The Ins & Outs - Red Flags & Spring Loving

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

On this episode, Polly and Jojo tell you what their biggest red flags are when buying a house? What should you be looking out for inside and outside the house?!Both the ladies have been away on holiday, so there are some juicy tales to tell from the beach to the bedroom.Plus we delve into kitchen islands, wood floors and shade planting.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.

Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News.

Green, the colour of true elation. Pine on a summer's day. See I've been waiting for you, waiting for you. Welcome to another episode of the ins and outs. We weren't here last week, so we missed you a lot. This one is going to be jam packed, full of good stuff. We're talking about what happened on the beach to what happened in the bedroom. We're also going to be discussing wood floors, kitchen islands, shade planting, and the biggest red flags when buying a new house. Now listen, I know it's Polly's job usually to do the grovelling, but I'm going to hop on in here and say, listen you lot, get on your phone now, right now, look at those little stars, hit five and write us a goddamn review, all right? Or else, love ya.

or else. Love you. Hello, you old sort. Oh, you old sort. Hello, darling. I've really missed your face. Oh, drink it all in, darling. Drink it all in. Speaking of which... Chin chin. What are we drinking?

Do you know what? I'm actually... I had my book club yesterday and... No, two days ago. Village book club yesterday and no two days ago uh village book club ran at mine and all the girls always bring an entire bottle so whoever's house we go to everyone all eight every one of us brings a bottle i'm sure it shouldn't be that way but there's about six bottles that need to be consumed so i'm working on a south african shiraz it's very nice i'm drinking a south african shiraz stop it it's sinking it'll be our menstrual cycles next yeah i would like to just say listeners that it is quarter past seven at night is that your kids

oh yes did you hear them yeah hence as well that's the interlude that's why because it's quarter past seven in the evening um so hence we're drinking wine it's not nine in the morning and i think we are both going to get interrupted by children i've allowed them to watch whatever they want on on the netflix so i think it'll be back-to-back barbie barbie gosh yes we are in the wild west of the easter holidays so uh children will be in the background and interrupting so andy best of luck with editing that yeah sorry about that Andy anyway tell me tell me your news my darling how was your incredible trip to the Caribbean it was

amazing what a fantastic island we went to St Lucia and uh we chose that because it's known as sort of the garden island of the Caribbean so loads of of exploring. It was so lush. The rainforest and just, oh my God, just the plants just drove around and the driving on that island is awful because all the roads are really windy. So it takes about two hours to drive about 30 miles. Oh, wow. Hairpin bend after hairpin bend,

but just the most glorious scenery ever. Gorgeous weather. Oh, it was amazing what a joy um how special oh you lucky lucky thing i feel like a very lucky duck so yeah that was that was great i just was waiting for that that's a very loud no you couldn't get more working mum real than this could you anyway we digress um so that was amazing and then do i feel rested well the irony of um traveling far away so you get very jet lagged on your way back so i feel sort of rested but jet lagged yeah i understand that and i'm not commenting on your filth on thank you well you know it's coming so here goes so why else were you tired paul

absolutely not no no i'm not i'm not going there no no thank you no no i politely decline your invitation sleep a bit of sleep a little bit of sleep. Comfy beds. Good mattresses. Were they good mattresses? To be fair, the beds were fantastic. Were they comfy? Good. It was a super king. So, delightful.

Good. Did it make its way over to the other side of the room? I never know. My clients listen to this. I never know what I'm supposed to say. Darling, everyone has sex. It's a very normal... Right, wandering away from this. Oh my God god can I just tell you something else really exciting

tell me oh my god tell me I got back and I am judging tulips I've been watching that I've been I was so I felt like a I don't know why I always feel very proud of you but I thought that was such an awesome thing to be doing I mean how exciting as well because you must be learning so much about tulips I'm learning so much and it's the very best in the industry like bulb growers and bulb pros and I'm there wow you know because I love I love the bulbs been super exciting like judging the so the thing is that we judge them and we'd like put a we have to sort of talk about them in all sorts of different ways and then we vote you have to put your hand up if you think it's worthy of an award and we have to do it like six weeks in a row to watch the tulips and how they develop and if they keep going and um and

then we get to give it an AGM which is like the award of garden merit and that you know that's big deal what makes an award-winning tulip I mean I'm not going to say I've got some in my garden but you know well it's but you're looking so i went and the first ones we looked at were bright yellow and red and i was like i hate these wouldn't give these an award no like you can't judge them on color it's obviously you can't because you know taste is subjective so it's about height uniformity of the flower whether it's sort of resistant to disease if it sort of lasts a long time or if it's sort of blink and you miss it you know you might not give an award whereas if it's still flowering sort of three four weeks

