Secrets of a happy house
Angela Scanlon, presenter of Your Home Made Perfect, gives her top tips to CLAIRE SPREADBURY
ANGELA SCANLON knows a thing or two about homes. Having presented Your Home Made Perfect and the more recent Your Garden Made Perfect, it seems highly likely she’s picked up some good advice along the way.
Plus, before becoming a TV presenter, the 37-year-old was a stylist, so she knows how to make a space look good, too.
Hailing from Ireland but now living in London with her husband and three-year-old daughter, Angela reveals how to transform your house into a home you can fall in love with all over again.
Ask what you need from your house
My biggest tip is to ask yourself questions. Think about what you need from the space. Sometimes, you’re taking things that aesthetically work, or you like the style of, but you’re not really thinking about what you need from a home.
It’s about really tuning into what you like, what you value as a family, what you spend your time doing, and then thinking about how your house can support that.
Find your own inspiration
Use Instagram, Pinterest and magazines for inspiration. I have multiple Pinterest boards and I’ve saved little folders on my Instagram – different rooms or different areas.
Look at hotels and restaurants for inspiration too, because in those commercial properties, teams of architects are so clever with their uses of space, and that could be really applicable to a home if you think outside the box.
Move furniture around
I remember moving furniture as a kid, and then you kind of stop doing it as you get older – it doesn’t even become a consideration.
You’re like, ‘We really need to get rid of that chair’, or ‘We need a new this’, or ‘We need to do that’, when actually, maybe something just needs a new home.
So, switch up furniture, change the position of the chair or a table or whatever has a really big impact, without spending any money whatsoever.
Bring the outside in
More and more, we’re becoming aware of the value of having a garden or outside space.
I’m big on how using houseplants can blur the lines between the inside and the outside, so whether it’s on a windowsill or wherever, it feels like you’re in the garden, even when you’re not. It brings the eyes straight into some greenery, which is gorgeous – in a living room, especially.
Buy second-hand
Whether it’s Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace or ebay – ideally somewhere local or not too far away – you get some amazing things that people are throwing out, because they’ve grown out of it or are moving away. There are loads of different reasons why people get rid of perfectly good stuff, and you can get some really, really special pieces.
Have a place for everything
I worked with a woman called Lucy Mansey (@organisedbylucy), and she helped me do a bit of a (tidying expert) Marie Kondo job. I’m a bit of a sloth, so I started The Marie Kondo book and the process, and I never finished, so they came in and helped me find a place for everything. It just means you know where everything is, and when there’s absolute chaos, it’s just a little bit easier to manage.
■ Your Home Made Perfect is available on BBC iplayer