Actor Noel Clarke opens TCT facilities we stickered!

TV actor and director Noel Clarke has opened new facilities for Teenage Cancer Trust at University College Hospital London. Noel is a BAFTA award winning actor best known for his roles in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Mickey Smith in Doctor Who.

Working with Grosvenor Interiors we added wall stickers and wall murals to three different spaces within UCH.

Teenage Cancer Trust website says...

"These facilities at have been developed by Teenage Cancer Trust and include a new young person’s radiotherapy chill out waiting room, a new kitchen for parents and the refurbishment of an outpatient waiting area featuring a plasma TV, games consoles, wall glamour and comfy chairs."

Read more of this article on the TCT website.

Decorating Tips - Filling Cracks

You are probably on our website looking at wall stickers as you have recently decorated a room or are just about to re-decorate. So I thought that maybe you would like a few tips and hints from a professional so I have enlisted the help of Jen Pashby who is my local painter and decorator. If you are a regular DIYer, no doubt you'll already be familiar with these techniques, but those of you who have never picked up a paint brush this could be the information you need to start on your own project. The first tips I asked Jen to look at was wall preparation and this post covers how to deal with cracks before you get to putting your lovely new paint on the walls.

Step 1. Remove, dirt, grease and any other loose or flacking paint from wall surface.

Step 2. Repair all holes, cracks and dents from the wall by first digging out the area with a scraper, this will help the filler bond better and evenly hopefully stopping it cracking again, brush away any loose plaster and dust.

Step 3. Using a multi-purpose filler on a scraper push the filler evenly into hole then scrape any excess.

Step 4. Smoothing the wall surface can either be done by hand sanding or electric sander making sure to wear a face mask and open the window as it will get dusty. Aswell as smoothing the sanding will create a good surface for the paint to bond too. The more you prepare the better the finish!!!

Tip. If you are decorating the whole room make sure joining walls and ceilings are painted before wall stickers are apply as this could be difficult to edge afterwards.

Sitting pretty…

Chairs in a kitchen – a design decision

Today I’ve been thinking about sitting. Eating and sitting – two things most people enjoy very much. Assuming we’re not talking about balancing a plate on our knees in front of the TV but eating at a proper table, I want you to have a think about what you’re sitting on. Chairs often become a last minute thought, or almost an accident when bought as part of a table and chairs set, but to my mind you’re missing a trick if you have dull and boring chairs.

Many people have a place to sit, eat, work, or read in the kitchen – be it at a generous table that seats a whole crowd, or a tiny area to perch on a stool and have a cuppa. Style wise there are lots to choose from and getting new chairs is a great way to give your home a lift.

All things bright and beautiful… An injection of colour into a neutral room changes its identity immediately. Chairs are now available in an array of fabulous colours and they’re cheap enough so you needn’t worry about making a decision that has to last a lifetime.

Colour: Matching chairs to your décor gives a sleek, uncluttered look. White kitchen, black worktops, white chairs is a clean and uncomplicated combination. If you go for this look, try finding a chair with an unusual shape to be the interesting element. Smooth curves, funky legs or a textured seat.

Alternatively… and I must admit I rather favour this option… go for a blast of colour. Doesn’t have to be as bold as red – consider aubergine, lime green or teal. A pair of chairs can cost as little as £75 and many simple designs are an easy to live with shape, surprisingly comfortable and wipe clean. These are available in a range of colours on the high street and pack a punch in a monochrome room

Check these red ones out on the Ideal Homes website.

Or these from Next

A shot of bright colour makes a dramatic statement – this room would lose impact if the chairs matched the walls…

If you have a pale kitchen, take a look at how colour can transform the space. Imagine these lipstick pink chairs in a white room – fabulous!!

Orange – warms up white, grey, black or walnut perfectly.

If you have an all wood kitchen, I’d go for something other than wood for chairs – it can be a bit overwhelming to have timber everywhere. The colour you choose for the chair can be picked up in accessories elsewhere for a co-ordinated look.

Comfort: Padded or upholstered chairs give more comfort for long lengthy meals and can be any style you like.

Traditional meets modern   |  What a lovely shape  |  Nice stitched detail for a sumptuous look

Goes with anything…: A talking point for all guests and a bit of iconic style for you…

Orla Kiely – many people’s current favourite and these would look fabulous in a traditional, retro or ultra contemporary style home

Shabby chic – this is a style that’s synonymous with interior trends like Cath Kidston or Laura Ashley. The look is aged, loved and beautifully worn even if the furniture is new. This makes it ideal for use in a home where there are children running about where a beautifully smooth coloured chair stands little chance of remaining that way for more than five minutes. The basic style is a painted chair (any colour you like) that is “distressed” with the paint removed in areas that would remove wear and tear to reveal the wood underneath. The paintwork often looks old too so won’t show any bumps or scrapes – these add to the charm. This is a really easy revamp you can do on chairs picked up for a couple of pounds in a junk shop. My only tip is buy solid wood items that are comfy – don’t be scared to sit on them and wobble around to check they’ll withstand lots of use.