how does the color progress um interesting yeah it's fascinating i know you're not mad about yellow tulips but um quick question on tulip colors and i think we've had this conversation before but i'm intrigued and i know we're supposed to be doing a catch-up and we're not and this has turned into jojo's q a but i'm just wondering uh my white tulips again came out so early these like amazing white sort of swan looking things and they've just taken an absolute battering the poor things from the rain and they'll never get to see a proper spring so they're almost gone they've they've pretty much lasted like that's it they're gone and then the other ones are sort of slowly but surely starting to come up now so why are some like literally a month later is it the soil or and then the other ones are sort of slowly but surely starting to come up now so

why are some like literally a month later is it the soil or is it the type no pal it's the type so some tulips are called earlies some are called lates oh so you've got the earlies are coming you know they're they should be they're on their way out if not yeah they're on now particularly it's such an early spring for us and then the lates are on their way and then you've got the um if we're really going to get into it then we've got the uh fringe variety that you saw and the lily variety which like you know look more sort of like a really delicate little goblet with pointy tips and they're sort of out now so yeah that's the whole point of with tulips is that you should choose different ones that flower at different times so you get that succession

for this game i love it i love it well well done that's brilliant i can't wait to see who wins now now catch me up okay catch you up so have i spoken to you since wales no i went to tenby in wales with the kids and we went for about four days and apart from getting stuck in a seven and a half hour traffic jam all the way down there um it was really really good fun ten beers it's actually just i think it's just won the sort of best beaches in britain awards and i'm not surprised it's got these they're not really big beaches they're quite small and they've got these enormous rocks sort of sitting literally on the shore and they've even got little coves you know caves that you can go into literally off the beach it was just such such good

fun with the kids and it was everything was so accessible we loved it we had a really really good time i have to say it was brilliant so the bed's comfortable were they big they were big they were big enough to roll over twice before we touched each other and um actually should i go here yeah please do come on bring it no i can't actually come on no no no come here everyone who's got small children will have been caught in the act right like sort of a midday just a midday bonk and then the kids around yeah i'm proud of you you guys have still got it don't you you keep it fresh oh we do i mean look at him anyway so we were sort of mid-bonk and obviously and then

both of them and you sort of give them anything they want just to get that four minutes yes both anyway speaking of which hi darling hello what. Can I say hi to Polly? Hello. What have you been watching on the TV? Barbie. Barbie! Barbie. Barbie. Amazing. Anything else?

Oh, did you have a good time in Wales? I'm just telling them all about Wales. Okay, right. Come on then. You go away now. I love you. Put my headphones back on. Bye, sausage.

So you were mid- bye sausage so you were mid shag and you were interrupted by which one so we were mid we were oh so we were basically

mid bonk and the little one ran in so little I don't think she sort of knew what was going on she's like

mummy daddy and we're sort of you know like that looking at her and then Ziggy comes in who's a bit older and she stood there

and she's like come on rocky we're going out the room now and can you hang on can we just paint the picture though was are you sort of nestled under a duvet or are you like we were we were it was like one of those so brad's lying on literally on top of me and he'd been up in the air with a duvet up doing a very good position anyway then uh and then they shot in so he just lay flat on me so he just sort of fell on me so we sort of looked like we were hugging and i said mommy and daddy just had a little lie down just having a cuddle yeah you were ziggy didn't believe us she thought something was she looked at us really oddly she's canny i tell him she's the one well she's the one that doesn't think she thinks we're pulling a will over

our eyes when we talk about Father Christmas or the Easter bunny. Anyway, right, so that's what happened in Wales. More stuff happened in Wales. We did obviously go and do other curricular activities such as swimming in the freezing cold sea. I did my first cold plunge dip in the ice cold sea.

Oh, can I ask a question that my grandmother always used to ask, which I love? Go on. What was the best thing you ate?'s the what best thing you ate on holiday best thing we ate it was a really great sweet shop in town really old-fashioned sweet shop we ate we had a lot of sweets uh there was a brilliant little coffee shop in the arches which is amazing so i'd say that's probably the best go on you tell me what was the best thing you ate in the Caribbean? From Wales to the Caribbean. Do you know what?

