Another thing I might have done is try to separate off the sitting room as it’s all very open plan downstairs. You flow straight through from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs and into the sitting room and now with slightly older children who want their own space, we all wish we could close a door on one another on occasion. I wish I’d done this at the end of the sitting area, so we had a separate little snug, or just as you go into the sitting room, where on reflection, a wall and a door would have been better than an open staircase. I’m thinking of hanging a thick felt curtain there, just to help divide the space a bit.
For practicality, something I might have done (and might still do) is to add double doors to our porch to separate it from the boot room, as everyone always comes pouring through covered in mud and if there was a separation, it would create a sort-of holding bay for muddiness!
The last thing is we planned all the lights on spec on a piece of paper and my light switches are so badly placed. You can only turn the light on for the porch once you’ve already unlocked the door and come inside, which doesn’t help when you’re fumbling for a key. A lot of the switches are in the wrong place in the sitting room and there’s one upstairs where I have to walk down the corridor in the dark to switch the light on. I wish I’d known more about lighting and how to plan it properly, especially as we hadn’t yet moved in and realised how we would use the space.”
“We don’t live in our old house anymore, and two years on, I still miss it every day. The layout worked well and I used it as a kind of lab to try out some of my design ideas – I loved having that freedom. One thing I would’ve approached differently was our sitting room, which had little direct natural light. Looking back, I could have leant into that a lot more than I did. I’d have upped the ante on the cosiness there and I would have hung curtains instead of the café curtain I used. I’d have been bolder on the wall and joinery colours in that room, plus I’d have added a floor lamp for a corner that was always too dark, but buying yet another lamp felt so excessive at the time. I like to think that if I did it again, it would be a braver version of what it was.”
Lucy Williams, digital creative, stylist and brand consultant
“I actually feel disloyal to our pretty blue kitchen saying this, but I think I would maybe go more neutral. A sandy-beige colour perhaps. I just adore Pernille Lind’s warm kitchen and a few others I found on Pinterest. I would definitely incorporate colour but maybe through a separate cabinet, island or dresser. I still love our kitchen so much but I think if I was doing it now, I would go down a different avenue of my brain.
