Every now and again, Husband and I get a bit of wanderlust when it comes to where we live and we start to look at other places in the country which would be more suited to us than the South East. As it stands, our first choice would probably be Liverpool, but recently we’ve been reading about Leicester and all of the ways in which it’s a great place to raise a family. With this in mind, i thought I’d share some of those with you today:
Continue reading “Leicester – A City for Families”
Photo by Tina Witherspoon on Unsplash
If your current property is starting to feel a little too small for your needs, but you don’t have the budget to extend it or even move, that doesn’t mean that you have to just carry on as you are. Taking a look around your current space and working out if there is anything that can be adapted to increase the area that you’re working with could uncover a wealth of potential. With this in mind I thought I would share with you five places that don’t always occur to people to be used as a functional living space, but actually can offer a number of different options.
Continue reading “How to Make the Most of the Space in Your Home”There are certain things that I like in a living room. A sofa which is big enough for the whole family to snuggle on, plenty of wall sockets for plugging things in, a fireplace, and plenty of flexible lighting options. I think the latter might be the one which is most important to me; I hate sitting in a room at night with the bright, overhead light on as it’s really not condusive to settling down and relaxing, so I need ways to light a room which aren’t so harsh. With this in mind, I thought I’d take a look at some creative ways to light a room which give you flexibility on how the room is lit at different times of the day:
Pendant Lights
Okay, so I know I said overhead lighting wasn’t my fave, but there are ways to get creative without having to alter the room too much. There are some beautiful lightshades which can be opened and closed with a little pulley to allow more or less light (or more direct light) to be shone from the fixture. They can be used with pendant lights from lights.co.uk and allow you to have complete control over how bright your room is.
LED Strips
As time goes on, LED strip lighting has become cheaper and more accessible, and can now be used in all types of settings. I absolutely love the look of furniture with LED strips added in an almost hidden position, such as on the underside of the opening of a Welsh dresser to create a really subtle glow around a room.
Candles
Gone are the days when candles were too much of a fire risk – LED candles are all the rage right now and they actually produce a really gentle light which looks like an authentic candle glow. We love LED candles so much that the kids have even got them in their bedrooms too – essential when you live in the middle of nowhere, like us, and have power cuts more regularly than you have hair cuts!
Neon Signs
It wasn’t until I saw a programme a few years ago where the presenter went and made her own neon signs that I realised how accessible this type of design is for the home. I’d love to, in time, have custom-made neon signs for the girls’ bedrooms as I think they’re such a funky, modern way to add both style and light to a room.
Lamps
The most obvious way to make your lighting scheme work for you is by placing lamps in all of the places that you want to add extra light. A well-placed lamp can change the tone of a whole room and I love experimenting not only with different locations for a lamp and what they do to a space, but also changing the types of bulbs that you use – at one point, we had a remote controlled bulb in one of our bedroom lamps which could be just about any colour of the rainbow, as coloured light is so much better for the eyes when you’re trying to get ready to sleep.
With summer almost here, it’s all about spending time with family and friends, enjoying the sunshine, going out for trips to the seaside and having as much fun as you can. However, 2019 should be the year you aim to be at your very healtiest, so here are a few tips to help you have a healthy Summer.
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pexels
Touch everything once
This means that instead of doing the cooking and leaving the washing up in the sink until later, do it right then, right there, and it’s done, meaning you have more time to do other things, things you really want to do. Use the frying pan – clean the frying pan – touch everything once! By putting things off, you’re cluttering up your mind with things ‘to do’ raising your stress levels and worrying about things that don’t need to be thought about at all. Or perhaps you’ve got clothes to put away, you’ve taken the clean clothes upstairs and left it on the bed to do later….STOP!! Do it now, and then it’s done so you can go and play with the kids, make yourself a lovely home cooked meal or go on a trip out somewhere.
Quit smoking
Something most smokers aim to do at some point but keep putting off to another time. By stopping smoking you will not only be saving yourself money, but you’ll also feel better within yourself, you’ll smell better and reduces the chance of you getting smokers likes – https://www.siobeauty.com/blogs/news/smokers-lines has a few tips to help get rid of any that may already be in place.
Sleep
Although making sure you have 8 hours sleep a night is important, sleeping in until lunchtime at the weekend isn’t healthy and such a waste of life! By getting to sleep at a decent time, it means you get more out of the day – time to go out with friends, see family or have some ‘you’ time. Turn off your phone an hour before you go to bed and don’t watch tv, try reading a book instead to help your brain switch off.
Take-Aways
Ditch the takeaways and junk food. One ‘simple’ and quick way to make yourself so much healthier this summer. Most of the time, takeaways don’t fill you up for long anyway and won’t taste as great as you think they will. Alongside this, make sure to pack your homecooked meals out with healthy foods and vitamins. If you feel you might struggle to do this, taking a supplement every day can help to improve your overall health! Keep an eye out for Nucific discounts, and discounts for other supplement companies, in order to make this as cheap and easy as possible.
Hydration
Did you know the average female should be drinking at least 2 litres of water a day to maintain their bodies an in hotter weather, it should be even more than this. However, on average in the UK we aren’t drinking anywhere near what we should be. This will lead to headaches and sun-stroke early on, but more importantly, this could lead to further and more serious problems. So make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day. Also, one thing to note is NEVER to drink water that has been left out in the sunshine in a plastic bottle as the heat from the sun can mean some of the chemicals in the plastic disperse into your water.
Here in the UK, we all seem to love the idea of spending more time outdoors, but the reality is that our unpredictable weather doesn’t always allow it. Wanting to get outdoors and being able to (without the use of dry bags!) are two very different things when there’s a threat of rain or it’s just too chilly, but there are things that you can buy from Cox and Cox which mean that your gardens don’t go unused all year round. Here are some of our favourites:
Outdoor Large Brazier
Sitting around with your friends, sharing a bottle of wine and putting the world to rights is a simple pleasure and this brazier will not only keep you warm while you do so, it’ll help to keep away unwanted bugs AND give you somewhere to toast marshmallows if that takes your fancy.
LED Jar Lantern
Sitting outside is all well and good but when it gets dark, you need to be able to see! These LED jar lanterns are battery powered and ca be placed anywhere that you need light, or even strung up in a group to give you all the light you need to continue enjoying your evening’s festivities, even after the night has drawn in.
Porto Lounge Set
No-one wants ti sit outside if your patio furniture is hard and uncomfortable, which is why this lounge set would be an excellent investment. The padded seats are warm and comfortable, allowing you to take a little bit of indoor luxury outside with you, giving your guests somewhere to sit for as long as they want.
Soft Wool Throw
One simple way to keep your gusts more comfortable if you’re spending an evening outside is to keep a stash of hardy blankets which they can use to keep themselves warm! These beautiful soft wool throws will feel great wrapped around your shoulders to keep out the cool evening breeze and will allow you to carry on your alfresco socialising well into the night.
What would you chose from the range to keep you warm and happy for outdoor gatherings? Take a look at the site and leave me a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
