, like don't throw them like four meters in the air because they're going to, that's crazy. But literally just as if you're, as if you're throwing a tennis ball to a toddler. Like when you throw some dice and they just have to go. Sure. You know, you just like let them fall where they may. Otherwise it looks awful if you do them sort of in lines or if you do these sort of weird clumps and then gaps and weird clumps and then gaps. So for boarders that. And then that's kind of true for Lorne

as well. As anyone else out there is completely mind blown that that's wild because I genuinely always thought when I see people with amazing tulip arrangements that they'd actually selected literally putting those tulips next to each other. So if you select five different tulip types, you just throw them all in together. Whenever we do a garden design, we will curate a mix, a bit like you with your pillows, right? So we'll curate a mix and it might be like two pinks, a maroon and a white, for example. And we would put them all in the bucket together, mix them and toss. I wouldn't do like, first we do all of the

pinks and then we do the maroons. No, no, no, that's too curated. Nature isn't. Can you give us a mix and toss video? Give us a reel. Just go on. Put them in a bucket, mix and toss. Mix and toss. That's it. It's like making a cocktail. Yeah. Toss them. Shake and toss. That's it. Okay. Thanks. Oh, here we go. About to be interrupted by a builder. Hello. He's looking at us like. He's like, come in in 10. Sorry. Oh, hello. Yeah. Bathroom tiles. Yeah, as planned. But yeah, I'll come. Does he? Okay. Give me 10 minutes. Bathroom tiles. Yeah, as planned, but yeah, I'll come. To see. Okay. Give me 10 minutes. Bathroom tiles. Bathroom tiles. You can come and look too. Okay. I'm excited by this question. This is from Shannon.

Does a landing have to have the same carpet as the stair runner for continuity? Great question, Shannon. Really good question. I honestly don't know the answer. The answer is no. Oh. Don't have to have the same carpet. No, the runner can be something different if it's a runner. So there's a runner and there's a carpet. So if you're going to have a carpet runner, so that's where usually you would have the same carpet as you got on the landing, it would run down the stairs and then you'd have a bit of a border around the outside and then you sometimes tend to bind it with a nice linen or tape border.

Then that would need to be the same. If you want to do something a bit different, you can do an actual, you know, what a run, an actual sort of, a run that's got stripes or a pattern. Totally fine to do that. As long as the colours, and I go on about this all the time, the colors are the same. So the tone of whatever that under... So it's an oatmeal carpet, that oatmeal needs to appear in the runner to be able to tie the two together. Don't you dare do an oatmeal runner and a gray carpet. No, look horrific. Outrageous.

So put them next to each other. Do they feel like they're of a similar ilk? Got it. The carpet's obviously the calm plane. The runner can have something going on. It might have three colors, for instance. But whatever the base color is, it has to be the same as the carpet. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's just tying the two together. Same, even actually if you've got wood, wooden ground floor, and then you've got a staircase that's, say, painted with a runner. Even a wood floor

wants to have a similar tone to the carpets. So you do want to try and really kind of maintain that tone throughout. But no, basically it doesn't need to be the same unless you wouldn't do a carpet on the stairs that's different to the carpet on the first floor landing. I don't follow. Whatever the carpet is that you're putting upstairs, so a big sheet of carpet, that carpet, if you're going to do a similar, I don't know, cut pile carpet. So it needs to be the same texture. It needs to be the same texture. You could do a sizable runner with a tape border running up to meet a wool carpet. But the wool carpet would have to

be almost quite rustic in texture. Yeah, you couldn't do something super smooth and slick. If anything, so you can get like a sort of, you can actually get like a wool sizable carpet, which is lovely. Therefore, I'd say a wool sizable carpet on the landing with a sizable runner would look fantastic. That would look really cool. I've got the tricky thing of my stairs are not in good enough, Nick, to be raw wood, so I need to do the runner and I need to paint it. That looks lovely.

It will be wood at the top and stone at the bottom. That's totally fine because your staircase is going to be painted. Your walls and staircase are painted. Do you have a favourite colour for painting staircases? No, very. I like to go neutral. A lot of people do quite, they go black or they go sort of a pigeon or dark blue or whatever it is. I quite like a tonal staircase personally. I like it to feel like it feeds. A beige?

