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​I hadn't planned on creating a new workspace, it kind of just happened. One day, during lockdown, I mentioned how I'd like to work in our small guest bedroom as it's at the front so gets more sun, and wondered if we could swap them round. David wasn't overly keen and it did seem like a hassle/some top procrastination, but a week or so later we were looking for things to do and it suddenly seemed like a great idea!

This definitely marked the end of an era. Moving to a much smaller room meant packing up the side of my business I'd been falling out of love with to make sure there was room for all of the important stuff for moving forward. It was absolute chaos. I had instant regrets when both rooms were filled with piles of disorganised EVERYTHING. Why did I have so much stuff??

A day of work later and we had the layout of my new workspace! At this stage I decided I wanted to paint everything a muted green so I ordered a tin of Rust-Oleum Bramwell which we used on the desk, shelf and wicker chair. The chair was actually in the garage from when my parents were clearing out - it used to be in my nursery/bedroom growing up and has constantly changed colour. I covered the cushion with a fat quarter of gorgeous liberty fabric from eBay. I also found half a can of matte gold spray paint from a previous project in the garage, which David used to spray my old bright pink IKEA file shelves with. I love how they turned out! 

My favourite mini DIY that happened was the clock. This vintage frame was used for displaying brooches and the hands were taken off an old clock which didn't suit the new space. Those, combined with some floral fabric, make a fun but practical addition to my wee gallery wall. The botanical prints are all from CowParsleyCo on Etsy. Keeping to the botanical theme, I treated myself to some custom coasters from Flower Resin - they are made with daisies, ferns, pink petals and gold leaf. So perfect! My desk candle is from The Candle Bothy, I love the cucumber, ginger and mint scent, plus it's a bonus that the label matches perfectly!

Last but not least, is my lovely new pink velvet desk chair. I wanted to have a comfier space to sit as I'm so bad for going downstairs to work from the sofa in the living room. I can safely say it has increased productivity by 100%. It's my focus zone, but I can sit with my legs crossed and draw or cosy up with Daisy. I'd seen these in TK Maxx years ago and always wanted an excuse to buy one, but because it was during lockdown I managed to find a similar one on eBay.

Everything else we already had, it just needed a bit of reorganisation. I really love it and it's become a place I'm excited to spend time in. So cosy and inviting! As for the old studio, it's now a guest bedroom/gym/games room which makes for a much better use of space.

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If you've seen any of my interiors posts before, you'll know we love to challenge ourselves to DIY, upcycle and thrift as much as possible. This has meant most of our makeovers were done on tiny budgets, but this is the first where we admitted defeat and paid to get the stair carpet fitted! Other than that, this was a classic team Jilly and David job - I did most of the tedious banister painting (Autentico Versante Matt in Menta) whilst David was in charge of tiling the floor. David also removed the old shelf/clunky storage heater that didn't do much, and put up our beautiful floating sleeper shelf (eBay £30). This turned out to be a much bigger job than expected as he wanted it to be super secure, but it's so worth it as it really opens up the space and adds character. 

Meanwhile, I was rummaging through the house and garage to see what I could use to accessorise. I love this old spindly chair, but I'm not sure where it came from! We already had the drawers in the hall but they look much more at home in the new colour scheme, which is actually pretty neutral for us. I wanted the space to feel as light and airy as possible, so knew all the brown woodwork needed to be painted. The floor tiles were a big part of the inspiration for keeping it a more natural colour palette (£25.63m2 from Tiles Direct). 

Originally we were going to stick with just mint and greens to add colour but the pink snuck in through some of the accessories as I felt it added more warmth when paired with cosy lighting and touches of gold. The frames were mostly from charity shops and feature a mix of my own illustrations and photos, with some Etsy prints mixed in. (Let's Dance from PrintPunkStudio / Elton John from CarrissaTanton / Blah Blah Blah from StelleDesignStudio / Work Hard & Be Kind from mboldnstudio).

The beautiful Weaver Green rug was an early birthday present, it's made entirely from recycled plastic bottles! The mirrors are vintage - the one above the chair belonged to my great grandmother and the other was only £10 from Fancy That?. The glass light shades also have a vintage look but are actually just cheap ones from eBay. I also found the seagrass baskets on there which add a nice contrasting texture. Finally, we wanted to add some plants but I've tried keeping them alive in the hall before with no luck - there's just not enough sunlight sadly. So I've cheated and got a few lovely artificial plants from IKEA which definitely bring some life to the space.

It's quite hard to write a post like this without it becoming a list of products sometimes! I hope you've enjoyed seeing our hallway makeover, I'd love to know what your favourite part is?

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​I'd had some bar ideas on my Garden Inspiration Pinterest board for ages now, but it just seemed like one of those never-going-to-happen projects. We've had this empty, unused corner of the garden which I decided would be the perfect spot for one so it was time to convince David. I showed him lots of examples and he said if I did a sketch of how I wanted it to look, mainly using the scrap materials we already had, we could do it. Yesss!!

