Ideal Home |
- Mum gives not one, but three rooms a makeover – with a budget of just £717
- Swyft Model 04 sofa bed review
- Expert warns that this popular scented disinfectant hack could be damaging your washing machine
| Mum gives not one, but three rooms a makeover – with a budget of just £717 Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:00 AM PDT Taking on one room makeover at a time is enough for most of us, but this brave mum transformed three – and on a tight budget! After spending large amounts of money on her previous home refurbishments, Mel Hamblett from Gloucester took on the challenge of brainstorming bathroom ideas to revamp her en-suite bathroom and downstairs cloakroom, plus her spare bedroom to boot, all for you £717 in total. As a lover of colourful interiors, Mel often shows off her home on Instagram, offering ways to add character and style to a new-build to transform any interior design scheme. ‘We started refurbishing some of the other rooms in our home, including our master bedroom and living room, which included some more expensive updates like fitted wardrobes, sofas and new flooring,’ Mel told finance experts ABC Finance. ‘Once I’d started making home improvements, I wanted to bring other rooms in line with our colourful style, but we didn’t have a big budget, so we had to find ways to update on a shoestring.’ ‘I love finding bargains on Facebook Marketplace and eBay and upcycling them with paint and patterned vinyl,’ she continues. ‘Over the last two years I’ve been learning a lot of DIY to save money on hiring tradespeople, and I always search for discount codes before buying anything online.’ Bedroom before Image credit: @awholenewbuild Let’s start with Mel’s spare bedroom, which you can see was looking a little lacklustre. ‘I’d attempted to give the room a nautical theme, but it never felt quite right and over time it became a dumping ground,’ says Mel. ‘We even used it as a temporary home for an old sofa at one point!’ Bedroom after Image credit: @awholenewbuild You can hardly recognise the room, with its colourful bedroom ideas, quirky accessories and patterned walls. ‘I was heavily inspired by another instagrammer who has a teal bed with similar colour pops,’ says Mel. ‘My husband thought the colour palette I had chosen would be too bright, but upon showing him pictures of her room, he became more on board and trusted my idea.’ Mel used white paint to brighten and refresh the walls. She then covered one of the walls in dalmatian-print stickers from eBay and found upcycled furniture ideas to transform existing pieces. The old telephone table, for example, used to be in Mel’s hallway. After giving it a lick of paint in blue, pink and yellow, and covering the shelf in a wallpaper sample, it now looks completely different. ‘Really, the only “new” thing in the room is the bed from Dunelm, which was £230 using a discount code,’ she says.  Image credit: @awholenewbuild On the other side of the room, some prints make a small feature wall, while an old pine mirror was upcycled using Frenchic’s Plum Pudding paint. The whole room cost £364.99 in total, with blinds from The Range, bedding from B&M and a neon light from Dunelm providing the finishing touches. Bathroom before Image credit: @awholenewbuild Mel’s neutral-coloured bathroom was next to get a glow-up and you can see the beginnings of it here with a tester paint colour on the wall by the sink. ‘The inspiration for this room came from an Airbnb we stayed in a few years ago in Croyde, North Devon,’ she says. ‘They had mixed lime green with slate and we thought it made a lovely bright en-suite bathroom.’ Bathroom after Image credit: @awholenewbuild Not one for the faint-hearted, this vibrant scheme is a masterclass in bathroom colour schemes that make a huge statement. ‘We used the colour Kiwi Crush from Dulux to paint the walls and I updated our silver shower enclosure with black electrical tape to give it the effect of a Crittall door,’ says Mel. ‘It’s easily removable if we ever change our minds on this look.’  