All posts filed under: Gardening

Our outdoor space – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

When we bought our little house nearly seven years ago. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but in terms of its location and the surrounding area, it gave us everything we actually needed. Or should I say, it had the potential to. Our house, 2012. Estate agent’s pic Earlier this year I wrote a post showing you all of the rooms inside. What they were like when we moved in and how they look now. You can have a nosey inside here if you like. The one space we’d never tackled fully was the outdoor space. A front and rear garden with a long driveway connecting the two. Pretty standard for a 3 bed semi. Rear garden, 2012 – Estate agent pic We had done plenty to the rear garden over the past six years but never dealt with any of the building work and nitty gritty. Our driveway was a crumbling mess, drainage being a real problem, the front garden was on a slope and retained water like a sponge and the steps to our …

Time for the BIG garden overhaul – The landscaping has finally begun!

Published by Karen Knox

It’s time. Finally! After 6 years of being in our normal, average sized, 1960’s semi-detached, family home, we’ve done all of the big building jobs inside. Which can only mean one thing; it’s time to tackle the outside! And it couldn’t have come at a better time as our driveway was falling apart. Let me walk you through some of the garden projects we’ve done to tart up the space whilst eagerly awaiting the big overhaul. Back in 2015 You can see what a bad state the driveway was in then, another three years on and it was becoming, well, embarrassing. Summer 2015, The Chalkboard Wall The outdoor blackboard worked a treat to disguise that ugly concrete brick wall for a few years, but after the loft extension in December 2016… … our outdoor space took a hammering and was completely neglected during the epic 17 week build. I gave it a little budget revamp as part of the #UKHomeBlogHop in Summer 2017. It got us through Summer 2017, but 2018 was the year we …

My Summer Style with Primrose - Garden Makeover #UKHomeBlogHop

My Summer Style with Primrose #UKHomeBlogHop

Published by Karen Knox

Welcome welcome one and all to my small part in this summer’s #UKHomeBlogHop organised by the super sexy Kimberly Duran of Swoon Worthy. There are 27 of the UK’s best interiors and home design bloggers taking part in this “hop” and we’re all sharing with you our summer style for 2017. Big thanks to Kate from Fabric of my Life for sending everyone my way. For those of you that are new to Making Spaces (and if you’re a nosey bugger), you can have a snoop around our house here. In the meantime, let me catch you up. We completed our loft conversion at the beginning of the year which gave us a great new second floor to our 3-bed semi. You can read all about the 17 week process over here. Oh my god, i’m so ashamed. Don’t judge me. What it didn’t leave us with, however, was a very nice outdoor space. The scaffold and building work had taken its toll on our patio, driveway and lawns. It was a complete disaster zone. So much …

Black Beauty

Published by Karen Knox

If you’re a person of a certain age, you’ll be humming the soundtrack to this right now. If you don’t know what i’m on about, well bully for you for being young. **blows raspberry** My Black Beauty isn’t a horse (I don’t really like horses. You can’t see both of their eyes at the same time. Creeps me out). Our Black Beauty is our new swanky and very sexy, black gloss chiminea from chimineashop.co.uk. We’ve never had anything like this before. Oh I tell a lie, we did reuse our old washing machine drum as a fire pit. But to be honest, it’s wasn’t the luxury outdoor heating experience I was hoping for. It stank, was really smokey, looked just like a washing machine drum and man, it got hot. So I was really excited to finally own my very first chiminea. Something fit for purpose. Before selecting one (turns out there are loads to choose from) I spent a fair amount of time reading up on the pros and cons of Cast Iron, Steel and …

The (not so great) Outdoors

Published by Karen Knox

There’s one bit of our house that we’ve just not really tackled yet. It’s our awful outdoor space. Not all of it horrendous by any means, some of it is pretty nice actually. See. The offending area is our driveway and rear patio. Ya know, the non green areas. If I have just one more tradesman knock on my front door and ask “do you want your driveway doing love?” I am going to lose my bloomin rag. Mark my words. (But actually, yeah, I really do want my driveway doing.) A photo of our gross driveway from last year So why haven’t you done it then? It’s not because we’re lazy arse sods, it’s because we were going to have an extension down the side of the house, so it didn’t make sense to spend time and money on a space we were planning to build on. So we’ve just put up with the concrete/tarmac/slab disaster and focused on all things indoors. I honestly need a medal for putting up with this ^ We did make some …

