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Lulu Dumas: How To Make Your Home Look Luxurious
I thought I would document a few changes we have made to our kitchen during the lockdown. It may not be for everyone, but I love mixing things up on the blog, and interiors is very much a passion of mine. Mixing old and new primarily I love an individual look that shows personality and is both luxurious and comfortable. I am definitely not an Interior designer, but I love property, and we have always renovated rather awful ugly houses by making changes and adding luxury home interior pieces! I think a lot of us are a little nosey, too when it comes to looking at people's homes!
A little bit of background… We built our house about 7 years ago where a 1970’s bungalow originally stood. We are located in a conservation area so the planning was already there for a house but we found it was still a struggle to change the design to our specifications. The footprint had to remain the same so we decided that the kitchen would be on the base of the old double garage. It is a good space with bifold doors at the end and three large additional windows that we have dressed with shutters.
The first thing we changed was our table. For years we had a gorgeous teak table that was very much loved. You know when wood ages and the scratches and marks from the kids actually add interest. We always loved the Saarinen Marble Tulip table from Knoll. We finally went for it and I am so pleased we did. I love marble and plan to have marble worktops in the next house if budgets allow.. We added velvet chairs to bring some softness into the space and actually it is a lovely contrast to the hard marble surface. The chairs are from Cult Furniture. We have two armchairs each end with an additional six chairs.
The sideboard we already had wasn’t really a factor when choosing colours. I bought this a few years ago from Ardingly Antiques fair. The Coca Cola sign is also antique and is originally from a shop in France. Again I love a mix of old and new and we have continued this throughout the house.
The next thing we decided to change were our six stools. When we designed the kitchen we always knew that we wanted a large island. It really is a social space. Anyone that visits stands or sits here with a coffee or more often a glass of rose! The island is walnut wood and our original stools were high backed cream leather. I loved them but felt they stopped the flow of the kitchen. We decided on brass and velvet stools again from Cult Furniture.
We added a few additions including these storage jars from Drink Stuff Now if you have a teenage daughter who loves the Kardashians they may look familiar! If not you will think I am mad! As you can see the carefully designed way to add the cookies doesn’t last long in our house! Placemats, lights, crockery and a few other bits and pieces were also added. The number 5 sign was again from Ardingly Antiques.
Our final update was to be a new sofa. Our trusty Ikea leather sofa was at least 10 years old and had served us very well. Having both young children and a puppy it was a brilliant buy but it had seen better days. We started the search and starting saving various pictures and ideas. We always knew about the gorgeous company Love Your Home.
When Love Your Home contacted me to come along to their Surrey showroom we were of course both curious and delighted. A family run business owned by Leigh an Abi Love Your Home was set up in 2008. Abi is the ex style editor of Elle Decoration and on arriving at the showroom we could see the stunning attention to detail and beautifully designed space. With two floors of sofas, beds and chairs all designed with sustainability in mind and environmental concerns. Fabric is sourced directly from third and fourth generation mills and frames are made with sustainably produced FSC certified Beechwood. Every piece can be designed to your specification with the made to measure service or you can work with the design team to create a truly unique piece of furniture.
Fabric choice and colours a plenty we decided on velvet. It definitely took some persuading but Jamie finally agreed on pink!
With so many amazing designs to choose from we really wanted a mix of modern and traditional. Not always easily to achieve in one significant piece of furniture but we finally decided on the Earl Grey design.
Next was which Pink?! Yes there were lots of varying shades… We came home with various fabric samples and compared each pink with our blue stools and chairs. The colours worked well so our final colour choice was Himalayan Pink.
We chose to have the sofa stain guarded. I am not sure that is the professional term but I am sure you know that this is important especially for kitchen furniture. I am careful but not precious about the house and knew that it would be something that would be well loved and used constantly!
Delivery was fairly quick as we were coming to the end of lockdown. The delivery company were outstanding and we were are offered the choice of one or two man delivery and a specific time slot which was great
We absolutely love our new sofa. It has added some luxury to our kitchen and the quality and beautiful design works perfectly. From our initial contact Love Your Home were a pleasure to talk to. Offering video appointments if you are unable to visit the showroom, a bespoke service, sustainability from materials to transport they really are a company I would recommend you consider.
Overall we are pleased with our new additions to the kitchen but still have itchy feet and will most probably embark on an exciting new house project soon…Watch this space!
Thank you for reading!
Love
Jane
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