Utility Chic

I Gigi in Hove provided the inspiration for the downstairs loo/utility room. Think earthy tones, piled linens, natural materials, wicker and bleached wood and novel ways to display the most mundane of household essentials.

Images by Adam Crohill

This room started life with some rather vibrant green tiles so first job was to replace them with my favourite classic metro tiles. Ideally we would have replaced the work top with a real wood version but for the time being the imitation wood one does the job. The walls are painted with Little Greene Paint Company’s Slaked Lime which is a very soft sludgy neutral.

We found Sugden and Daughters at a recent vintage fair and quickly snapped up a mirror made from antique tennis racquets! Just in case of a severe power cut I took a large bundle of candles and stuffed them under a TK Maxx bell jar. I finished off the little collection with  an H&M candle (am in love with the utilitarian label).Shelves from ikea were brought over from our first house and then stacked with storage. The wicker baskets hold all the essentials such as washing powder and the like.The main mirror was an old one that has seen better days but I quite like its distressed nature and how it’s size is a little large to the space. We don’t currently have a tumble dryer so my mum made us a little old school curtain to hide some of the clutter.We spent one afternoon creating the roman blind in this room from the left over John Lewis fabric. The idea was to create an easy no-sew blind from a tutorial. My advice would be to just go and buy one! It took forever and tempers may have frayed as well as the fabric!I like to make sure that there’s fresh flowers all over the house, even in the loo and the ginger beer bottle (picked up inexpensively from another vintage market) is perfect for adding a stem or two. For a larger arrangement I love to use the large bottle vase that was a bargain purchase from Kempton Market.To finish off the room I adapted a strip of photo frames given to me by my sister in law and painted them the same neutral colour as the walls. I bought a book of old maps from eBay and framed the locations that Mr C had met, married and mini-mooned. The cluster of brushes in a porcelain beaker is a final reminder of just how much work we’ve done recently to get the house in tip-top condition! How have you decorated the smallest room in your house?L x