I went off interiors books for a while and don’t read as many interior blogs any more because there can be a little too much of this perfect looking home thang and, I don’t know about you, but, even when I get the cleaner in, the house quickly unravels in a matter of hours! Still, I was curious to check out Creative Family Home (£19.99, Ryland Peters & Small), an interiors book focusing on ‘Imaginative and original spaces for modern family living’, as we’ve just sold our home and are about to rent a bungalow for several months while looking for the next BG HQ.
Ashlyn is the owner of Stoke Newington based Olive Loves Alfie, an on and offline boutique specialising in British and Scandi buys. A creative whirlwind with a daughter that actually does circus training, she’s really friendly and this comes across in the book which is an inspiring, heart warming walk-through of achievable family spaces.
Within a couple of pages of Creative Family Home, never mind the rest of the book, I felt buzzy and brimming with ideas that feel more than achievable instead of feeling deflated. As a BG reader, you will recognise many of the items scattered through the pages, possibly because you own them already. There’s no out of reach spaces and she covers subjects like creating dens and secret bolt-holes, to homework areas, to collections and how to display them, to ideas for creative spaces and the mountain of arts and crafts gear including washi tape, plus she features homes with styles including ‘Vibrant Vintage’, ‘Heartfelt Folk’, ‘Urban Hub’, and ‘Seagull Skies’. It gets extra brownie points for the fact that the rooms are obviously styled but there are signs of ‘clutter’.
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