Open-plan living area

‘ This room is the reason we bought the house. I knew we’d spend most of our time in here as the design works really well, with the kitchen and dining at one end and this chill-out area near the doors to the garden. But when choosing the interior add-ons, we realised it was cheaper to do some of the work ourselves rather than pay the building company to do the installation. So, I went on the hunt for floor tiles, and Richard went on YouTube to learn how to install underfloor heating and lay tiles on top. I changed the original cream walls to this soft grey and then we added panelling to ground the TV and wall-mounted IKEA Bestå unit.’

‘The design works really well, with the kitchen and dining at one end and chill-out area near the doors to the garden’

‘I used to have one big print on this wall, but it never looked quite right,’ explains Kerry. ‘Replacing it with the gallery display adds a bit of pace to the large space, and I love how the lamp, from MADE.com, swings over the front of the gallery wall to add extra shape.’ The prints are from Poster Store, the French Connection Zinc sofas are from DFS, and the rug is from La Redoute ‘I didn’t want to clutter this room with lots of furniture, but this large expanse of empty wall needed something to break it up, so we put the shelves above purely as a styling space and the bench below, from Next, doubles as extra seating.’ The wooden advent calendar is from The Range and the mini Christmas trees are from IKEA