It never ceases to amaze me at the fun opportunities in the blogging world. I was very lucky to be invited to the Chelsea Flower Show last week {one of my favourite summer events, remember this?} with Balance Me Beauty. It was a small blogger's event, just myself and the lovely Chloe Loves To Shop along with Amelia and Clem from Balance Me. You all know how much I love flowers and our garden so I was excited to get some new inspiration, plus Chelsea just comes alive for the event with all the shops decorating for Chelsea in Bloom which is a flower festival in itself. Lots of photos below if you'd like to see;

Hello! I'm home from all my travels and have soo many blog posts to write. I thought I'd start with the utility room today. 

Before we moved house, one of the things on our dream house list was a utility room. I mean, of course we didn't really need one, it's definitely a want rather than need part of a house but it's always been one of those things you wish for. Somewhere to put the laundry so you don't have to sort it in the kitchen, somewhere for more cupboard space, another sink, a spare fridge {dishwasher perhaps?!}. Also on the list was a boot room with a separate entrance so we could take all our muddy allotment veg through that way or go in with our boots after a muddy walk instead of worrying about the main hallway. Again, a complete dream rather than house necessity but when we started designing our new kitchen extension we figured that we're only going to do this once so why not design enough room in the build for both! It would future proof the house and mean that we could then free up more space in the kitchen. So fast forward a few months later and we nearly have a finished utility/boot room! The befores/during/after below - note it was very much a DIY job and a complete bargain.

Let's talk doors! One of the biggest reasons we wanted to knock down the 1970s kitchen extension the previous owners had built on our house wasn't because it was completely ugly. And it wasn't because it was small and cold and separate from the main living space of the house. Nope, it was to have more of a connection with our garden. To have big glass doors that we could look out of when cooking and step in and out of onto a patio when entertaining. In both of our houses having access to the outdoors has been a major desire in planning the space. We had bi folding doors in our last house and were tempted by them again for this house but in the end went for sliding glass patio doors. It's something we deliberated about for a while. I've discussed my decision with a few of you on Instagram before and while I've touched on it briefly in this post on our building work, I wanted to share more of my thoughts on the pros and cons of both below. And some ideas for pricing/suppliers etc. 

The third and final part of our Amalfi Coast Adventure. The weather was amazing for our last few days so we soaked it alll up. You can see parts one here and two here.

Parquet floors have been around forever, yet the classic herringbone pattern is having a resurgence as of late and is super on trend. We've got some classic parquet in a small section of our hallway, it's over a hundred years old. So we loved the idea of updating it for our new kitchen extension. We put a lot of solid oak planks in our last house, and in this house so far we've sanded back all the original floorboards, which all look great but plain floorboards get a bit boring after a while. We wanted to do something a bit different for the kitchen, so herringbone it would be! 

Long term readers/followers will remember the summerhouse that Ben built at the end of our last garden. I loved that pretty shed which gave a focal point at the end of the garden and I wished we could have picked it up and moved it with us. We always knew that we'd want to recreate it in this garden and after having some trees cleared from the garden last year Ben set on building this new one just before Christmas. It still needs some finishing off, I mean we haven't even put the plastic back in to the windows yet from when it was painted! And I want to add some pretty window boxes and maybe grow a climbing rose or clematis up it. I like the idea that it will age with the garden, evolving over time. Right now it's acting as storage for everything from our BBQ to our dahlias waiting to be planted to our tumble drier! Our storage is all over the place with the kitchen extension and knocking our garage down. But eventually I hope we can pretty up the inside and use it as an actual summerhouse/potting shed. All these things take time, and our main priority is the kitchen and patio but for now I'm really pleased with how this frames the garden, tying it all in. Some before/build photos below;