I went to an incredible restaurant that actually my PA Nikki recommended called The Naked Fisherman and the food there was insane. So if you go to Solution... But was it like local vibes? It was really chilled local vibes and it was heavenly, yum vibes and it was heavenly.

Yum. So that was wonderful. Can we just jump in with you, Pal, because I'm dying to know what's going on with your renovation. Oh, that has taken up all my time recently. So back and forth on the money thing and mortgages and all sorts of stuff. And I think I finally know what I can do. And we've agreed it with the builders.

They're starting, oh my God, in in a week they're starting in a week um so I am now needing to decide on things like the kitchen kitchen so I've got a lot of questions from yes and actually funnily enough a lot of them really parallel with uh innies so I've got I've got loads to ask you so I might jump in with a couple of my own very selfish and then let's leap into all of the others let's do it my love so I have made a new friend on the tulip trials and she is also going through a renovation and we were talking kitchens and the debate was very very sunny south facing kitchen which I will have and I know you love a wood floor but I also know that that wood floor is going to get severely bleached in my house because it is a lot of, it's going to be a lot of glazing.

Yes, it will. And so my question to you is, can I have limestone instead? Because I think that might be more sensible. And also I'm planning on having limestone in the garden and quite like that sort of. You absolutely can have limestone, Yorkstone, whatever you like in the kitchen. No, I don't want Yorkstone. OK, but you can have limestone. Limestone is nice and soft.

And obviously the colour is a bit more, it's a bit more gentle. So what should the format be though, pal? Because what's the preference? I don't really want to go oldie worldie. It's not an oldie worldie house so do i go for like a sawn edge no definitely not like bigger is better don't just because still go tumbled okay it can still absolutely go tumbled what are you doing outside because obviously this is important i'll go um i'll go limestone 900, 600 sawn edge. So it won't be tumbled outside.

But you're going to do a sawn edge? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely won't be tumbled outside. I prefer always the look of a tumbled edge, personally, on anything inside. Because I think it adds a certain softness. I think a sharp edge on a tile can make it feeling much more contemporary. That is a personal preference um so bearing in mind it's going to be a house nine kitchen yes it needs to be a tumbled edge then to work with

the house nine kitchen here's what i would say if the actual material inside and outside is the same then i would keep the uh then i would keep the edging the same but i won't necessarily want to change no i'm no so therefore i think well i i i'm a tart like that and i think actually i wouldn't want i unless it's a really contemporary where you're literally walking the transition from interior to exterior is just straight you know like that's not gonna work same level you've just got a perhaps a sliding door that you open and the floor just runs straight through then i would say go with something different to add character and zoning so am i going with something different and go with a nice tumble go

the nice buff yes buff but not a sort of pink not not a yellow or pinky buff it wants to be a very sort of almost more neutral to the brown buff beigey brown buff beigey brown buff size i will always do a big format definitely big format minimize the amount of grout lines you've got define big format for you though because that might be different to outside it would be different from outside it's probably a 600 and then down 900 is outside isn't it so it'd be 600 and then it goes to sort of a 400 so there's three different sizes i think so it's it's all it's mixed yeah oh we're going to do a mixed pack we're going to do a project pack are we yes oh absolutely i think this is one that we really need to look at together because i think i i'd

like to look at what what else we don't want to do is that if you've got say your buff limestone outside and then we're choosing a similar stone inside, we've got to make sure that those two marry up and that they still look good together. So colour-wise, like the tones have to be the same. So I think we want to make them look different. Someone needs to start a podcast about this, pal. Go on, mate. Here we are.

Because you're saying mixed format, which for listeners means varying sizes of tile. And large format means large sizing. I wouldn't normally do mixed format outside unless I was going for like an old school Yorkstone. So the debate that Jojo and I are having now are like, this is a head scratcher because Jojo is suggesting that we mix it up inside.

And I'm thinking, oh, that's going to look strange when I'm going with a uniform size outside. So this is something to noodle. So I think that's why I think we need to look at the floor plan. So whenever we choose flooring types, we will always draw it on plan. Oh, yes. So you'll look at it. So we'll see what you're doing outside and then let's see if it looks right inside and then we put the materiality next to each other

and make sure that the tones work and the other thing about consideration that you'll know about is that when you choose something like a natural stone there's huge variation between the pieces oh really different tones massive variation and therefore we've it's and also what we need to think about is the size of the room what the format's going to look we've it's and also what we need to think about is the size of the room what the format's going to look like if it's going to look right in that space and in that size and i will always recommend as well that whatever stone we go for the grout that you choose wants to be as close to the stone color as possible so you don't you're preaching to the choir on that one baby you don't want to see lots of like... We don't like a contrasting grout colour.

