I’ve been meaning to add to my collection of cacti for a while now. I have two big window ledges at the front of the room known lovingly as the “Oil Baron’s Sunken Lounge” and though one of them was filled with a row of the cacti I’ve been lovingly killing since 2007, pictured above,…
I’ve made a little video for my Instagram page @casacrilly, where I put all of my house and interiors stuff, and it’s all about the double renovation we’re currently in the midst of – we’re doing up a little seaside holiday cottage in Dorset and also the house we’ve moved to. It’s all quite chaotic…
I said I’d come back to you with more about my side-hustle, sneakily mentioned last summer and not referred to since. It has been a bit crazy on the house front and so I didn’t really know where to start: then Christmas happened and then the latest lockdown and so we find ourselves in February…
I’ve always fancied being the sort of person that could throw one of those dinner parties that seemingly only exist in Ferrero Rocher commercials and magazine shoots; French farmhouse tables overflowing with flowers and flickering candles, fine linen napkins placed upon artfully stacked place settings… A proper lavish dinner party thrown by the sort of…
I was going to call this post Top Faux Christmas Garlands but when I looked at the pictures it was more like a fireplace catalogue, so I’ve kept the title real and relevant for you. Hohoho. Fireplaces aren’t all they’re crack(l)ed up to be, in my opinion. It must have been more than a full time job,…
I interrupt the gift guide frenzy to bring you some videos that have somehow slipped the net, here on A Model Recommends. Firstly, this house update and then – perhaps tomorrow if I get a move on – a rambling makeup try-on with a fancy new red lipstick and a chat about Gold Digger. Please tell me…
A great decorating book to feast upon, if you’re something of an interiors aficionado; Farrow & Ball’s Recipes for Decorating* by Joa Studholme. It’s an absolute visual delight. Whether you’re a serial re-painter who loves to experiment with colour or a confused starter with no idea how to pick a more flattering shade for the living…
I must admit that the title sounds slightly click-baity, but I filmed my latest house update when I was still waiting for the big glass doors to arrive and all building work had come to a total halt – it felt very appropriate. Like that bit in Grand Designs when everything goes wrong and they film…
Question: is a part of a building still called an extension if there was something there before it? I’ve been mulling this over because I’ve been automatically referring to our new dining room as an extension but is it? We’ve demolished one thing (a weird, shoddily-constructed annexe) and we’re building something bigger and completely different in…
The sun is out: catch it while you can because it’s probably for a limited time only. Not like last year, aka The Best Summer In Living History. (At least for those of us born after 1976. Those who were around for 1976 do like to harp on about how that was the best summer in living…
Here’s a “home haul” video, which I believe is the correct down-with-the-kids-speak for Things I’ve Been Buying For The House. Which could also be called Ruth’s Neverending Stream of Parcel Deliveries, or even Ruth’s Husband’s Ultimate Source of Discontent, because he has to endure the incessant ringing of the doorbell and the cardboard boxes everywhere and me…
Finding properly pretty bed linen is not the easiest of tasks, especially for children’s rooms. Because a lot of the time “pretty” means cartoon fairies and a very sickly sort of princess pink, when what you actually want is Liberty print and the sorts of teeny tiny ditsy patterns that you would still absolutely drape…
I’ve been looking for something to jazz up my very plain bathroom, but something soft, steam-tolerant and relatively portable. A flash of colour, a punchy pattern, a sort of moveable visual feast, if you will. And what’s more soft, steam-tolerant and movable than a snazzy towel? If you get a good one (not that easy,…
I’ve had a bit of a eureka moment with my house. After a year of dithering and not quite feeling confident about what I wanted to do with it, I feel as though I’ve finally found my furnishing and decorating groove. I’ve embraced the Georgian architecture with its ornate cornicing and big fireplaces and all…
[AD info: this post contains one affiliate link marked *] I know that it’s entirely possible that pink velvet is going to be one of those fleeting trends that disappears into the interiors ether as quickly as it arrived, but please humour me. Because I’ve always wanted a pink bed. Not the type of pink…
Bane of my house-decorating life, televisions. I like to watch them (my evenings are dominated by Netflix box-sets) but I hate the look of them. I hate them on their stupid perspex stands, I hate them when they are plonked in the middle of an otherwise bare wall, even worse with the wires hanging down….
The one you’ve all (maybe) been waiting for – the house tour. OK, so it’s not a room-by-room reveal of the whole place, MTV Cribs style, but it’s as much of a house peek as you’re probably going to get. You can always see bits and pieces of the inside of my home on Instagram stories, but this…