Image credit: @awholenewbuild Jungle-theme Mowgli wallpaper from Lust Home adds a tropical vibe on the other side of the room, and wood accents and woven baskets offer natural touches to the room. Unbelievably, Mel’s en-suite cost her just £128 to update! Cloakroom before Image credit: @awholenewbuild Lastly, it’s on to Mel’s downstairs cloakroom loo, which didn’t fit with her usual colourful style. ‘The room had become a running joke amongst friends, following a terrible decorating job I did not long after moving in,’ she says. ‘With no DIY experience I’d picked the wrong bright blue paint and did an awful job of cutting in. I tried to cover my mistakes with white paint and shortly after that we had a baby, so it stayed and became known as the “cloud toilet”!’ ‘I eventually painted over it with some leftover brown paint that we had in the garage and although it covered the “cloud” effect, it wasn’t an attractive colour.’ Cloakroom after Image credit: @awholenewbuild Now a pink paradise, complete with wall panelling, colourful animal-print wallpaper and contrasting floor tiles, the small space has been given a huge boost in the style stakes. ‘After improving my DIY skills, I fell in love with a wallpaper called Wild Thing Brights from Lust Home, which is a multi-coloured leopard-print design, and I knew it would be perfect for brightening the embarrassing loo!’ says Mel. For the wall panelling idea, Mel used a local timber merchant to get her MDF panels cut to size. ‘It was very reasonable and I still have a huge sheet of MDF left for another project,’ she says. ‘I then colour-matched the panels to the same pink featured in the paper and used some leftover stick-on wall tiles from a previous upcycle to cover the beige ones behind the sink.’  Image credit: @awholenewbuild Covering up the old floor was easy – Mel simply added a powder blue patterned vinyl floor from For The Floor & More to complete the look. This final makeover came in at £224 – a bargain considering how different it is. ‘We don’t all have the budget for a home with high ceilings and period character, but with a bit of bravery when it comes to DIY, the ways you can add your stamp to a new build are endless,’ says Mel. We couldn’t agree more.
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| Swyft Model 04 sofa bed review Posted: 27 Aug 2021 11:30 PM PDT Sofa beds are notoriously uncomfortable to sleep on, so how does sofa-in-a-box specialist Swyft’s ‘new way of sleeping’ Model 04 stack up? It’s a generous three-seater sofa that can be transformed into a UK-sized double bed when needed, and we put it to the test in this Swyft Model 04 review to test how it delivers when it comes to style and comfort.
It's been a number of years since we had a sofa bed, after getting rid of our last one because it was just so uncomfortable to sleep on. As a sofa it was great, but when it came to sleeping it fell short of the mark. The pull-out mechanism was clunky and difficult to use when trying to transform it into a bed, and the mattress springs dug into you when you lay down. On the lookout for a solid and comfortable sofa bed, I was excited to see Swyft add one to its sofa-in-a-box offering. We moved house less than a year ago, and with my twins about to turn 12, we found ourselves in need of an extra living space so that the kids and adults can hang out and watch TV separately. With our spare room acting as a home office, turned a small room downstairs into a snug. This space now doubles up as a hang out zone for kids and/or adults, and a guest room for when friends or family come to stay. A big selling point of the Swyft Model 04 that got my attention was the promised durability and resilience of Swyft’s fabrics, which boast stain free technology – I really wanted a sofa bed in a light colour so this was an important feature for me. The Swyft Model 04 seemed to offer the holy grail of a sofa fabric that looks good, but is also kid and pet friendly – perfect as our mud-loving dog loves to curl up on the sofa. So confident are Swyft in this claim, that they guarantee the fabric for two years. Did the Swyft Model 04 live up to the hype? We put it to the Young family test. Ideal Home’s rating: 4.5/5 starsBuilt for the trials of a family home, but with style that wouldn’t look out of place in a swish city apartment, the Swyft Model 04 Sofa Bed is a great investment. Reasons to buy:
Reasons not to buy:
Swyft Model 04 sofa bedRRP: £1,995  DeliverySwyft's first big plus point is the short lead time. You can say goodbye to the frustratingly-long wait between ordering a sofa and taking delivery. Once you place your order, your sofa will be delivered in just 24 hours, meaning that as long as you order before 3pm, your sofa will be with you the very next day. The Model 04 comes delivered in four (large) boxes, that are guaranteed to fit through the tightest of doorways or halls, and can get up multiple flights of stairs. We didn’t have an old sofa to get rid of, but if you do, you can arrange for Swyft to have that collected to make space for your new one (plus they’ll take away the packaging from the new sofa at the same time). Set upWe couldn’t spot any assembly instructions (these are actually emailed to you to save paper) but my husband and quickly found Swyft’s assembly video online and had the Model 04 put together in under 30 minutes, with no tools required. I definitely could have managed it solo, although due to the sofa bed weight, it was easier to manoeuvre it into position with two people. The Model 04 fitted perfectly in our snug, but if we wanted to save a bit of room, the sofa is designed so that you can leave the arms off (they slide in and out of position) if you need to. Swyft is known for acing modular design as we found with our Swyft Model 03 review, so we were keen to see how the functionality of their sofa bed model would compare to their sofas. ReturnsIf, for whatever reason, you're not 100% happy with your sofa bed, Swyft give you 100 days to arrange a return. After this, they offer a 15 year frame guarantee. I’d prefer not to work out how old my kids (and I) will be when that guarantee expires! Is the Swyft Model 04 sofa bed comfortable?Sitting on the Swyft Model 04 sofa bedFirst up, let’s just give the Model 04 some props for its good looks. This is one stylish sofa bed, with its buttoned seats and back cushions and clean, contemporary shape. There are seven fabric choices available – three velvets and four linens ( 73% polyester, 27% cotton) – all with Swyft stain resistant technology. We chose Pumice, which is the linen fabric in a soft beige shade that’s really versatile. Normally I’d be nervous about such a light colour for a family sofa, but the stain resistant technology made me confident enough not to compromise on my colour choice. The sofa seat is firm, and the back cushions are nice and chunky. The back of the sofa is quite low, so if you prefer to lounge back and nestle into the cushions for a long Netflix session, this design probably isn’t for you. I would also detract some design marks due to the limited choice of leg designs. The Model 04 currently doesn’t offer a choice. I’m happy enough with the ones (dark wood) that came as standard, but for this price point I would expect there to be other finishes. Sleeping on the Swyft Model 04 sofa bedThe foam mattress on the Model 04 sofa bed is seven inches thick and boasts 300 pocket springs. It definitely falls at the firmer end of the mattress spectrum, but doesn’t feel hard or uncomfortable, especially with the mattress topper that comes neatly stashed away in the sofa bed’s integrated storage unit. You could always browse our best mattress toppers if you wanted to make it even comfier. Transforming the Model 04 from sofa to bed is impressively simple. In fact it’s so straightforward and ergonomic that my son (age 11) was able to manage it himself with no difficulty. You just lift the sofa seat, unhinge the extra legs (hidden in a zippered compartment), then slide the seat forward on its castors. The sofa back then pivots down to form the other side of the mattress.
The double mattress is spacious enough for overnighters. We sleep on a king-size bed usually so this is smaller than we’re used to, but it didn’t feel cramped with two of us sleeping on it. My 11-year-old twins can vouch for that, as they insisted on a sleepover in the snug, sleeping comfortably head-to-toe on the Model 04. My parents (in their Seventies) haven’t stayed overnight yet, but they have tested out lying down on the bed, and deemed it comfortable enough to sleep on, too!
