Growing Spaces

Will a half-painted stairway wall beat dirty hand marks and scuffs for good?

Will a half-painted stairway wall beat dirty hand marks and scuffs for good?

Within a day of repainting our stairway wall white a while back, I could already see new grimy hand marks and scuffs. Instead of obsessing over them I just took a deep breath and put it down to normal house wear. It’s inevitably got dirtier and dirtier, until the other day I had to accept that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Inspired by a recent shoot we put together at work, I rejected the idea of yet another white re-coat (actually a really full-on job as the stairway is so tall), and decided to take a different approach, which…

View Post

Simple tissue paper bag DIY advent calendar

Simple tissue paper bag DIY advent calendar

Usually I’m to be found on the night of the 30 November desperately pulling together our DIY advent calendar. I had a couple of days off work last week – the kids were at school, I had no grand plans, I was just in need of some down time – and so I made us a new advent calendar for this year. I’m not going to write lots of instructions because it’s a really simple make. I cut 15cm (ish) squares out of white tissue paper. I planned out our daily advent activities (based on these from a few years…

View Post

Quick and easy t-shirt hacks for kids (and grown-ups!)

Quick and easy t-shirt hacks for kids (and grown-ups!)

I decided to customise a multipack of plain white t-shirts rather than buying individual designs – not only was it cheaper but it’s also fun to personalise a t-shirt so you know you’ve got something completely unique. Embroidered rainbow I am not a great sewer, but I can manage the basics and as Ez had recently been doing some sewing projects that used back stitch, I thought I’d show her how she could use that stitch on a t-shirt. She’s a big fan of rainbows and unicorns, so we just used six colours of embroidery thread to sew a rainbow…

View Post

Van build: The rustic conversion of our VW T5 Transporter

Van build: The rustic conversion of our VW T5 Transporter

I’ve been desperate to show you the finished results of our van build project – the rustic/modern country remodel of our trusty VW T5 Transporter, Algie. After working like crazy to get it all ready, we had our first proper test run in the van down in Dorset over the half term, and it was a roaring success. It’s hard to believe that Algie was just a builder’s van when we bought him just over a year ago. Now the van can sleep all five of us, with the kids in the pop-top, us on the rock n roll bed…

View Post

VAN PROJECT: VW T5 van build progress report

VAN PROJECT: VW T5 van build progress report

We are so tired! It’s amazing how much work such a small space requires. But like when you’re mid-renovation project, we’ve hit that mega low point where you don’t think it could look any worse, but we’re through the other side and it’s finally starting to come together. It’s really hard to get decent progress shots as there just never seems time to clear the decks enough to take any, but you can check out @youngvanadventures‘ Stories on IG for plenty of snapshots and videos behind the scenes on the build. For now, I’m just going to list off the…

View Post