A More Modern Cladding Effect

As most of my readers know I am something of an interior design tart. I am a keen watcher of everything from Kirstie’s Handmade to DIY SOS and love to dabble in new design styles. Pinterest is a great source of inspiration as are the design blogs I love to read and one curious “comeback” style I have stumbled across recently is the new popularity surrounding wall cladding.

 

It turns out cladding is quite popular these days, this is just one of the many cladding-inspired pins on Pinterest at the moment.
It turns out cladding is quite popular these days, this is just one of the many cladding-inspired pins on Pinterest at the moment.

For many, wall cladding invokes images of dark dingy wooden cladding in stuffy drawing rooms however times have changed. I saw several cracking pictures recently of how cladding changed a room when I was researching the new colours for my living room (grey/yellow/mustard but don’t tell Roy, I haven’t told him yet I’m changing the colour scheme again).

When the Decor Cladding Centre was introduced to me I was tickled to find that what I thought of as cladding, while not as old fashioned as some views, is actually quite modern and that you are now even able to get bathroom cladding and bathroom wall panels which completely change the way that your bathroom looks and yet is not susceptible to mould and the other nasties that comes with being in a warm and damp environment such as a bathroom.

There certainly seems scope for cladding to change a lot of rooms in a dramatic way (great if updating a property for example) and this is something I may well look closer at in the future, especially instead of replacing tiles!

cladding main

*This post was written in collaboration with the mentioned business yet is true to my own thoughts, feelings and experiences. It turns out that I do actually get most excited by the idea of cladding and other such interior design related things things.

New Suite Virgins

Here is something you don’t know about me…. I’ve never owned a brand new sofa or suite. Seriously!

The first home Roy and I moved into came furnished with an old Chesterfield suite (Looked nice but was damn uncomfortable!). We then inherited some soft squishy blue sofa from family and later a gorgeous oak framed set that lasted us years but died spectacularly when I sat my large pregnancy bum down on one end and it conceded defeat and collapsed (not my finest moment).

After that there was the orange duck filled suite (never again, those damn feathers got everywhere), a catalogue fake leather thing which I’m not counting as new as it was so naff and broke (yes broke) within a week. Now we have a quite nice honey coloured suite that I got in a house clearance sale for £60 but would have paid £300 for easily.

There you go, my somewhat murky sofa past. What we have at the moment is actually ok but I really am looking now for something that fits the room and the family properly. It may be my Yorkshire roots or frugal mindset but I do balk at the idea of paying out for brand new when I know I can get cheaper. The difference is of course that if I want quality I am going to have to pay for it.

Having not really done the whole suite browsing thing I’ve been quite surprised at how reasonable a suite is nowadays. When we first moved in together a brand new suite was a luxury that we just couldn’t afford. HelloSofas for example have a wide range of sofas which tick all of our boxes and won’t have us eating baked beans for the next twelve months.

Being a new suite virgin however I am asking for your  sofa wisdom. What is your top piece of advice for choosing a suite? We have no pets but do have two small monkeys, Roy and myself to seat. I’d love to hear what you think the must do and must not do points are when sofa shopping, particularly online.

sofa

 

Photo Credit

*Remuneration has been received for the writing and posting of this post yet the content is my own and true to my own thoughts, feelings and experiences.