No. Absolutely not. We don't like a... I don't like a sort of... I don't like a... Like my worst nightmare. One of my worst nightmares with short curtains is white metro tiles or white tiles with grey grout.

Anywho, that's that. Okay, moving on. All right, I'm actually going to start with one here from Shatika. Love you guys. You're my weekly lol suppliers best pod out there and i listened to maybe 12 other ones in a week oh wow thank you question for both biggest red flags when looking for a new place on the market for a semi-detached

three to four bedroom with a garden and parking in north london oh so that's a both question actually that's not just an anti this question go on paul give it to us so obviously i was house hunting recently um and there are houses i walked into and walked straight out of so i'll talk to gardens jojo i'll talk to house so the biggest red flag for me is really big trees or trees with tpos um not because i don't love trees but because i obviously as a very keen gardener want the opportunity to grow my garden as much as possible and trees can really limit that so I walked into one which had a TPO which is a tree protection order it was a massive massive spectacular conifer I think uh was it a pine actually massive scots pine I think or a cedar of Lebanon something enormous you know whopping belongs in Parkland certainly not in a small resi garden

and it shaded the entire garden you could see that no grass was growing anywhere because the tree was sucking the life out of the soil it was shade the whole time because it was an evergreen and i was like absolutely not and the estate agent was like what are you talking about this house is great and i was like i'm not touching this no because it was a protected tree which I wouldn't have dreamt of taking down anyway so interesting but it meant that I wasn't going to be able to garden my garden and funnily enough someone messaged me just this morning and you know it's it's not like I can answer all of these but someone messaged to say we're looking at buying this house but it has these enormous conifers in it and there's loads of bark underneath will

anything ever grow there because i want a garden i can grow things in and the answer was no nothing and also anyone out there now house hunting that's listening to this i didn't know this i would never have thought about that because when we bought this house it was absolutely surrounded by dead like not not dead like awful ugly conifers big ugly conifers and in the middle of our lawn as anyone that's followed me for a while will know that I had this huge huge copper beach and it absolutely sucked and I didn't realize until it was gone how much light that it sucked but what it did do is that it dropped all these like this really chunky fruit nuts all over the lawn so that made the lawn actually impossible to use as kids so although

I missed the the sight of it it was beautiful I it was beautiful but I cannot believe now it's gone the difference that it's made to the house so it's definitely a consideration I found that's a really really interesting point to consider it and people don't ask so i don't think they understand the implications of a tpo because the tpo means you can't prune it without permission you certainly can't take it down like absolutely not and not that i condone taking trees down anyway but and if you're happy to have a garden where you're not sort of where you're happy to grow in shade and and or you want low intervention then wonderful but if you're a really keen gardener and you're wanting maximum sun, then be really careful what plot you buy and do your homework.

Check the TPO's, check if it's a conservation area. Yeah, so such, such, such good advice, Paul. So that's my biggest red flag. How about you, Jojo? The obvious one is obviously whether it's listed because you're very restricted then as to what you can do. Grade two listings obviously mean that you have to get all sorts of permissions to literally take skirting boards off or to change the appearance of the stairs or move walls. So very restricted.

And therefore, you're going to have to do some homework before buying the house, I would say, as to the leniency of local planners, whether it's something that looks like it's possible or not. There's just an awful lot more work involved if a house is listed. So I'd say that's the number one thing. Don't let it turn you off, though. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most.

Stay in the know. CBC News. Okay, keeping a little bit of a kitchen theme actually, key points to consider for kitchen islands. For example, the size, should you put your sink in it or your hob in it or nothing? And that's from Crafts Psych Happy. It totally depends. So in an ideal kitchen setup, so here's like your perfect ideal kitchen setup bring it have kitchen sink under a window because that's where you're standing you're looking out the window you're enjoying the view whilst you're washing the dishes which is snore i nowadays okay

then if you had a second run of back a back run of a kitchen you could have your hob against the wall with a with a extractor hood above it and you could make that look really smart and then in the center you'd have a big prep island which doesn't have anything on it at all so it's just a big blank surface gotcha i actually like the look of something on an island although you really have to dress an island because otherwise it's just a big slab of marble or quartz which just ends up being a dumping ground for crap is it yeah so unless you have a big beautiful big vase with some flowers and all that so and i mean in an ideal world you've got an air liver kitchen with a lovely big island and you've got both however i think when you're cooking you're you want to be social you want to be

