A personal home does not happen overnight.
It certainly doesn’t happen after a few hours of adding things to cart thinking, “this is it!”, without realising that you are only doing so because you’ve seen it precisely 26,834 times on social media that week.
A home that feels like your home isn’t quite as simple as that, but I’m not suggesting it’s by any means complicated either.
What I am trying to say is that a home that feels truly yours happens organically. Accidentally on purpose, if you will.
My prized possessions have often been found when in search of something else entirely. That something else is soon forgotten when you spot the vintage Pierrot clown on a laminate shelf between a sparkly purple tea candle holder and a “Happy 21st” gift-boxed wine glass.
Or when you bring home an object that you already know someone you love is going to absolutely hate, but you love it enough not to give a shit.
You try to upcycle something and it goes brilliantly. Or terribly. Or maybe even just a bit meh, but you pretend you’re happy with the job.
Little by little, one random wall tile at a time, those things start to make your home yours.
Bargain Hunt
If you want a home that doesn’t look like a carbon copy of next door, second-hand is probably one of the easiest places to start.
Charity shops, car boot sales and Facebook Marketplace are full of things other people think are crap or simply no longer want, which is excellent news for the rest of us.
One man’s trash and all that.
Facebook Marketplace in particular is one of my favourite places to look, not least because I don’t have to get out of bed to do so. But also because I don’t realistically have the time or mental fortitude to drag two whining children, kicking, screaming and ripping each other’s hair out, around the local car boot.
Sometimes I don’t even search for anything specific. I just set my area, type in free, and see what appears.
This is admittedly easier if you have a big car.
Although, in my experience, a woman on a mission can fit pretty much anything into anything, and move ANY piece of furniture to wherever it needs to go. I once rolled a 1970s sideboard up the stairs because it just had to be done at that minute.
Second-hand is also one of the easiest ways to make a room feel different from everyone else’s.
There is nothing wrong with liking something popular, of course. But if every object in your home has been bought because you have seen it repeatedly on social media, it becomes very easy to end up with a house that feels more like a feed than a home, and one that grows boring very quickly.
Cough cough. Gluggle jug.
Upcycling: The Trials and Tribulations of
I am a big proponent of upcycling.
I know. Even the word can sound slightly worthy, and I can see you rolling your eyes.
BUT there is something incredibly satisfying about seeing something come back to life, whether the finished result looks exactly as it did in your mind’s eye or not.
And sometimes it really, really does not.
One of my first attempts involved a made-to-measure linen-look blind that I decided to decorate myself with fabric paint.
I am more of a doer than a thinker, an act-now-or-the-moment-will-be-gone kind of girl.
I did not do my research.
I didn’t know you were supposed to dilute the paint. I didn’t think ahead about mixing colours so they would stretch further. I basically launched myself at it with the enthusiasm of a Pomeranian barking at the hidden invader behind the front door and very little planning.
I hated the finished result.
And then I had to fall asleep looking at the bloody thing for approximately eight years.
Because I couldn’t justify throwing out a perfectly functional made-to-measure blind and buying another one simply because my first attempt hadn’t gone to plan.
So perhaps there are two lessons here.
One: upcycling is incredibly satisfying.
Two: maybe Google a few things before you begin.
And it doesn’t all have to be wildly original or painstakingly hand-drawn either. Sometimes a pre-made stencil, perfectly positioned, is exactly what something needs. The point isn’t to prove you made every mark from scratch. It’s to take something ordinary and make it feel more like yours.
Rome Was Not Built in a Day...
I think there can be a strange pressure to “finish” a room.
You move in, decide on a look and suddenly feel as though you should buy everything at once.
But the homes I find most interesting rarely feel finished.
They contain things gathered over years. Something expensive next to something that cost £3 in a charity shop. A contemporary print above an old chest of drawers. Something your kids made at school and something rescued from someone’s driveway.
Those combinations are difficult to manufacture in one enormous online shopping session.
And they shouldn’t need to be.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave a gap and wait for the right thing to appear.
The £15 Curtains
I’m still learning now.
