Conscious Home

Sign up to receive my Reclaimed Woman Column straight to your inbox

Better things for life, not just for Christmas

Better things for life, not just for Christmas

Offers on things that won't last or make our lives better are about to be everywhere as Black Friday promotions roll in. Don't get me wrong, it can be a good time of year to make big purchases like electrical appliances, tech or beauty staples at a "steal", but Black...

Finding oneself in Burniture

Finding oneself in Burniture

‘Our lives don’t need more things, things need to be given more lives’ read a corkboard beckoning me into the exhibition by Burniture, a new collective working with furniture that is skipped, unwanted, broken, about to be burnt… I am no stranger to street-found...

Salvage up my street 

Salvage up my street 

So far, I have salvaged an Arts and Crafts hall stand and the below late sixties lithograph poster from a Chagall exhibition at the Maeght Foundation in St Paul. I knew the Edwardian hall stand had value, but it was not until I researched the poster that I found it...

The Art of Tribal 

The Art of Tribal 

Ewe Kente textiles from the Volta region in Ghana © Tribal Arts & Textiles Art and design have the enviable ability to break down barriers that traditionally divide cultures. The universality of interiors that involve and speak to people around the world is surely...

Rainbows & Tiles

Rainbows & Tiles

My new flat is the equivalent of workout leggings. It’s comfortable and a little styling goes a long way, but I am anxious that renovating at a slow pace will be the home equivalent of a hard transition out of trousers with an elasticated waist.  My current sense...

Let’s get physical

Let’s get physical

As the leaves start to fall, it’s time to feel again with a plethora of physical decorative antiques fairs in the diary.  The last eighteen months have been challenging, but thanks to an unwavering business drive, digital community (and sales!) the architectural...

Salvo Fest of imperfect beauty

Salvo Fest of imperfect beauty

Save the dates 16 - 19 June 2021 because the original architectural salvage fair has found its new home, with the best bits of the virtual and real world to toast Salvo’s 30th Pearl Anniversary. Seven years ago I hadn’t even stepped foot inside a salvage yard, so my...

How to shop art now

How to shop art now

Kissing Couple silver brooch ©Modern Decorative The moment we’re experiencing is quite rightly making us pause for thought, what should we be buying if we feel we can spend money right now? No matter what the pandemic has done for your personal budget for life’s...

ethazon

ethazon

Wearing accessories from my new carbon conscious label ethazon When Beck and I first came together to create ethazon we desired an eco fashion place for people to dress for the world they want. Fast forward two years and we have seen a flurry of fashion trying to...

Hot Hot Hot! Reclaimed Woman

Hot Hot Hot! Reclaimed Woman

How will fashion become fashionable again after lockdown? We are waiting to see if the expected shift to more conscious shopping will be accelerated following the reflection time that beings, brands and businesses have had to take in the bigger picture. Categories...

wfh aka Wild From Home

wfh aka Wild From Home

Week three wfh and I am ready to be wild from home. The highlight of my weekend was singing Nirvana's Teen Spirit whilst dancing around the lounge with my husband. "You call that wild? You need to get out more" I hear you say. Yes, I do. And one day I will. We all...

Party dressing with ideas from Ardingly

Party dressing with ideas from Ardingly

I won’t try to dress-up the fact that this is consumption season and this week sets the spending scene with a bombardment of Black Friday offers.  Whether you are wrapping up your 2019 projects, buying gifts, or figuring out how to dress yourself and your home...

Clean cleaning with Norfolk Natural Living

Clean cleaning with Norfolk Natural Living

"You’re going to open a cleaning shop?!" questioned Bella Middleton’s mum when she came up with the idea to create eco-friendly cleaning products.  Now a fully fledged member of the Norfolk Natural Living team, Bella’s mum works in their shop in Holt, which has...

Ardingly wants to bring you flowers

Ardingly wants to bring you flowers

Ardingly Antiques & Collectors Fair showed its mettle (albeit disguised as petals )this week, as a major fair that continues to attract a strong following of dealers, designers and private buyers.  It could have been the sunny start and morning light hitting the...

Seasonal vegging & voguing

Seasonal vegging & voguing

This edit sums up my mood for the month ahead. It's that time of year when your pinkie ring should give you super powers and you can cloak your face and your body in pillows [when not showing off that you're capable of dancing in white whilst eating cranberry...

The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors

  Long gone are uninviting dark Dickensian cluttered shops. Antiques have entered a new (eco) friendly state where they have never been more desirable.  If you are excited to step back inside now that the number of hot days have outweighed ideas for al fresco...

Designing a happy wardrobe

Designing a happy wardrobe

I didn’t see myself squeezing into another capsule challenge so soon - having spent 6 of the coldest weeks in just 6 items of clothes for Labour Behind the Label at the start of the year - but this was too good to resist… 10 items, 10 days, easy right? Ah, but this...