cooking at the island you want to be looking around see what's going on talking to the kids you've got friends sitting at the bar whilst you're cooking you know at the island while you're cooking I think you there's something I love about having a hob on an island so even if you maybe have the oven at the back back run you've actually got your hob on the island it's absolutely worth saying that there is nothing wrong with having a sink on an island especially if you don't have kids that live at home so like if you've got no really small kids and you're permanently washing up plastic baby bottles then it's great have it have an island on the sink i know that

if i lived you know and i had older kids my island would look absolutely pristine if i had a sink on it and we have done islands with kitchen sinks in they look great there's nothing wrong with it but it's just that you've just got to think where am i going to put my where am i going to put my fairy liquid where am i going to put my washing brushes where am i going to put those things that will always sit they're not cute whereas a lovely big you know jar of jug full of all your lovely kitchen utensils for some reason is lovely so it's just considering those things i wouldn't want to put my washing brushes away every night so it's going to be some practical nancies out there

but it's what about plugs in an island do you like the ones which you like recess and they pop up i just think that's a waste of time i don't like plugs in an island at you like the ones which you like recess and they pop up i just think that's a waste of time i don't like plugs in an island at all unless it's down under at the end i don't want to walk into a room and see a plug anywhere i will hide it behind a chopping board so on an island i tend to put we tend to put plugs at sort of the end of the island not where you walk in okay so they're sort of quite discreet yes not in your face we also do charging drawers so in a kitchen you might have like a pantry cupboard and then you open the pantry there's a charging drawer that's a clever one okay right i'm shooting down

the bottom by the way i never know what these are going to be um andy our podcast producer just pulls these out of the hat so we're sort of it's quite fun really this one's from sharon my garden is at an angle with my house what should i make my patio align with your house yeah we do this all the time so my garden's an angle to my house too the patio aligns with the house and then what we'll do is some clever jiggery pokery to kind of change the other lines so we sort of obscure the fact that it's at an angle obviously if it's really extreme still align your patio at the house everything in your garden is actually going to come off lines of the house and then it might be that you know we have to go in a redirection if it's a really harsh angle okay

super good one give me another one give me a quick one this one is from hannah oh good question hannah is it too late to move plants oh well this is a quick and dirty one no it's not too late you've got the whole of April go for it babes get it done don't don't hang around though because it's such a it's warming up so fast okay so we're going to do it when it's still a bit wet still a bit wet and a bit cold not really about wet not really about cold just it's sort of temperatures and also it's just growth rate so everything's putting on growth now so move it now everything's starting to wake up get on with it lady get on with it okay all right let's go back indoors come on come on come on indoors you old gal um oh let me top you

up oh i love this one from terry terry wants to know to radiate a cover or not to radio to cover that is the question oh i'm sorry terry i'm not and if you can't move okay right in an ideal world i'll say please don't radiator cover but if it's an ugly radiator yeah if it's if it's really ugly radiator and you can't replace the radiator for some reason then go with a radiator cover but i also think a radiator cover has a place in a sort of period property yes and you see so I used to live in a period property Victorian and in the hallway it was too narrow for sort of a shelf or a sort of chucking thing for keys but there was a radiator and that cover was a perfect place for a radiator cover perfect place for a radiator cover um so therefore I think if it's a

really ugly ass radiator then put a radiator cover on it because it can act like a little shelf so that's great um but i do also think the problems with the radiator cover is that one can use it a bit like a windowsill and cover it in tat which is so yes you can also just get a little shelf that sort of sits above it but look in an ideal world replace the radiator with something that's nicer if we're colour, are we painting it the same colour as the walls? Here's an interesting thing. And actually, I say this all the time. We, in a lot of instances, rather than, if you think your walls are painted lovely,

say, let's think your walls are painted in a lovely putty scheme. Everything in the room. And you know me, I'm not a fan of bright white. Radiators don't come in a selection of colours. Lovely, traditional style radiators. So unless you're going to pay to get that radiator... You want more? Unless you pay... I'm just

feeding my kids chocolate at 8 o'clock at night just to keep this going. Absolutely not, Poppet. You can have two and then you give Ziggy two. She's my kind of woman. I'd have got through that whole chocolate orange. She's like, can I just take the whole thing in the living room? I said, no. No, leave some for mummy. So you are going to have to pay to get that radiator.