At the moment, I’m working on a pair of vintage curtains I found on Facebook Marketplace.
I know my house is going to be freezing in winter, but I also know I don’t have the thousands of pounds required for the beautiful made-to-measure, lined, heavyweight velvet curtains that currently exist only in my head.
So Marketplace it was.
I found vintage curtains that were almost perfect. Good quality, properly heavy, the right size and the precise cost of £15 for two pairs.
The only problem was the colour.
Oh yes, and the hour-long drive.
Aaand the realisation, upon opening the bag, that the previous owner was a 40-a-day, puff-away, windows-closed kind of guy.
Luckily, thanks to the Sahara-like drought that August landed us in, a few weeks in the fresh air and a few good sprays of Febreze, they were almost as good as new.
So I decided to illustrate them myself.
It is not a quick project.
There are four individual curtains to work on and, at the moment, I’m about three-quarters of the way through one panel.
But I absolutely love how they’re turning out.
And once they’re finished, I know I won’t walk into someone else’s house and see exactly the same curtains hanging there.
That, really, is the point.
Getting there... very sloooowly
Your New Favourite Thing Could Already Be Staring You in the Face
You don’t always need to replace something because it isn’t quite right.
Sometimes it just needs another go.
A different paint colour. New handles. Fabric. A lampshade. A frame. A bit of illustration. A stencil. A completely different purpose.
Some of my favourite things in my own home started life as Marketplace or charity-shop finds and only became right once I had changed them.
That is part of the fun.
You are not just shopping for the finished article. You are looking for potential.
Charity shop frame with my Cherub Tea Towel
Art Is One of the Easiest Ways to Add Personality
Art is brilliant (duh!). It can change the mood of a room without asking very much of you.
You don’t need to repaint an entire wall to introduce colour. A print can bring in shades you would never have chosen for paint, and you can move it whenever the mood takes you.
I also think art works best when it feels collected rather than prescribed.
I will die on this hill: you do not need every print in a gallery wall to belong to the same set.
Mix things you have bought, inherited, found second-hand or made yourself - start with whimsical folk prints if you want walls that feel collected rather than catalogue-cold.
A gallery wall should tell you something about the person who lives there. It shouldn’t be purchased from Temu as an instant magic room transformer.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Strange and Unusual
Sometimes the piece that makes a room interesting is the thing that doesn’t quite make sense.
The weird bit of tat you brought home from your holibobs.
The clock that doesn’t actually tell you the time.
The picture you love but everyone else just doesn’t get.
The thing you know someone close to you is going to hate on sight.
These are the things that make a home feel like somebody actually lives there.
If something makes you smile every time you walk past it, it has probably earned it's place.
Aforementioned Pierrot
Little terriers left by previous owners
Mix Old and New
You do not have to choose between a completely vintage home and a completely new one.
Mixing the two is where the interesting bit happens.
An old chest of drawers with a contemporary print above it. Vintage curtains next to a new sofa. A charity-shop vase beside something handmade. A modern cushion on an old chair.
The contrast stops a room feeling too styled.
And it also means you can spend money where it matters and save it where it doesn’t.
Not every object in your home needs to be an investment piece.
Sometimes £4 and a lick of paint will do perfectly well.
Stop Trying to Finish It
Your home will never be “done”.
There is no final reveal. And that’s how it should be.
It changes over time, just as we all do.
If you get bored of something, stick it on Marketplace or donate it. Repaint it or move it somewhere else where it suddenly feels new again.
That is not decorating failure. That is just living in a house.
A personal home is built from all of those decisions, experiments, mistakes and lucky finds.
So if your home doesn’t yet look exactly how you want it to, don’t panic-buy the entire contents of an interiors trend.
Leave some space.
Go for a wander around a charity shop.
Try something.
Get it wrong.
Try again.
The best homes, I think, are the ones that could only really belong to the people who live in them.
At Queen of the Rodeo, I make whimsical art prints and homewares for exactly that kind of home: one that is collected, changed, added to and very definitely lived in. Where it all just comes together. Accidentally on purpose.