I always think of January as the month for movie nights and lazy Sundays snuggled under a blanket together. The Christmas holidays go by in a frantic blur for us, with family and friends visiting. Evenings are spent around the dinner table, long after pudding has been finished and we seem to miss all the Christmas films!

The weather doesn't want to be kind, afternoons at the park are cut short on account of freezing fingers and the sun disappearing by 4pm. The comfort of home, the warmth of the sofa and the promise of popcorn always gets a big smile from our boys. 

On New Year's Eve we all smooshed together on one sofa and watched a Disney classic The Little Mermaid! I can still remember all the words to the songs and the boys jaws dropped when I added the accents! We are off to Disneyland Paris for my Mum's 60th and Ollie's 4th birthday in July and we are on a mission to introduce all the wonderful stories and characters to the boys!

And what a difference this LG MUSIC Flow System makes! We were lucky enough to be sent this wireless multi-room system from Currys and the discrete speakers have just found their way into little corners of the house. The sound bar sits neatly on the magazine baskets-come-television stand and I love that you can play music all around the house. Our more modest television has been given a new lease of life! Up to date sound technology, controlled through an app on your mobile phone. Ooh and the good thing is the app is available on iOS and Android or your PC.

We are now well and truly into the habit of nightly discos. A spinning, flashing disco ball has a permanent place in the family area and everyone who visits has to dance! Ollie is perfecting some wicked breakdancing moves which he expects all the grandparents to learn! The quality of the speakers is in a different league to the portable wireless speaker we have used in the past (The technical bit 24bit/192kHz is impressive for those of us that know what it means!) and we use Spotify to stream our favourite play list. The app allows you to connect through Deezer, Napster and Tuneln too. 

I've hidden the larger subwoofer speaker behind the sofa arm and the multi room speakers are now dotted around the house. You can either choose to play the same music around the house or stream your own favourites. So whilst the boys are downstairs enjoying Gangnam Style for the 150th time, I can shamelessly throw some Mummy moves (Why is it when you hit a certain age your dancing gets a little bit embarrassing?!) while I get ready to my current favourite song on loop, Uptown Funk. 

We like modern technology. But I also like making up to date devices fit into our home, without dominating the room. I like that the speakers are subtle. Simple, sleek and unobtrusive. Rich loves that the LG Music Flow detects when you are home, syncing with your mobile via the wifi, and through a stable connection that avoids breaks in the streaming. So we don't have the problems we had with our old Bluetooth speaker which only plays what the phone is playing!

It's worth taking the time to set up the system, download the app, for a powerful and high quality sound system. I like the nice touch on the app that you can choose to stream songs based on your mood or set up playlists to start at specific times by messaging the system with an instruction! We have renamed the speakers on the app based on which rooms they are in and we are able to control the volume of each of them through my mobile, instead of the boys being able to crank the volume up and upset all the neighbours!

We are now all set up for cosy film nights and making staying in the new going out! Ollie is now at an age where he will actually watch a film from start to finish and I can't wait to get through all my favourites from my childhood.

Here is my top 10! 

My brother and sister and I adored these films as children and Frozen has just got to be the Disney film of the next generation. We went ice skating over New Year and all the skaters were singing it loudly when it came over the tanoy.

But my ultimate favourite family film is without doubt The Goonies! One to wait for, until the boys are a little older (Mine have nightmares if we read about a story book with monster in it.) and one for them to love as much as we did! Rich and I still quote lines from the film all the time!

Are you like us and have family film nights? I'd love to know what family films are a must for your home movie nights! What are your absolute must sees?!

In collaboration with Currys

I grew up in a happy home. I remember noisy Christmas' with my cousins, Summer holidays at my grandparents flat in Southbourne and endless games of forty forty in our garden. My brother and sister and I made tents, put on shows and trailed our duvets down the stairs on Sunday mornings to watch a variety of films like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Slipper and the Rose and The Goonies.

And we may not have noticed but the house was made a home. With furniture and paintings and a wall of certificates of our childhood achievements. I remember the pine kitchen table and chairs, with a big Papa bear chair at one end and the red wood pieces in the lounge, which made it feel more special than the family play room. 

And that's what I want to create for my boys. A house bursting with things, really quite simple things like cushions and pictures, that make you feel happy. 

We love colour. A neutral backdrop and a sea of vibrant accessories to catch your eye. 

I've been searching the internet, writing down little interiors shops I stumble across, for places that understand and share my love of all things happy.

And then I found bluebellgray, and they found me.

Beautiful floral patterns, dynamic watercolour prints, I fell in love. I bought one of their peony print cushions and saved it for he moment when we had a dust free living room and dog dirt free sofas. And it felt like a very special moment, placing that treasured cushion on the plump new sofa seat!

So can you imagine how giddy I am to bring you these wonderful pieces from bluebellgray?!

Fi Douglas and her team have developed a product line that makes me squeal with delight. Textures, prints, textiles I want to fill our home with, managing to combine delicate with reliability. 