Guilt Tripping

Guilt Tripping

Having recently calculated that the renovation of my flat is 4x more sustainable than one planet living, I could be feeling smug, but with two flights in the pipeline next month I am less carbon footprint proud.  Let me explain… One Planet Living is a framework...

Conscious Consumer

Conscious Consumer

  Encaustic tiles The Vintage Floor Tile Company Artelli Canasto bag from Rev En Vert Organic cotton shirt & organic denim skirt both War & Drobe   [If you're in London get yourself down to War & Drobe at 31 Lamb's Conduit Street from 14th - 27th May...

Sustainability in the City

Sustainability in the City

I know Sex in the City has been relegated to box-set territory but sometimes I refer to my flat as sustainability in the city, because like Carrie Bradshaw, I keep sweaters where my stove would have been. Reflecting on the moment I decided to turn my kitchen into my...

Six Items Challenge : Day 33 is Green Day

Six Items Challenge : Day 33 is Green Day

My Six Items Challenge made packing simple for a last minute work trip to Madrid.  I got out the Gabriele Vintage green dress - a symbol of fresh starts and progress, as we think of the green light as go. This Maison Bengal bag I got from Tidy Street general store in...

Six Items Challenge : Day 7 and 8

Six Items Challenge : Day 7 and 8

I saw the Queen yesterday (the day I wore jeans).  More on that later as I didn’t have the energy to write last night. This morning my friend made me chuckle with a link to an Inc. article - Why Successful People Wear the Same Thing Every Day You see by wearing the...

Six Items Challenge : Day 2

Six Items Challenge : Day 2

Six weeks wearing only six items of clothing - one of which is this white Reformation dress.  I'm glad to say it survived day one of the challenge and Valentine's Day date night.  Big napkins are a must for me now. Support and share my page here 📣 ©Photograph...

Conscious Christmas Gifts

Conscious Christmas Gifts

Fashion Revolution fanzine #001:Money Fashion Power  pages of poetry, illustration, photography, graphic design and editorials that explore the hidden stories behind our clothes green rose earrings by Gung Ho from Ethical Collection nothing more, nothing less t-shirt...

PR 101: I am enough

PR 101: I am enough

Just like a business, we personally rely on our reputation so we should all know a bit about PR.  The other week I saw movement maker and musician, Charlie Dark talk about his life through the theme of encouragement. The plus one of a friend, I had no idea what I...

Back to school with Midcentury East

Back to school with Midcentury East

Run, don’t walk through the gates of Goldfinger's Haggerston School when the Midcentury East show returns to the London Borough of Hackney on 15 October 2017 - for pieces like this psychedelic film poster from exhibitor Orson & Welles will be in high demand. It...

Wo-man Reclaimed Woman

Wo-man Reclaimed Woman

Chinti and Parker  /  Westland London I just watched the nineties classic So I Married an Axe Murderer for the first time.  If you haven't seen it, I urge you to check out Mike Myers' beatnik poetry performance from the film.  Hence why my...

4 home fashions to note now for the cosy season

4 home fashions to note now for the cosy season

Whether you're into antiques or not, Tallboy Interiors takes a new approach to old interiors that can inspire us all for the cosy season ahead. On his 18th birthday, Matt Dixon of Tallboy Interiors was given £1000 from his parents to spend as he wanted.  Instead of...

My shoe wardrobe for a sink

My shoe wardrobe for a sink

Lulled into a false sense of ceramic security by the fact my mum had a Belfast sink in her back garden (don’t most mums?!), I was expecting a kitchen sink to be one of the easiest things to source.  I would have taken my mum’s, but she is saving it for her own...

Conscious Consumer

Conscious Consumer

  Carla Colour Lind recycled sunglasses from Ethical Collection Amour jute tote The Jacksons  also check for the jute totes on Ethical Collection & at their Portobello pop-up shop open until 30th July 2017. They have a delicious selection of Carla Colour...

Are you ready for your bathroom reno?

Are you ready for your bathroom reno?

Think you are ready for your renovation project, then prepare to neglect your usual e-com candy for sites like Broken Bog. My daily scroll of choice was Style.com when I started planning my flat renovation, which has since been discontinued as Condé Nast partner with...

Greek green living in Athens

Greek green living in Athens

I just visited Athens, city of marble for the first time.  The Greek side of my husband's family visited us in London before we all headed to a big fat Greek wedding in Athens. I'll keep references to that film brief, but it's been a running joke since my first dinner...

Woman, Reclaimed

Woman, Reclaimed

One year ago I left my corporate fashion job to follow a more conscious life. My job gave me pleasure and pain, and enabled me to buy my first home in west London. Like a secret diary, I started to blog about my journey into a more sustainable existence (shoe...