I can't believe how it's turned out! It's just so real. I initially thought I'd just be getting a fold down pallet shelf or something tiny. In the end we used a bunch of stuff from our garage junk collection - 3 pallets from materials deliveries, trellis for the roof (from a bin store David made), osb countertop (leftover from a garage repair), and the roof posts and monoblocks were salvaged from a skip trip.

Of course, with David being a landscape gardener he was able to magic up a lovely patio base, then he constructed the bar using my drawing as a guide. I was in charge of the stools and all of the painting (so much painting). The stools were £12 because of a lucky voucher situation, and I already had foam to use for the tops leftover from another project. I covered the tops with  this tropical leaf tablecloth (£6.99) which inspired the colour scheme. The paint cost £24 with lots leftover. The colours are Paradise Petals by Johnstone's and Seagrass by Cuprinol.

We did most of the work in a weekend, then I was just waiting for my solar lights to arrive to have fun with the styling. They look so pretty but sadly aren't working, so I've got to return them or I'd have taken a twinkly night-time photo. The other accessories were mostly just things we already had - the chalkboard frames are repurposed from my old tradeshow display. I did buy the floral garland on eBay though. Amazingly, in total we spent around £60! 

I hope you like our DIY bar! We can't wait to have some friends and family round for cocktail nights! I'll share the rest of our garden makeover soon.

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​Happy new year! It's been a while but since we've just finished our mini kitchen makeover I thought it would be a nice post to start the year. It's now been over 15 months since we moved into our house, the kitchen wasn't top of the DIY list as it wasn't too bad, just a bit plain. We wanted to give it a cheap and cheerful revamp and since David had time off after new year, what better time to go for it than the holidays??

The original kitchen was in good shape (apart from a couple of wee joinery bits that David fixed) so after a deep clean and light sand we were ready to paint. The paint we used is Autentico Versante Matt in Antique Rose which was £26.95 for 1L - we had leftover after 2/3 coats. Autentico says it's ideal for kitchen cupboards and that its 'built-in moisture membrane and UV filter makes it water resistant and prevent colours from fading'. It's only been on a few days but I love the finish so hopefully it stays that way!

To finish them off I chose some ceramic cream and gold drawer knobs which were from TK Maxx, I think they were £5.99 for 6. Of course, we have 13 kitchen cupboard handles but luckily I had a spare from another piece of furniture we upcycled last year!

I spent a while looking at various options for the tiles and couldn't decide, so opted for tile stickers which are a much more affordable and less permanent solution if I change my mind anytime soon. These were from Wall Genie on Etsy and were just under £40 for three packs of 30 so I could have the mix of colours I wanted and some spares. I ordered a sample at the start of October and stuck it on to see how durable it was, and found no issues at all. They were a little fiddly to apply perfectly, especially around the sockets, but real tiles would've been much worse!

Finally, we added to our vintage plates wall by hanging some diagonally up from the ones we hung when we moved in. I'm so pleased with the end result and it feels like such a happy space now.

I've been waiting ages to share this news... Our house has been featured in the October issue of Your Home magazine!!

This started way back when we moved and Alison of the Great Scottish Indoors got in touch after Rachel Henderson recommended our wee cottage. Of course, we had moved to a new house at this point and hadn't even unpacked properly, let alone made it our own, so I thought we'd have to pass up on the opportunity! Lucky for me Alison said to send over some pics once we'd finished part of the house and so the photoshoot was organised for March.

It's so strange to see our house in a magazine, especially with it being so budget and a mish-mash of DIY and hand-me-downs. I'm so glad I'm able to show an affordable alternative for interiors, making the most of old furniture, freebies, charity shop finds and upcycling. 

Thank you so much to Alison and Douglas Gibb photography!

You might have noticed my excitement on social media recently as we've been counting down to moving day. We've just bought our first house!! As of 21st September we became home owners and on Monday we spent the first night in our new home in Dundee. Of course we'll miss Falkland, and have loved our 3 years there, but we're only half an hour away should we fancy a visit! We're looking forward to being back in a city, especially a city with so many creative things happening, and can't wait to start exploring. 

First though we have a lot of unpacking and decorating to do. Of course, the priority is to get my new studio ready for work next week but with my Mum here she's been wallpapering the dining area which is actually the only area I planned out! If you'd like to see updates you should check out my Instagram stories but I can do some before and after posts once we're all done.
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So here's a quick image of the dining area plans. I love this wallpaper and can't wait to see how it all comes together! Better get back to work...
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I was delighted when Wayfair got in touch about a collaboration on home office spaces. They'd seen my previous studio tour post and asked if I'd like to write some tips on creating an inspirational work space.
I was to choose some items from their website and style them in the JillyJilly studio - choosing was the hard part! In the end I went for a wee teapot in a lovely aqua colour, some warm white berry lights and, my favourite, this gorgeous pink quote wall decal. 
Head over to the Wayfair blog to read the post which also features the offices of Lady Like Len and The Guilty Girl Blog.