Richard shares my love of individual, mis matched painted crockery, but often despairs that none of them can go in the dishwasher! So he was thrilled when we had a holiday brunch that everything can be washed by mechanical hands. 

Sammy talks about my "precious things" he even commented that a friend started jumping on my  special cushion! And both of my boys notice what I do. They say, un-promted, that the table looks lovely, that the food is yummy, and it absolutely makes a difference how you serve things! Pretty plates make dishes seem a little tastier. They make ordinary food (And pre made dough ssh don't tell!) seem a little more extraordinary.

It's a skill to create a line that can go straight from a breakfast table to a celebration dinner. Rims that don't feel as though they are going to chip if you stack them in a cupboard, but evoke a garden party, Summer atmosphere.

The milk jug has been filled with milk, cream and tulips over Christmas and the bowls have been overflowing with popcorn, salad and oranges!

Versatile, yet feminine. And it has this ability to make you want to complete a set.

So I have a special treat for you today! Fi and the team at bluebellgray would like to offer a lucky reader one of their stunning watercolour tea trays. I have the same one on our living room table filled with candles and flowers and it's fast becoming my favourite photo prop!

All you have to do to win it is leave a comment on the blog or on this Instagram photo!

Now go and have a peek at their beautiful bedding collections, prints and rugs. Oh the rugs. Be still my floral, colour loving heart. 

I feel so proud to feature one of Great Britain's most talented designers. Scotland is very lucky to have bluebellgray. And so are we :)

The competition will close at midnight on Sunday 4th January and a winner will be drawn at random and notified on Monday 5th January. Good luck!

In collaboration with

Christmas this year felt like a sprint to the finish, which should have been a marathon. We really wanted to be at home for our first Christmas in the new house, and invited our family and lots of friends, who are yet to visit before the holiday period is over, to come and stay. It's felt like we have spent almost every spare second making the house feel like home.

A happy home.

When we first viewed the house, we didn't actually go inside. I knew as I tip toed past the front gate, that we were going to live here. The lovely lady who owned the house saw me snapping a couple of photos and popped her head out. 16 hours later, 2 hurried house tours and a frantic set of phone calls to the estate agent, and we knew we had found the forever house we had been searching for. 

It feels like a good house. It has good sturdy walls, window ledges that are begging to be filled with the photos that are buried in a box in the garage somewhere, it feels like a grown up house. A house that has been standing for 300 years and will still be standing in another 300 years. But I didn't want it to feel as though we were playing house, if that makes any sense?! I wanted Christmas at Charters to feel like everyone was coming home.

To be looked after, to make some new memories. To want to come back again next year!

We have been working hard to get our living room finished, a space for Rich and I to sit in and read, watch an episode of our favourite series, and entertain. No toys, nice sofas for sitting on, not jumping on! That goes for boys and dogs!

So when Farrow & Ball got in touch, I was thrilled to feature them and their beautiful range of paints. I adore their colours, their ability to develop exquisite finishes and depth to colours that can often feel flat. We knew we wanted a grey palette for the room, and Farrow & Ball's grey colour choices are inexplicably not cold. They give out warmth even though they are traditionally  cool tones. 

I loved the chalky grey of the Blackened paint. I knew it would work well with the pinks in the accessories around the room and the undercoat was like painting with milk. Creamy, smooth and helped to hide the lumps and bumps in our very old walls.

The room is quite a big square with windows and a door on all 4 sides and a wonderful inglenook fireplace with the original bread oven. A traditional drawing room which we wanted to respect, but also have a contemporary feel.

Under the carpet was the original herringbone oak flooring which had been carefully preserved for over 50 years! We love having hard floors downstairs because of the 2 sets of mucky paws that run around the ground floor and the next job is to polish and seal the wood and fit coconut matting to the french doors. We are also going to order the same striped curtains that frame the doors for the window seats to the back garden but have chosen to have grey linen roman blinds at the front windows. 

The colour changes with the light during the day, starting off with a more blue tone and then ending the day when the sun is low in the sky and streaming through the windows with a creamier tone. We used 2 coats on each wall and still have almost a whole tin left, which I have saved for a few other projects around the house. 

Now I get to add all the little pretty bits, and when the cards and decorations come down next week, I can start adding our lovely accessories that have been stored away for over a year. A vintage window frame mirror, all our family photos (Which may need a little updating now!) and trinkets. 

Farrow & Ball paints are distinctive and well respected. They set the tone of a room, they make it feel slightly more special because you know it's a Farrow & Ball colour. They have a great set of advice guides online for preparing your rooms, which undercoats to use to get the best finish possible and you can order a FREE colour card of their 132 colour options here. 

The room looks so different now, I'd love the previous owners to come back one day and hopefully love the love we are pouring into the house. 

Their paint has brought my vision to life. The soft chalky grey hints of the Blackened colour is the perfect backdrop to the wool mix sofas and I now need to choose a complementary colour to paint the very old dark wood furniture that has been unloved after 3 house moves in 1 year!

What do you think? Go for a neutral or go for a colour, like my beloved Edwardian sideboard which sits against the back wall to the hallway?! 

In collaboration with Farrow & Ball