A tour of Margate bungalow: the good, the bad and the very, very ugly

Plus some before and afters because we all love those

In honour of fifteen years of Life Unstyled I’m sharing a load of photos taken this morning with no styling, no pre-planning, and frankly, not very good photography because my phone is FOUR years old and the camera is rubbish. But that is the essence of Life Unstyled, the blog I started in 2009 as a response to the perfect interiors images in magazines - this was pre-Instagram and little did I know it was about to get way worse.

The main parts of my renovation are complete and now I’m more in the decorating phase. The bedrooms all look bad, but for context, two years ago this house was barely liveable and in a terrible state, so…baby steps! Scroll for some befores.

All this to say: be kind to yourself, life is messy, homes are for living. not for instagram, and the best homes are constantly evolving, living, breathing embodiments of YOU and your life’s journey. Enjoy!

This corner is constantly changing. I want a tall cupboard on the wall where the pine unit with the books on top currently sits, but until then the pine units are the latest resident of this corner because I had to move them out of a bedroom to make room for a bed. Yes I know I can stack them here, but I don’t want to :) Box of tools on the floor because isn’t that where they live? Notice the door that is falling apart. Also on the list, a table that seats more than 3…

This will definitely change over time - I’d like to reupholster the sofa in something fun, the rug is too small and the orange mirror isn’t right next to the orange pop in the painting. As the only pops of orange in the room, they should really be split across the room for more balance. I like my little table on wheels though.

Some of you may remember when I found this dark wood piece on the side of the road and squeezed it in the back of the small car I had at the time. I still want to sand it down and oil it, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Just off the hallway in what used to be…the hallway, is the bijou guest loo/shower room. I want to wallpaper in here at some point (you can in bathrooms as long as you seal it) but for now I’m happy with it and its mad tile situation. I roughly primed the hallway walls in preparation for painting them and liked the effect so I left it. For now at least.

The new loo/shower room and coat cupboard stand roughly where the blue box is and the space to its right. A clever use of space if I say so myself.

Speaking of the mezzanine…I hadn’t been up there for a while, but over the weekend I went up, read a bit, took a nap and it was very peaceful. This is how I left it. Soon-ish the walls up here will get wallpapered.

I remember standing up here two years ago feeling overwhelmed and thinking how the hell are we going to sort this out. Now I sit here and read and nap.

Books, books, books.

I don’t remember a time when the hallway didn’t have pots of paint by the door. One day I will replace the front door - notice the rotting wood at its base. I’m going to paint the door frame the same colour as the plaster walls in the meantime. As ugly as it is, this space is flooded with light in the afternoon, so any replacement will have to be glass. Ugly but practical grey doormat that I throw in the wash every few days.

I’m reluctant to show the bedrooms because they need so much work, but when you think of how they were before, at least now they have character. I always make my bed, but there is a cat still sleeping in there so he wins. Bed from Graham & Green, lamps and curtains all eBay, dresser from British Heart Foundation charity. And I STILL haven’t removed that air vent in the wall, ugh. But I did install the skirting/base boards myself :)

The same room, before.

This door wasn’t here before, but we knocked through and re-did the bathroom. I’m mostly happy with it but I want to add a white curtain to soften the dark window frame. I also want a vintage wall cabinet to the right of the mirror for toiletries etc.

Very pleased with my handmade shower curtain - a sheet bought at a charity shop, lined with clear plastic. See the how-to here. I asked my builder to make the curtain rod from some leftover metal conduit and I love it. The radiator/towel rail was from FB Marketplace for half the price of a new one. However, there has been a bit of leaking…

Bathroom, before.

I managed to salvage some of the yellow tiles but sadly they were too few and too brittle to incorporate into the new design.

It was as grim as it looks

This bedroom needs work. It’s sad. It was my office but now I’m re-doing it as a bedroom for Airbnb guests. This week or next I’m painting that wall fresh white - the raw wall finish isn’t working for me here. The metal bed frame is old Habitat and I may paint it (one day…)

The curtains that hide all my prop/set styling stuff. See how I did it here. One day a few years down the line I’ll get rid of them and gain back the full size of this room as it’s the biggest of the bedrooms. But for now, it does its job.

I almost didn’t post this because even I have some standards. But…here we are. My favourite part is the extra fold out bed I’ve ‘hidden’ behind my desk. The thing is, I need to store it in the garage, but for that to happen, a week’s worth of garage sorting and tip drop-offs need to happen and it never seems to get to the top of the list!

Yes I still have a lot to do, but the estate agent sale picture of the room above remind me how far I’ve come

The middle room. Much like the stereo-type of the middle child, this room has been ignored and excluded from family (interiors) activities until very recently. Now it needs a proper bed to replace the sofa bed I bought on FB for £30 for a last minute guest a couple of years ago.

The Beckham’s perfume poster was pure class. I did hold onto the light though.

This week I celebrate a big win that is refinishing and painting the entire house exterior myself over the last month. AND I cut the grass.

Thanks for reading and not judging me. The expectation of stylists or any designers is that our homes are perfect. As you can see that is clearly not the case.