Our house renovation is in no way nearing any kind of finish line. The downstairs is still pretty much a building site, with the snug and dining room area both being used as dumping grounds until the work kicks off again (come on Gareth haha!) While the slow progress may have dampened my enthusiasm for buying furniture and wallpaper by the truckload, there is one thing I can do to make everything feel a bit prettier: Covering the walls in as much art as possible!

Whenever I post a new print on my Instagram I’m flooded with messages from people asking where I acquired it, so today I thought I’d share ALL my sources with you.

I’ve framed nearly every one in plain white frames from Wilko. I actually quite like the uniformity of having them in the same frames and they are so cheap. In terms of actually hanging them, Command Strips have been a lifesaver. They’re probably not the most cost effective way to do it (nails and a hammer would be approximately 1/100th of the price) but using them means when we come to paint the walls, in theory, we can take all the prints down without damaging the surface. I say “in theory” because a chunk of plaster did actually come off with one of the frames when I moved it the other day. But I blame our old shitty plaster and the fact I just pulled the frame off, rather than removing the strips in the way they tell you do, rather than the product itself.

Yes, the back of our living room door is mint green. An odd choice by the previous owners but I’m kinda living for it.

Anyway, here we go, these are all the prints I’ve collected recently!

Prince, David and George from Bold and Noble. I actually called some of these in for a photo shoot recently and I was overjoyed when Bold and Noble offered to send me some for keepsies. The pops of colour makes me so happy and who the hell wouldn’t want some of their favourite musicians on their wall?

Don’t tell the others, but pink George is totally my favourite.

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Renovation pro tip: If you want to get your significant other to step up their DIY game then plan a photo shoot in your building site of a home as a matter of urgency!

A few months ago I booked a collaboration with a super cool wedding brand (more on this soon!) and had the idea to shoot some of their products in our house. At the time I figured that surely by November the rooms we wanted to shoot in would almost be finished… or could at least be passable for the purposes of some staged shots.

WELL my friends, any of you that have embarked on your own renovation project will know that this was potentially one of the most stupid and stress-inducing ideas I’ve ever had. A week before the shoot and we still had the old curtains (that came with the house and looked like they hadn’t been updated since 1987) up, no skirting boards, power sockets hanging off the walls and a whole heap of junk in the corner. Brilliant.

Luckily I am married to a man who works best under a very specific set of criteria – the foremost of these being A DEADLINE. I’m the kind of nerd who did her homework at least a week before it was due, Gareth’s the kind of infuriating bastard that would do his on the bus on the way to school and still get straight As. Give Gareth a hard and fast deadline and he shines…. Be it all at the last possible second.

So three days before the shoot, Gareth comes to me and says “Hey, wouldn’t the shoot look better if we had a fireplace in the room?“ “Er yes, yes it would”, I replied, not thinking he’d actually tackle such a massive task with just 72 hours to spare. But deadline-loving Gareth not only got on with it, he got the project done in record time… even if he was still painting the walls 30 minutes before the photo shoot crew were due to arrive.

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I have always dreamt of owning my very own neon sign for my office, something custom designed just for me that would make a big statement. But I assumed this was probably a bit of a pipe dream because of the expense and logistics. That was until I discovered bag&bones who were able to make my neon sign dreams come true!

Offering a large range of pre-designed signs from as little as £59, as soon as I stumbled across them on Instagram I was hooked. I then discovered that they offer a bespoke design service, where you can bring your own vision to life. So, of course, I emailed them immediately to find out the cost and if my rainbow sign dream could be made into a reality.

Their prices for smaller custom designs start from as little as £225 (mine was closer to £750 because of the size and number of colours), and bag&bones can translate everything from brand logos, classic lyrics and favourite quotes to energy efficient LED neon.

You can be as involved in the design process as you like, either submitting your own logo/ design or giving them some ideas and letting them come up with something fabulous. I actually spoke to our lead designer here at Rock n Roll Bride, Shauna, to ask her for font ideas (obviously I love her aesthetic and designs so she was definitely the person to ask for advice!) and she suggested this classic neon font. bag&bones were then able to take this, add the rainbow to the top and voila! Delivery was free and it took around 6 weeks to arrive once I’d confirmed my order.

I can not even TELL you how happy I am with my sign! Even Gareth loves it… Now I wonder if he’ll be up for getting another for the front room!? The sign is made of LED rather than traditional gas/glass neon, which not only keeps the costs down but means it way easier to install. You literally hang it on the wall like a picture, plug it in and go!

I’m yet to hang it on the wall, but I’m going to make it the centrepiece of a gallery wall in my office. I’ve bought some super cute prints from Society 6 and white frames from Wilko. It’s going to look amazing (if I do say so myself!)

Henry is a bit of a fan too, he loves the pink light and seems to want to stare at it just as much as I do!

BEST. PURCHASE. EVER. The end.

I have a new obsession: Coloured contact paper. Since I’ve discovered I want to upgrade all of my inexpensive furniture items with it. It’s usually less than £10 a roll, easy to find (Amazon has an enormous selection and I’ve also seen it in B&Q and Wilko) and comes in a myriad of colours and patterns. It’s also the easiest thing to do, honestly if I can do it, anyone can!

You simply clean the surface you want to stick it, cut it to size and then carefully stick it down. I run a credit card over it as I go to make sure there are no bubbles or lumps. You then use a sharp blade to trim the edges. I was going to do a step-by-step DIY tutorial for this post but it really is that easy.

So far I’ve done the top of my desk in a marble effect (which I found at Wilko) and my IKEA chest of drawers in a copper metallic finish (from Amazon) and honestly it looks so good. Even Gareth, who’s harsh critic at the best of times, has commented on how great both of them turned out – praise indeed!

The hack will work on pretty much any hard surface so whether you have a bedside cabinet, a coffee table or even your kitchen work top that needs a cheap upgrade, I’d definitely encourage you to give it a go. It’s pretty hard wearing and really easy to wipe clean too. You really can’t go wrong and if it looks terrible you can just peel it right back off again. If we weren’t planning to redo our kitchen imminently I’d be covering our kitchen counter tops in a marble effect too believe me!

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