Author: |Posted: 1:55 pm on 30/04/09
Category: gardens
The Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire has been restored to its former glory, and is now open to the public.
The garden has apparently been lost for 400 years, and it’s taken an expert team of archaeologists and gardeners over five years to recreate, using details found in a letter written by one of the staff responsible for the original.
I’ve been to the castle countless times, and it’s fantastic. It was a great day out before the garden restoration, and now I will be going back to have a stroll around in the sunshine. I’d recommend you do too – you may even pick up some inspirational garden design ideas to give your own outside space a makeover in time for summer.
To find out more about the Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle, check out this BBC video, or the English Heritage website.
Having spent the last hour watching tonight’s episode of Kirstie’s Homemade Home, I think it’s fair to say that Kirstie’s efforts at interior design this week are more palatable than in the bathrooms episode we saw last Thursday. For me at least, the bathroom suite Kirstie chose was beautiful, but aside from that the style of her bathrooms wasn’t something I would go for. Of course this is purely subjective, and the majority of feedback we’ve had from you viewers has been very positive indeed. read more
Author: |Posted: 10:28 am on 24/04/09
Category: Buying & Selling, House Prices, credit crunch
In these uncertain times, trying to make sense of daily and differing reports on house prices is a daunting task. So I’m not even going to try!
Kate Faulkner wrote a great piece for us on understanding conflicting house price reports, which is well worth a peek. If you want to make up your own mind, here’s some of the latest house price reports for your perusal.
Rock kickstarts lending with 70% rise in home loans
This Is Money
Estate agents downbeat on revival hopes
Financial Times
Northern Rock to report second year of losses after mortgage arrears rise
The Guardian
House prices may fall another 15%
The Mirror
Estate agents downbeat on tax hike as prices rise
Property Week
Housebuilder Persimmon reports increased interest from potential buyers
LDP Business (Liverpool)
Property prices on the rise
South West Business (West Country)
Author: |Posted: 2:33 pm on 23/04/09
Category: Property & Money
Surprisingly, it’s not all doom and gloom, despite this year’s budget being the most contraversial and gloom ridden in living memory. To find out what it will all mean to you – whether you’re a homeowner, own a second home, are a first-time buyer or rent, go to How Will The Budget Affect You? now…
The irrepressible Miss Allsopp crams a lot into her show this evening.
I particularly enjoyed this episode because of the art deco theme that runs throughout, from Kirstie’s gorgeous reclaimed bathroom suite (it’s just about my perfect buy) to her Burgh Island Hotel visit. Though I’ve never seen this magnificent building for myself, I remember it featuring on an episode of BBC2’s Coast and falling in love with the place. Kirstie’s there to grab some art deco inspiration from their wonderful interiors, before hot-footing it over to a stained glass maker to have a go herself.
Later in the show Kirstie gets her hands dirty with some wallpaper screen printing, and makes herself some scented candles to fragrance the beautiful bathroom she creates. On top of that, she somehow manages to secure access for a film crew to go inside top designer Anouska Hempel’s home – it’s not to my taste, but then who am I to criticise a woman of such impeccable design credentials?!
It’s a jam-packed extravaganza of craft, and by this evening we’ll have a wide selection of related guides on 4Homes so that you can have a bash at home.
Kirstie’s Homemade Home is on tonight at 8pm on Channel 4.
Author: |Posted: 1:07 pm on 22/04/09
Category: Buying & Selling, credit crunch
In case you missed it – and he is talking fast – Alistair Darling has announced the following:
A scheme to guarantee mortgage-backed securities to boost lending and ease the flow of mortgage finance.
An extra £80m for the shared equity mortgage scheme.
The stamp duty holiday for homes under £175,000 to be extended to the end of the year.
He also announced additional support of those who lose their jobs and new help for first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder.
We will be looking at the Budget report closely tonight and we’ll report just how his measures will affect you tomorrow. Watch this space…
Since Kirstie’s Homemade Home started, we’ve done our level best to provide step-by-step craft guides to lots of common, fun and relatively simple activities.
Inevitably, there are loads of crafts out there that require equipment and skill only available at dedicated classes. Fortunately, there are countless opportunities for you to get stuck in to everything from glassblowing to pottery. Here’s our advice on how to find a craft course – I hope it can be of some help to anyone who wants to learn or develop arts and crafts skills, but doesn’t know where to start. We’ll be adding to it each week, and within the feature you can find the contact details for the artisans featured in Kirstie’s TV show.
Click here to find out how to find a craft course.
Has Kirstie’s Homemade Home made you want to take up a new hobby? Are you already into crafts, and if so what do you think of the programme? Please leave your comments below…
Author: |Posted: 10:37 am on 17/04/09
Category: Design & Style, Uncategorized, craft
Last night saw the first episode of Kirstie’s Homemade Home, in which Kirstie Allsopp does up a house in deepest Devon, using, where possible, local materials and craftspeople, and her own enthusiastic but untested craft skills.
So what did you think? For what it’s worth, I think it’s refreshing to have anything on tv that isn’t about making money from your home. I’m not nearly fresh-faced enough to believe that the programme will do anything to change the way we think about our homes – we’ve all invested too much (financially and emotionally) in the whole housing process for us not to look at a house as an investment, even if it’s a long-term one. And with savings rates being as low as they are, many of us still think it’s best to sink hard-earned cash into property rather than put it in a bank.
That said, having done up six houses myself, it’s great to see someone approaching a renovation in a way that doesn’t involve a) trip to DIY store, b) trip to giant furniture store to buy roomset and c) trip to supermarket to buy ubiquitous products to accessorise with. I’m not knocking any of these approaches – we all go to Ikea, for example, because their furniture is cheap, just about stays together AND you can buy a whole room’s worth of furniture that looks really quite good together. The only hassle is getting it through the check out.
However, that kind of room, while stylish, swish, modern and, importantly, affordable, is never going to be unique, individual and one-off – and that’s what really makes a home interesting. And while I don’t want to put anyone out of a job at these bigger high street or retail park stores, I do think it’s high time we all supported local British craftspeople who work really hard, for little profit and almost no national recognition. And if the show does nothing else but to inspire us to think a little bit more imaginatively about how we design and decorate our homes, it will have done a good job.
What do you think?
It’s finally time for Kirstie Allsopp’s new show to be revealed to the world. Over the past few weeks we’ve really been going for it to provide loads of craft and DIY content so you can have a go yourself.
You can check out all of our craft tips, and watch an exclusive extended interview with Kirstie, on the Kirstie’s Homemade Home page.
Incidentally, the highlight of tonight’s show for me is seeing the result of Kirstie’s glass blowing efforts – fabulous.
For more on the show, there’s an extended blog post over at Primelocation.
Kirstie’s Homemade Home starts tonight at 8 on Channel 4.
Author: |Posted: 6:02 pm on 14/04/09
Category: Design & Style
Just a quick note to say that Rate My Room, a new feature on 4Homes, launched today. It allows all of our lovely users to show off a bit by uploading photos of any aspect of their home for others to rate and comment on. Of course, this also means you to have a sneaky peek into the houses of strangers for ideas, inspiration, or just because you fancy a gander.
You can give it a try on the Rate My Room page. This is all new to us, so any comments and feedback from our users would be wonderful. You can leave comments below…