So when you buy the radiator, the radiator thing got to go off and be sprayed the exact same colour as your walls. Okay, so that's, it's an expensive thing to do. So if you can't do that, and therefore you have to buy it in whatever colour it comes in, and usually it's black, white, or sometimes anthracite. Or there are some other radiator companies

that do some funky colors, but you're restricted by what the company sells. And therefore we always go over white because white against anything looks actually a bit wrong. Yeah, very bright. It can look a bit cheap. Sort of high, yeah.

So actually we go dark. We go either anthracite or black. I enjoy an anthracite radiator. Yeah. So there you go. i don't think to buy a white radiator over and i tell you another one of my massive bugbears something i dislike so much is tall column radiators those really really tall radiators that are like six foot high that go all the way up the wall absolutely hideous hate them just one day i want to make a list of all the things that

you hate i'm gonna wrap this up with another any question from claire really love the podcast and the new buttered toast flooring jojo a little little plug there love that plug i have an in question how do i any darling any how do i know if the tone of the wood flooring will work with the wood of my furniture are there any rules to follow for tones of wood in furniture versus flooring eg i have a few pieces of mid-century style thank you oh it's a good one this it's a little bit like the rule i sort of think about this as a little bit like um it's a bit like metals like the mixing metals question and how many metals you can mix before it starts to look wrong it's usually about the rule of three um flooring essentially is your foundation so if you think about your floor as your your base your buttery

biscuit base oh you're my buttery biscuit base. I'll butter your biscuit. Oh, stop it. Anyway, so. Can you tell the wine's kicking in? Yes, it really is. Oh my God, this four hours later, we're still on the podcast. Yeah, I'm just topping up again. Anyway, so basically your buttery biscuit base,

you've got to think whatever that is, you're then going to be putting layers upon it. And if you had a, say, a lovely light oak floor, it's okay to put antique furniture on it. But it's actually more so what the antique furniture is, how much of it there is. So it's not really about the floor as such. So absolutely fine to have a light, light butter biscuit base um and then bring in say you know a lovely uh burr walnut i was thinking that a lovely walnut on top oh delightful yeah or totally fine because it's a it's quite a neutral tone but i suppose what you don't want to do is

then have orangey wood with that as well right like no one we don't want loads of tones that's no so if you just don't want lots of tones it's a consideration i think it's like and actually if you have that and you need to break it up then break the floor up with things like rugs get rugs underneath everything so you're so you haven't got the wood sitting on the wood if you have that issue where you've got say lots of i don't know you know hand-me-downs some lovely old pieces that you'd really love and you don't want to get rid of and you move into quite a modern house and it's got a very light floor and you think does that look a bit does that look a bit odd there it will do if it's sitting on a on a quite contemporary looking floor so it's it's letting that piece sit on its own and then it's what you put around it to help bring it

in and if it's a very dark piece of furniture you're you're going to help it by bringing in a couple of other dark elements in the room so that your eye isn't straight away drawn to it. So I think you've basically just given her permission to buy your flooring. Yes. Oh yes. Did I do that? Was that a plug? I will race you for it, my friend. Okay. Right. Polly, my love. Outie. North facing garden. How do I add height to my border of ferns?

That's from Hannahannah so we've got options if we're going to go down the perennial route uh then we've got something like a thalictrum which is beautiful because the foliage of it's really pretty and then it rises up very ethereal little white or little light purple um looks like sort of water droplets really pretty or digitalis aka foxglove yes it's poisonous it's never scared me off using it in any gardens but it's um which are you know foxgloves really beautiful tall aspiring now watch out with foxgloves because they're biennial so they are only going to last you're only going to get them in the flowering in the same place once but then they self-seed prolifically so they keep on going

or uh the old favorite anemone onorinja bear which is quite a well-behaved white anemone so those would be your or acanthus which can be quite prolific but it's sort of a tall spiky spires of plants with a really sort of big waxy leaf it's got a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a thug and it is a bit of a thug but it's a great plant um or if you wanted to go more of a shrub root then you could go with a mahonia now the one that all the designers love because it's the least offensive color wise is called mahonia soft caress that's a great one really nice sort of um frilly green leaf and it's kind of bulletproof you can grow it anywhere and finally if you wanted to go really bold and i would because it's kind of bulletproof you can grow it anywhere and finally if you wanted