How do I do this? Clean if necessary to remove any grime. Rub the wood down to remove any lumps and bumps then wipe clean. Paint a layer of primer/undercoat (there are lots of good all-in-one products in your local DIY store) then two layers of top coat (I’d use eggshell as it has a nice low sheen) allowing each to dry before applying the next. Once fully dry, use sandpaper to rub the edges and corners until you see the wood underneath coming through. You can use a coloured wood wax applied with fine wire wool if you want to dull the colour paint and distress further.

Mix and match: I love this style and think it makes an eye-catching change to have modern funky chairs at a traditional style table or vice versa. These old wood chairs look inviting and soften the harsh lines of the contemporary units.

Finally…bar stools

No idea if these are comfy but they’re an amazing design

I just love these retro American diner style ones… Anyone for a milkshake?

Becky

This is a series of blog posts from Becky Clarke a contributing writing on Your Home magazine. Your Home magazine have featured our wall stickers on a few occasions and we loved Becky's approach to real life projects so we commissioned her to write about her interior design influences, trends and thoughts.

(Some of the images in this collage of styles and products are linked from Ideal Home magazine please make sure you have a browse around their site as they have tons more ideas for in your home).

You Tube Channel

Check out our YouTube channel for more fitting instructions, help and other Wall Glamour related videos. Ok so they are not production quality videos, but I hope they help you with fitting our products and we are planning on a full range of better quality videos.

Check out below our 60 minute makeover experience.

Week Note - 20 July

Any repeat customer who has been to our website or blog recently may have noticed that we have just updated our logo, we're not shouting about it, just yet, as we have an official launch planned for the logo and new websites coming....but it would be nice to hear what people think.

Also this week we've been working on our next website, we are looking at some really cool stuff that I hope will give us an extra sales push. Our current website has taken a development approach that has been very 'incremental' and so we have never had to shell out lots of cash at one go, this has been great for the way the product and business has developed, it's been natural progress. Anyone hoping to get tips on ecommerce should take note, small steps do work.
However now that Wall Glamour is our main business we really need to push sales. So we are looking at a range of improvements and a design/usability refresh to the main site, but also to the blog and our three new sites which will be for Trade Sales, Commercial Interiors and Healthcare Interiors. On top of that we are building a really cool iPhone app....and if that wasn't enough I have been working on another product that will join the "Glamour" range very shortly. We are hoping to launch it the first week in September.

If you listen to Spotify at all your can't fail to have heard about sharemyplaylists.com well we were lucky enough to get an email from them requesting some bespoke wall stickers for their new offices near Newcastle, which we will be installing next week.

The studio and manufacturing side of the business will be having a shutdown week in two weeks. so get your order in now if you really need to get it before the first week of August. As soon as we all return from our holidays we will be introducing you to our new designer who starts that week, we are really looking forward to having Jen on board and cant wait for her to get designing.



I've also been in London fitting some more wall murals in UCH for Teenage Cancer Trust. We also in Birmingham ROH next week adding some finishing touches to installations we have done there before they get their official openings in August.

It’s summer! And the hot new colour is…..

Writing a regular blog is a new thing for me but I’m excited at the prospect of chatting away about things I love – interiors, design, inspiration, and ideas for the place you live - I may even pass on one or two good ideas along the way! We all know home is where the heart is, and everyone can add or subtract on a tiny, or huge scale to make their space the perfect place. Or you can just daydream and look at some great pictures…

Today I’m looking outside at the sunshine outside which always makes me smile. How can it not? The sun… yellow… lovely in itself but in your home? I bet you’re shaking your head - it’s a colour that evokes fear and mental images of hideous 1980s décor for many. But yellow is on it’s way back (yes really!) and it’s all in the shade of yellow you choose. I’m not talking sickly primrose shades, but richer tones with a hint of faded gold or mustard to add an instant contemporary and vibrant blast!

Teamed with charcoal grey the look is dramatic and breathtaking making a strong statement – just see how great it looks in a dining room setting in July issue of “Ideal Home” magazine. The yellow warms the stormy grey beautifully.


If you’re a bit scared of such deep colours, you could adapt the scheme by using paler shades or introduce some gentle pattern. Alternatively, use shots of yellow amid a monochrome scheme for more subtle interest and impact.

