Ok, so the first thing to mention is the styling. I love it! The illustrations and photography are by Kayti Peschke (Caboodle’s creative director) and they fit the style and feel of the magazine perfectly. There is so much attention to detail with this throughout, and I just think that’s fab – Kayti and Amy Tocknell (Caboodle’s editorial director) obviously work really well together, and have found an excellent team of contributors. One example is the flamingo theme seen here on the welcome page (above), which continues with a flamingo brooch DIY project later in the magazine – on trend and super lovely! This is the contents page, and the layout of this is also seen elsewhere in the magazine:

The mix of features in the magazine is really great. I really enjoyed the ‘Save the Bees’ article, and it’s amazing to find out more about what those little guys actually do for us (well, listing what they don’t do might be quicker!). We’ve tried to plant bee friendly plants in our garden, including planting wildflower seed in the front garden, and it was helpful to know what else can be done to help them too.

I also really enjoyed the interview with Leona from Lucky Dip Club – after months of missing out, I finally snapped up this month’s box (which has a village fete theme), so really excited about this! It’s great to see a small business growing so fast and to read more about Leona’s success.

Other features that really stood out for me were the recipe ideas from Elinor Hill (aka Beach Hut Cook) and the snail mail feature. I love the idea of a picnic on the beach, so hoping for nice weather in the half term holidays in just over a week!

There’s so much more in this gorgeous magazine – huge congratulations to Kayti and Amy and the rest of the team! I can’t wait for the next one…so make sure you grab your own copy and support them (click here to buy). Also, if you want to make one of the giant paper flowers that you saw on the cover, you can find the tutorial here. Happy reading!

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So the kitchen project is a really big deal for us – it’s the biggest project we’ve ever undertaken and it’s the first thing we’ve ever done from scratch with a blank canvas. I’ll be honest, it’s pretty scary! The budget wasn’t limitless and you don’t realise how much things are going to cost. This is amplified when you’re buying everything at once too! You want to make the right decisions, you don’t want to waste money, and there are some things that you decide that you really don’t want to compromise on. My friend Donna has a mantra that she lives by, which is ‘save and splurge’. She told me this before we started, and it’s so true! Save on things where you can so that you can splash out on certain things that you really don’t want to compromise on. When it comes to work like this, this is the best piece of advice ever – thank you, Donna!

I love looking through magazines/blogs/Pinterest at home styling and ideas for the home, and I often see things and think that we could make it work in our house too. But every home is different and a lot of things just wouldn’t work in ours. Although I really love having a nosey in people’s houses, one thing that bugs me a little bit about styled interiors photos is that I’m wondering what it looks like behind the camera! Just where do they put all that extra stuff?! I’d love to know! Anyway, we spent a lot of time chatting about what we thought the kitchen should look like. When it came to selecting the kitchen fittings, we discovered that we both found it easier to list what we didn’t like than what we did. Tom doesn’t like Bristol sinks (gutted – I really love them!) and I didn’t want anything too dark or old-fashioned. We had a little look around (and also at our friend’s new kitchen) and decided that we really loved the glossy units, especially the ones with curved corners. They are just so beautiful! We found the one we chose in Howdens, which is a trade-only company (lots of builders have an account there, so ask if you are planning this too).

We had a list of things that we wanted from the new kitchen, which included more storage (see below!), more workspace and more light. Our old kitchen was really dreary at night with its one little light! I also had two things that I really wanted: a range cooker and a dishwasher. Tom wasn’t so fussed about the dishwasher – we put it on the maybe list because if we couldn’t afford both then I would rather have the cooker every time! Howdens have a kitchen designing service, and they did a brilliant job of making the best of the new space. I’ve realised that functionality is a big part of our style – it needs to work for us and we need storage space! We have discovered that generally we have the same style too, although I’m probably a bit more adventurous than Tom when it comes to colour. Our kitchen will reflect that – we’ll have pops of colour but it will be predominantly neutral, but this will make it light and bright. Yay!

It has been weird having to make decisions about fixtures and fittings when we’re not used to thinking about stuff like that. The builders have been asking me things over the last couple of weeks about how we want things to be or look, and I’ve been like ‘Erm…’ – it’s mad really because we’ve had so long to think about it! It’s really fun to be at this point choosing the final things to go in there. Who knew that things like spotlight covers could be so exciting?! I can’t wait to share the finished kitchen with you! Although 5 years seems like a long time to have not done a lot to our house, I am so glad we’ve had that time to live here and find out what works and what doesn’t so that we could plan and think about what we really want to do. A lot of planning went into it, and I’m pretty sure it will be worth it!

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