Happy Birthday to me (and you)
It's been my first full year on Substack. Here's a preview of what's coming up in 2025. Plus, how to subscribe so you don't miss any of it (and lock in this year's price forever).
Well Happy Birthday to us! It’s been a year since I joined Substack. My assumption is that readers are here for insights on interior design rather than the mechanics of writing and publishing newsletters, so I’m not going to write a long post reviewing what has and hasn’t worked for me as a writer, since every Substacker’s audience and experience will almost certainly be different from my own.
However… a few birthday presents from me to you. I have made these three popular posts free to read for a week:
Why the pursuit of perfectionism is ruining your home
Perfectionism is a curse. I know this because my husband is an ex-perfectionist. And had he not recovered he might have become an ex-husband. Fortunately, after renovating six period properties together - all with wonky walls, gaps in the floorboards and sloping ceilings, he has been forced to let go of his ideals. Well, that and a row with a kitchen fitter over a worktop that was – and I’m not exaggerating here – 1mm higher than the range cooker. He has learned to embrace the windows that aren’t quite straight, the doors that don’t shut properly and the sundry quirks and foibles of old houses. And he is genuinely much happier for it. Because crucially, the houses were all finished (as finished as a house can ever be) and happily lived in.
The curse of the iron triangle
Do you want the best quality? Do you want to have it fast? Or must it be cheap? If you are to make your renovation work and – crucially – create a home you want live in, then you’ll need to place these things in order of importance. Not for nothing are they referred to as the iron triangle.
My Seven Design Principles
There are words that get bandied around in interior design which seem, well, designed, to make the process more intimidating than it needs to be. For most of us the world of interior design belongs to high-falutin’ magazines, to houses we will never enter and to people with budgets we can only dream of. But we are all, in effect, “designing” our homes – it’s just that most of us would call it decorating.
I also want to tell you that I’m giving things a little shake-up and that the price for subscriptions will be increasing from Friday 1 November onwards – so if you have been hesitating about signing up to a paid membership, now is the time. Anyone who renews or signs up before that date will be able to do so for the original price of £6 a month or £65 a year, forever. That is to say that if you subscribe now (or are due to renew an existing subscription) your price of £65 a year will no…