Pantone Spring Colours

Published by Karen Knox

Remember I introduced you to Pantone’s Colours of the Year in January ? Since then i’ve seen Rose Quartz and Serenity popping up everywhere. From artwork to marketing, interiors and fashion, even influencing a current Making Spaces project. Pantone have since released their “colour report” for Spring 2016. A palette chosen by top industry experts to compliment and contrast both the blush pink and iris-y blue. “Like a serene sunset, flushed cheek or budding flower, Rose Quartz reminds us to reflect on our surroundings during the busy but lighthearted spring and summer months.” “Weightless and airy, like the expanse of the blue sky above us, Serenity comforts with a calming effect, bringing a feeling of respite even in turbulent times. A transcendent blue, Serenity provides us with a naturally connected sense of space.” The “Transporting and Transformative”optimistic palette is no shrinking violet. This ten strong colour canvas is rocking some real stand out colours, ready to add a spring to your step this Spring 2016. As you probably know, I’m not the biggest “brights” fan for interiors. I love colour, but …

The Live Table

Published by Karen Knox

As you’ve probably learnt by now, I love a bargain. If there’s one to be found, i’ll find it. But I put the hours in. You’ve got to spend the time looking to get real good at it. So on ANOTHER trip to Ikea (Jesus, I know), and during a quick trip to Bargain Corner (which should be called, “Hi Karen nice to see you again), I came across these. Ikea ENHOLMEN, sectional garden chairs. Priced online at £45 each, these were brand new in their boxes at £10 each. £10!! I had no idea where I was going to put them, but I was damn well sure going to find somewhere. I ummed and aahed about how many to get and decided that as there was only three in our little family, i’d get one each. We have a smallish patio area which originally had our little bench on which was saved from a trip to the tip. A few screws and a paint job and it was as good as gold again. It …

Goodbye Ugly Wall

Published by Karen Knox

So recently I wrote a post about our recent garden sprucing, which included new furniture, splashes of colour and a home made planter. But I failed to draw attention to this ere eyesore above. The mingin’ concrete wall boundary wall. Luckily our neighbours agree it’s bloody horrible so they were happy for me to attempt to make it look a little better from our side of the garden. The driveway and patio are also completely knackered, but we are planning an extension down the entire side of the house in the next few years, so no point in paying to get the wall, patio and driveway re-done. So that’s why it looks so rubbish. All in all. This bit of the garden sucks. I was stuck with how best to improve this area as I wasn’t allowed to eat up any driveway space. It’s already tight to get the car down the drive, so there was literally no floor space to use. So I played around with some ideas: Ivy – Nowhere to plant it and takes …

Oh my!

Published by Karen Knox

I’m a nightmare to buy gifts for. I have very specific tastes when it comes to most things (everything). Most people buy me vouchers, give me the receipt and my parents have just resorted to cold hard cash for birthdays and the like. This is normally put towards something interiors-y, but practical stuff like a new laundry basket or bedding. My other half thinks I take the fun out of him buying me presents. Apparently I request boring “non-gift like” items. The most contentious being new door handles for our front and back door. I managed to swing that one, and they made me so much happier than a fancy new dress or an expensive smelly candle. I smiled for weeks when they were finally changed. To me that’s a super, smashing, great gift! So anyway, this week i’ve caught up with one of my besties. I don’t get to see or even speak to her very often as she lives in flippin Singapore now. She is one of those peeps that likes to spoil the …

Quick & easy garden spruces

Published by Karen Knox

As mentioned a couple of months ago in Green Fingers, my love of gardening has come out of nowhere. My idea of a nice garden before moving here involved decking, shale and a pot with a plant in. That one plant would die. The end. I had no patience for things that actually needed watering, feeding and “protecting from strong, cold winds”. Then we moved here. And the garden, although not huge had so much potential. I didn’t really know what to do with it the first year we were here and we had so many other jobs that needed sorting internally, the outside was left to my MIL to be, who was assigned the task of “garden manager”. She took bits out, planted some new stuff and slowly I started to see the woods for the trees so to speak. Potted Hosta and Aubrieta growing in the left bed Roll on two years later and i’m bloody obsessed with gardening. I can’t get enough of being in there, making things look as beautiful as they can …