Lifestyle

It’s time to come clean – we have a weakness for design trends. We’ve tried hygge, cottagecore and colour drenching but we have really fallen in love with one current interior fashion and that’s Japandi. The best bit? This design style might just help you sell your home.

From cut flowers in vases and glossy-leaved houseplants to overflowing patio pots and on-trend terrariums, a healthy dash of flora and fauna will add extra appeal when it comes to selling your home. Here are three areas to focus on:-

The people at Pantone have recently released their colour of the year for 2023 and they plumped for a red called Viva Magenta. It’s a shade Pantone calls ‘brave, fearless, empowering and joyous’.

For 2023, the Dulux Colour of the Year is Wild Wonder – a soft, golden neutral that has both mustard yellow and earthy green undertones. The shade takes its inspiration from nature, reflecting the warm hues of harvested crops, and has the wonderful ability to subtly change colour according to the time of day and source of light.

For many of us, three little words have become the focus of our finances: energy price cap. This guide to the current energy situation answers many of the most commonly-asked questions and features advice for confused households.

Moving home presents an excellent opportunity to change purchasing habits, especially at a time when many people need new items. The small but conscious choices made can make a big, collective impact on the environment, and there’s no need to compromise on style either.

If you were lucky enough to have a spare bedroom in 2020, there is a high chance that you shoved the bed to one side (or got rid of it altogether) to make way for a home office.  In fact, ​​a report from Zoopla suggests that some nine million bedrooms were lost during the pandemic to other uses.

Designers have often used hand-picked books as props when dressing show homes but the art of primping with paperbacks really went mainstream during recent lockdowns.

Rather than batten down the hatches, take a leaf out of the Swede’s book and embrace fika. It’s the latest Scandinavian trend that celebrates all things cosy and warm, coming hot on the heels of Danish hygge and Dutch gezellig.

Design and decorating companies usually announce an annual ‘colour of the year’ – a shade that encapsulates a nation’s mood and complements current interior trends – and Dulux has been the first to break cover. It has announced that its Colour of the Year 2022 is Bright Skies.

If you’re due to complete on a property soon and want to keep it secure as you settle in, you may find our 6 essential security changes useful.

While we may only light the gas, fan the real flames or flick the switch of a stove-effect heater when it’s really cold, the mantelpiece is a year-round feature that you can dress to have a big impact. In fact, there is something called ‘mantelscaping’ – the art of arranging knick-knacks, trinkets and flowers on the ledge (the mantel) that sits above a fire.