to go really bold and i would because it's awesome you could consider a tree fern or two well not two never two preferably three or more dixonia antarctica which is a tree fern kind of marmite but my god bloody love a dixonia so consider that they're fabulous all right Jojo I'm going to finish with a the most important question I think we've been sent this week and frankly I welcome more of these Jojo how do you keep your hair so long and glossy from a frizzy strawhead mama called Alex hi Alex I do want to know this too your hair's like a unicorn's mane i don't brush it and i don't blow dry it so what i do maybe i should share the shampoo and conditioner i use i put a trip i put a treatment

in it so i don't i don't brush it right I might brush it just before I shower but I wash my hair every two days okay not every other day not not every day I wash it every other day okay and I'll brush it that one time so before I get in the shower what do we use oh god I'm gonna have to share those I can't remember the names are but they're i they're quite technical okay she uses fancy shampoo and conditioner it's fancy it is fancy do you use a serum and i and i use a serum what's the serum okay wait hold on she's gonna go find it okay you just wait there yeah i'm gonna god okay right i've got them so where were we what do i use so first off to get me through the not washing days i use this stuff i could use dercos detox how do you spell that? D-E-R-C-O-S. Right. It's a dry shampoo, but it's a really nice one.

Oh, it's by Vichy. It's by Vichy. Vichy? So a Vichy dry shampoo, Dercos. Okay, next. Right, when I wash my hair every other day, I use this. It's called K18 Detox Shampoo. K18.

K18 Detox Shampoo. K18. Okay, and what's the condition and the condition is actually the set it's the same brand actually i got it i get this in space in k it's called k18 leave-in molecular so basically i wash my hair in the shower with this shampoo love that and then i and then i rinse it out and then i get out oh and then i put this in and it's a leave-in conditioner if i got out without putting conditioner in my hair i would have a bird's nest oh but also guys don't forget i have got

i've got um a water softener at home as well big thing i have a water softener at home so and i hide and i tell you what when i go anywhere that doesn't have a soft water thingy majiggy i really notice it in my hair and my skin so innies and outies let's all go and buy jojo's shampoo and and compare notes and compare and then also i use john frieda frizzy's cheapy serum can't go wrong with that can't go wrong it's brilliant so that's it right dude now what i haven't told you is um what i'm doing tomorrow what are you doing tomorrow i'm taking the kids to disney paris on my own shitting hell are you really yeah wish me luck i'm terrified we should have lined that mate we should have lined that up i would have come with you that's awesome yeah well my sister's been and she said it's absolutely brilliant.

You're going to have the best time. Well, let's see. Single mama. I'm a little nervous. You'll have a brilliant time. Well done you pal. That's a really cool thing to do with your kids. And they're just such a good age for it as well.

Well done you. They are. They're slightly scared of the roller coasters and I will have to trick them to going on them because I want to go on them. Yeah. I like it. Oh, I love it. I think it's a bit close for me because I had food poisoning last week and it's just still there.

Oh, love. It's still there. You know when you just feel the... I lay on the floor of my bathroom, literally on a cold floor. I had my cheek pressed onto the cold tiles of my floor. What did it? And I was just like...

What did you eat? No idea. I was cold plunging, so I don't know if that's had something to do with it oh if I shocked my body but um anywho listen uh more importantly yes what's in and what's out my god I'm so glad you asked what's in for me is a tv show because you know I love a tv show palm royale oh okay it's on apple tv which you may or may not get it's got kirsten wigg of bridesmaids fame and it is fabulous it's like set in the 1950s 1960s in in palm springs the for the costume alone i'd watch it but it's also just

fabulous so if you need a new show go and binge it the only agonizing thing is they only release one a week but there's like six out now so you're fine oh right that's my by the way speaking of what's out for me is that is the book that somebody i asked i threw this out there and actually i feel wholly responsible for basically killing seven hours of my my friend's lives a couple of people recommended a book called the marriage portrait such a good book fucking awful don't get it i'm sorry don't waste your life right okay so we're gonna we're gonna wrap this up now but um okay pal you're gonna have the best time in paris oh by the way just one really really really exciting piece of news we have to tell everyone tell me polly and i are going to be

doing our first not podcast remotely at the chelsea flower show stop it yeah we are going to be doing an episode of the ins and outs at chelsea flower show more on that next time love you guys bye pal bye to the pip we should do more recordings. Good bye.