Welcome

Welcome to my new-look blog. I have had a bit of an update and rebrand. We moved nearly two years ago, and I have a new life here in our little riverside village, similar in many ways from my old seaside home, but different as well. Our new abode feels much more like ‘the country’, our previous home, in the beautiful seaside village of Gullane, which is rapidly growing in popularity, especially now so many of us can work from home and it is very commutable from Edinburgh, felt a lot busier.

Our new village is much smaller and quieter, only 200 people live here and there is no school or shops or cafes. There is a pub, which, very excitingly, we have bought as a community, and we are all busy renovating. This is fun but can be eye wateringly time consuming for the very committed!

There is a village hall as well which is host to a never-ending source of entertainment: music nights, art and craft sessions and all sorts of workshops. You hardly need to go anywhere if you live here but luckily Berwick Upon Tweed is a 10-minute drive away and there are many useful shops, gorgeous cafes and bars and a train station so you never feel stuck or trapped.

A basket making workshop in our village hall…

I am not a fan of change, I am very home loving, hence my absolute passion for my job, so I found our move pretty traumatic: selling our house, which had been our family home for 18 years, felt wrong in so many ways, but we knew we wanted a change and then finding a new house that we liked as much, that was smaller, but had enough room for us to live and work in was much trickier than we thought it would be. But after two years, it is starting to feel like home. We have only moved an hour away, so I can go back and visit friends whenever I want, plus, I am surprised how happily we have settled here. In Gullane, look up, and all you can see is sky, which is stunning, of course, whereas, in our new home, all you can see is trees, also gorgeous. I feel very privileged to have lived in two such beautiful places.

The River Tweed - our new backyard!

Our little house which we saw a lot of potential in, is coming along nicely. I do not have an awful lot to show off yet because we are the world’s slowest renovators: we both wildly over-think I am afraid, so it takes us ages to decide on anything, but we are getting there, honestly!

We have painted most of the house a lovely soft stone emulsion called Natural Hessian by Dulux, we have left the woodwork a dark oak stain, as it was when we first arrived. This probably sounds a little dated and you are right, it is, but we have decided to stay with it and embrace the hint of nostalgia it gives the house, complete with the slightly fussy brass door furniture. As a contrast we have installed some quite severe black light fittings and now, every light switch and plug socket is matt black metal. Plus, we have ordered some raw steel column radiators from UK Radiators, not installed yet, just waiting for them all to arrive, accompanied by a helpful plumber!

Doug, the first day we moved in…

All this feels like really positive steps to a look we have committed to called ‘Japandi’, a cross between Scandi and Japanese style: clean lines and very simple, but with the addition of some dark wood and black graphic details, rather than the paler palette associated with Scandi design. We have given a nod to Wabi Sabi, the concept of repairing loved objects and making do with what you have, by keeping features like the traditional mouldings and cornicing in the house, rather than ripping them out for a more completely contemporary look.

Our living room today… not quite ready…

Still need to install those lovely new column radiators and then lay seagrass flooring… I will keep you posted.