Is the Swyft Model 04 the best sofa bed for everyday use??ComfortIt’s safe to say that the Model 04 will be used everyday by my family, whether it’s by the kids while they watch TV (their favourite set up is to convert it to a bed, then pop the back cushions up against the wall so they have a full-sized chaise to stretch out on!). For me, it’s a great space to sit and chill away from the rest of the house. The Model 04 has become my new morning coffee spot, where I sit first thing to write lists and plan out my day. Ease of use
I was incredibly impressed with how straightforward the sofa was to assemble when it arrived. It’s heavy to try to move around as a whole unit due to its solid design, but the sofa bed mechanism means it is very easy to transform into a bed when needed. The integrated storage compartment that the mattress topper lives in is handy. It’s not enormous, but there would be space in there for guests to store folded clothing, or spare towels. Stain-resistance
While the damp patches were drying I popped out to walk the dog, worrying about what I’d find when I returned, but I was relieved that the sofa looked as good as new when I got home. This meant I didn’t need to try out Swyft’s advice for more stubborn stains – bicarb of soda and vinegar. The Swyft Model 04 has been well-received by all members of the family (dog included!), with positive feedback from everyone. We’re excited that we can now host guests overnight, confident that they will have a comfortable night’s sleep. About this review, and the reviewerHeather Young is the Editor of Ideal Home and Style at Home. Heather recently moved into a Victorian house in Surrey, and lives with her husband, 11-year-old twins, Hungarian vizsla Lyra and (grumpy) cat Lily. Heather’s house is full of the usual family chaos of discarded Lego and craft projects. Any decorating or furniture decisions have to pass both the style and practicality tests. The Swyft Model 04 was tested over a month, while Heather and her family used the sofa and bed as much as possible to get a full picture of how it lived up to the demands of family life. They have been allowed to keep it so expect an update over time. The post Swyft Model 04 sofa bed review appeared first on Ideal Home.  |
| Expert warns that this popular scented disinfectant hack could be damaging your washing machine Posted: 27 Aug 2021 11:00 PM PDT Nothing will get a washing machine drum smelling as clean and fresh as a capful of scented disinfectant. However, according to a washing machine manufacturer, this common scented disinfectant washing machine hack could actually be damaging your washing machine. How to clean a washing machine is an easy question to answer when armed with a scented disinfectant. In fact, it is one of our favourite uses for scented disinfectants. Simply pour two capfuls of it into the washing machine, pop it on a hot wash and just like that your washing machine and home will smell incredible. However, washing machine manufacturer Hisense warns that putting any scented disinfectants in the washing machine could cause pipes to rust, and rust specks on your clothes.  Image credit: Colin Poole Can you put scented disinfectant in the washing machine?‘We wouldn't recommend using a scented disinfectant in your wash, because it may cause oxidation and rusting of the pipes,’ explains Liam Cookson, Product Marketing Manager at Hisense UK. ‘This, in turn, could lead to discolouration of clothing – which none of us wants to see when we take the load out the machine!’ Instead, Liam recommends using a disinfectant that has been developed for washing machines.  Image credit: Jon Day ‘Certain disinfectant brands have already launched specific cleaning products for your washer to ensure it smells fresh but doesn't impact your clothing – as a tip, make sure the product you're buying has been developed specifically for use in your appliance before using it,’ he adds. Dr Kyle Grant, CEO & co-founder of the sustainable, on-demand laundry service Oxwash agrees that scented disinfectants should be avoided when cleaning the washing machine. This isn’t just due to the impact on the washing machine mechanics, but because it could cause skin sensitivity if not rinsed properly.  Image credit: Colin Poole ‘I would recommend not using a scented disinfectant,’ Dr Grant says. ‘The synthetic scents added often trigger allergic reactions or skin irritations if not properly rinsed before the following cycle.’ Instead, of trying any washing machine hacks Dr Grant recommends using a Chloroxylenol based disinfectant such as unscented Dettol Antiseptic or simply white vinegar and baking soda. Then run the machine on a 30 to 40-degree cycle on a synthetics setting. We will definitely be thinking twice before throwing a capful of scented disinfectant in our washing machine again. The post Expert warns that this popular scented disinfectant hack could be damaging your washing machine appeared first on Ideal Home.  |
It took some courage to test Swyft’s stain resistant technology. My husband is known for being clumsy with a glass of wine, and so red wine spillages are an all-too-frequent occurrence in our house. I read through Swyft’s cleaning instructions many times (they’re simple to follow, I was just stressing out) before taking the plunge and pouring a dash of red wine on the sofa seat.
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