Oak furniture gives warmth and the grain adds texture and as many of us have this tone of wooden furniture you should be fine with yellow. Having said that, more contemporary gloss white or perspex will look great too. If you find the colour combination a bit stark, try adding a touch of green or grey/blue – have a look at these cushions to see how that works.

So what works if you want to try out?

One wall of patterned yellow wallpaper, wallpaperdirect.co.uk have some great options, in any room will create a focal point then pick up the colour in accessories. Think cushions and a rug in the living room, mugs and tea towels in the kitchen (looks great with green, washed out navy or a plum colour too). Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how something will look in your home so always check a store’s returns policy in case you make any purchases that just don’t work.

Try these;
Fleet Organic tea towels or these "Kitchen Tools" ones  or zesty bedlinen. Think small; Even if you don’t want loads of yellow, consider a sunny print, picture or vase to brighten up a plain scheme then you’re not committed to a totally new décor, But whetever you decide, bring a little sunshine into your home.

Other yellow things I love:
Paint: Look at The Little Greene Paint company www.thelittlegreene.com,  www.firedearthshop.com for some lovely golden shades without a hint of 80s primrose. It’s worth trying a tester pot before you buy a big tin of paint. Paint onto a piece of white A4 card and blu-tac to the wall so you can see how it looks in the room.

Fabrics/wallpaper: Harlequin’s new Amilie range has a mix of delicate patterns for a hint of colour, through to bold statement prints.

More wallpaper designs, "Wow", "Saplings" and "Elodie".

Vintage Chair: Simple, stylish, gorgeous.

Furniture: A splash of sunshine that you could do yourself by painting an old piece. Have a look in secondhand shops and rub down any wood piece, prime then paint. This is a cheap and easy way to add unique twist.

And try these Accessories: Clocks, Pictures, or this Stencil Tablemat

Some other room shots/ideas:


These images from Better Homes and Gardens show exactly what I mean, the BH&G website has a great section of inspirational images that can help when decorating, plus you can select a dozen other colours in their "Decorating with colour" section.






Images from Better Homes and Gardens.

Becky

This is the first in a series of blog posts from Becky Clarke a contributing writing on Your Home magazine. Your Home magazine have featured our wall stickers on a few occasions and we loved Becky's approach to real life projects so we commissioned her to write about her interior design influences, trends and thoughts.

Weeknote 29 June

This week we have finally managed to get our (long promised) canvas prints on to the website. After months of been busy and not being able to get back on the website, I finally managed to shut all other distractions off for the day and add our canvas prints. I have tried to approach the canvas prints in a different way to most canvas print companies, as I've tried to think of them as blocks of colour rather than a particular flower, this may be a good thing or maybe it won't.

As a designer I when I think about a room I often think of the items in that room as pieces of a jigsaw, some are big, some small, some bold, some hardly noticed but colour is one of the linking themes. In my living room (where I am writing this from), we have a natural colour scheme, white walls with dark brown wood flooring and a white fire place, stone coloured rug and accessories, we also have the ubiquitous chocolate brown Italian leather sofas. On my walls I have a set of three canvas prints which have all the colours of the room in plus a little bit of orange as an accent....but these canvas prints are not of anything that you can recognise they are merely a blur of colours. This is the same thing I wanted to do with our canvas prints on the website, to allow people to purchase say a light blue blossom sticker and have a light blue canvas print of a flower to go on another wall, this could be a theme colour or just the accent in a room.

Only time will tell if my gamble has paid off, so if the names change in a few months you'll understand why.

I have also been working on another couple of products for the website this week and hopefully I will have at least one more up soon. The second one deserves a little more effort so I will be developing it up
before we make it for general release, with a bit of a PR push.

I watched Mary Queen of Shops this weekend about a couple who were loosing money on the homeware business, which Mary duely turned around, as she does, but what was nice is the little insight into what is hot at the moment in interiors...and that is earthy colours, greens through to pale blues with some yellow and natural wood finishes. Also in furniture terms retro/vintage items are all back in, things like side boards!

We also taking on a new member of the team shortly and we're looking forward to having so extra design in put from a very talented person...more details soon when the officially arrive.

Tomorrow is a busy day, we will be filming a number of videos for the website, including a mammoth task of one fitting video for every product we have...I very much doubt we'll get them all done tomorrow but we will try.

Finally I've been playing on my new machine, which is my iPad and I really like it, though my wife doesn't understand why I need another Apple product. In playing with it I also customised it with a laptop skin I designed and made last Saturday on my day off! We are hoping to develop a really interesting app for the iPhone etc soon so I'll keep you posted.

Sent from my iPad