Favourite Home Accessories I’ve Bought Since We Moved In
When Kieran and I moved into our flat in November to me it felt like pretty much a blank canvas to do up exactly how we wanted. We just rent for the moment, and although I’ve previously rented with friends for a long time in the past, this place felt like I could do a lot more with it. Like anywhere, a home is what you make of it, and I’ve loved buying bits and pieces since we moved in to fill it up. Here’s some of my favourite soft furnishings and home accessories that I’ve bought to make it ours.
Disclaimer: Please excuse the rubbish photos, interior photos aren’t my thing – some links are affiliate links.
Yes it’s got the standard white walls, and grey carpets, but to be honest that just made life easier. There were no hideous paint colours, or awful tiles that we don’t like staring at every day, and we have fairly neutral colour taste anyway. When it comes to the furniture, it’s a mix of dark grey, wood and black, and I love how some of it matches and some of it doesn’t.
Little did we know when we moved in that we would be spending quite so much time here. Through lockdown I bought quite a bit, as we were spending so much time inside I kept noticing small home accessories online that I thought would just add something to the same view every day. I spent a lot of time on home decor sites, as deliveries no matter how small made the days so exciting, and the place feel just that bit nicer to be in day after day.
Our monochrome cushion covers were some of the first things we bought before we even moved in. They’re all from H&M Home and vary in price from as little as £3.99 up to £25 per cover. The cushions in them are just from IKEA, and these are the perfect example of a set that just don’t match in pattern, but do in colour.
The wooden star tray that I originally got at Christmas time, again from H&M Home, has been a permanent feature year round. It’s cute and is a good surface for candles.
I wasn’t sure on a grey coffee table at first, as we did originally want a black one. I’d also been warned by many about a glass surface getting covered in fingerprints, but nevertheless we ended up with a grey one, with a glass pane on the top. It’s now one of my favourite things in our living room, as the built in drawer is split into four sections which you can see through the glass.
In a small flat this just gives the opportunity for more storage, but decorative storage. We have 2 sections filled with vinyls, some that have quite cool covers, one filled with coffee table books like my Banksy book, and some on Paris that I got from the Shakespeare bookshop near Notre Dame. We change each section up and keep it clean so it’s been a successful investment so far.
I think I’m like most girls and have a real obsession with candles. The smell of the White Company Winter candles is just so divine I had nearly every size and the whole flat smelled unbelievable over the festive period. Combined with the Jo Malone Orange Bitters it was like a grotto.
For the summer I’ve got a few lighter ones, including White Company Fresh Grapefruit, a Filmore & Union one called Reboot that smells like you’ve just had a massage in a posh spa, and a couple of vanilla ones from Asda. Just recently I bought perhaps my favourite one for summer so far, from Our Lovely Goods their ‘Somewhere Far Away’ candle is gorgeous, smelling of coconut, lime and vanilla.
Our bar is our pride and joy, it’s black with a wooden top surface and we’ve had so much use out of it through lockdown it’s now very well stocked. All our spirits and some wines are on the top, as well as my cocktail shaker, a chopping board and a couple of nut bowls.
The drawer is filled with a fruit knife, cork screws, a strainer, a stirrer and a bottle opener, and underneath on the shelves is an ice bucket, a carafe, cocktail recipe books and miniature gins. If you’re considering a bar cart, a bar unit or just a storage space for alcohol I couldn’t recommend it enough. It saves so much space in the kitchen and it’s a great place to try some home made cocktails.
The big palm plant and plant pot in our living room are a lockdown purchase, as it just needed a bit of greenery to the room. The plant pot is a ceramic tripod with a cute black and white pattern from The Range, and the plant in it was just from Asda.
Our spare room had the smaller wardrobe, so I offered to take this as every girl wants their own dressing space don’t they? I bought a ladder shelving unit from Dunelm which I absolutely love, and as it goes up the wall rather than along it, it’s a good way to save space yet still store all my make up, perfume and hair stuff.
In the same room I bought myself a little white desk and chair, as I’ve always had my own space to blog and I didn’t want to give that up. It’s a cute little corner that’s just for me, with my laptop, prints and photos on the wall, and somewhere to store all the tech I need.
We have quite a few prints about the flat, from various places and these are the home accessories that in my opinion really make a place your own, as not everyone has the same ones especially if you buy local street art from different cities.
In my little blog corner I’ve got some old ones that I bought years ago, including a postcard that came with a pair of Louboutin shoes. The travel photos are my own, or bought from street artists in Paris and Rome. As that’s our spare room I bought a Hotel print from Postery too.
In our living room we have a big New York print from Iamfy, more Paris street art, and some photographs of Newcastle taken by Sophie Henderson that we bought at Tynemouth market. We have Tyneside Cinema above our bed, but this will be taken down soon in light of the allegations currently being made about the treatment of staff, particularly women who work there or have in the past.
Kieran’s vinyl player is my final favourite purchase, he got it not too long ago and bought some new speakers for it right at the start of lockdown. We have spent a lot of nights playing it while we make dinner over the last few weeks, and it’s basically provided the soundtrack to our lockdown.
Next on my list is a set of tapas dishes, and some more bits for our room that we’ve not really made much of yet. We may just be renting for now, and if that’s the case for you then interior home accessories can totally transform a place into feeling much more unique and as though it’s your own. For small spaces especially, you quickly find there’s a lot you can do with them if you buy the right bits.
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