Not beige, like our homos. So what you've got on your skirtings, I would take that onto your staircase and up. Hand rail or we always have usually a sort of keep it raw timber or stain it in like a nice black. That's good. I'm doing it in raw timber. We're lucky there. Okay. Quite enough of this. Oh my gosh. That was a good little question time. Thanks, darling. Well, that leaves us to ask what is in and what is out? Oh, what's out? What's in? Let's go, what's in? I mean, we said it last week, so I don't really feel I can say it, but we didn't delve into it, but velvet bows.

Velvet bows. We said it last week, but I mean, just open any social media and you will see it on Slaw. Not just any of your velvet bows. Burgundy. Burgundy is the colour of the season. Where would you get your Slaw? Maroon and burgundyundy is the colour of the season. Where would you get your... Absolutely, maroon and burgundy are like the colour of the season. I'm quite fussy about velvet because there's velvet and then there's velvet. Now when doing velvet bows, really

want to get a double-sided velvet. So a lot of the time when you buy velvet online, you buy the cheap stuff. It's usually got the sort of backing, the satin sort of satin backing. I don't know actually, it's not satin, whatever that backing is. And then the velvet on the front. So it means that when you tie the bow, you can see some of it. Yeah. So obviously you're going to pay double for double sided velvet. It's going to look, but it is bougie. So you are going to have it somewhere on display that you're going to maybe see both sides, make sure it's a double sided velvet. And obviously the thicker you go as well. Velvet can be really expensive. There's a beautiful shop called Vivi Rollo.

That is the nicest shop in the world. Beautiful shop, isn't it? I get as excited about that as I do about stationery shops. Yeah. If you're ever, I don't know, just if you've got little girls or if you just love haberdasheries and beautiful fabrics, go into Vivi Rollo. They've got the shop in Marlabone in London. And they have got an online shop as well, but it's beautiful and really luxurious and really fun, beautiful text, you know, just stunning. Anyway, so that's a really nice place to get your bows. You can get them at loads of retailers online, but just make sure it's double sided.

Have you seen the people doing garlands of them now? And actually, another thing I've seen, which is amazing, Tory Murphy did these as well. These whopping great fabric bows. They're stunning. Aren't they dreamy? And they're padded, they're sort of filled out. They're stunning. Absolutely stunning. Tori Murphy, we love Tori. We love you, Tori. And what's out? What's out? Out for me is Christmas cards.

I love getting them. You just don't like sending them. But I don't. It's a shame to say it, isn't it? I think it's a bit of a dying, is it fair to say I think it's a bit of a dying thing now, Christmas cards? I think you send it to really sort of, you send it to people like your nearest and dearest that you don't maybe see that they know, especially like, you know, grandparents, they love a Christmas card. That's so lovely. They shouldn't be out. I love the art of Christmas cards. I tell you why, it's because postage is just so freaking expensive now as well.

Yes. So it's not just the card that's usually like four quid, it's then sticking a £2 stamp on it. This is it. And then sometimes it goes missing. Maybe we should make them in. I don't know. I feel funny about Christmas cards. I never know what to do with them. When I get them, I sort of think odd. Actually, here's a really nice tip. Once you've got your leftover ribbon, really nice idea. You staple the card to the ribbons. You hang the ribbons on the ceiling and then you have your cards sort of displayed on the ribbon. It looks really nice. Maybe they're out for me because I get like two and then that's not enough to do anything.

So everyone send Polly a Christmas card. Her address is? No, no joking. It's a funny one though, isn't it? Because it's the obligation to send them. And then I feel funny about the paper and the waste. I know what you mean. But equally, they're lovely. I know. Well, maybe we'll do a vote on stories. Christmas cards, yay or nay. Yeah. Tell us what can you do with a Christmas card after you've opened it and looked at

it and put it somewhere? What can happen with that Christmas card? Okay, enough of that. Don't forget to like, to subscribe, to share, to review, only if it's nice. And thank you so much for listening in, as always, and for liking, subscribing, and just being generally so lovely. Keep sending your questions, you gorgeous humans. And thanks for voting for us, by the way. There's like a Spotify thing. That's not a vote, pal. That's just showing what people are listening to.

Oh, sorry. They're voting with their ears. They're voting with their ears. They're voting with their ears and I just so appreciate that. We appreciate you. We appreciate you. We love you guys so much. Have a lovely week. Take care.

Bye bye. Bye.