Addicted to textiles (or how I can afford my vintage style designer fabric habit)

I love flowers and birds, what can I say?

Over the course of my renovation project I have been steadily developing a bit of a problem; a designer fabric addiction that threatened to seriously mess with my limited budget.

When I first started thinking about how I would decorate my flat, I decided (naively) that it would be good to keep decor neutral and use lots of interesting fabrics to brighten things up. I love unusual prints and patterns, especially florals, so this seemed logical. What I didn’t know was that good fabrics are actually quite expensive, especially when you are talking about the kind of quantities you need to, say, upholster a Chesterfield sofa, or make your own curtains for a large bay window (both foolhardy ideas I had at one point, but was forced to abandon due to expense/incompetance at sewing).

It took me a lot of research (googling) to come to this realisation, though, and in the meantime I learnt a few things. The first is that I have REALLY expensive taste in fabric, and became particularly obsessed by the florals and chinoiserie of royal warrant holders GP & J Baker. Just look at their Hydrangea Bird and Peony & Blossum fabrics! Not to mention Oriental Bird. Sigh. The second is that I can’t afford to buy any of these from the usual stockists. They all retail at about £80/metre (e.g. Kingdom Interiors or John Lewis), which soon adds up when you need about 10 metres minimum for your curtains. Ouch.

I also learnt that really nice fabrics do just cost a lot of money, and was very unimpressed by cheaper options out there. Places like B&Q manage to stock lots of nice wallpaper, for example, but largely horrible fabrics, especially if you are after a vintage look (like I was). And, let’s be honest, they have to be an awful lot cheaper that £80/metre to become genuinely affordable for large buys. I had high hopes for John Lewis, and had a rummage through their large fabric collection at the Oxford street store,  but wasn’t originally that taken with anything there either.

I did find a few tips for slightly cheaper places to buy designer fabric. Queenshill has some of the GP and J Baker stuff for more like £60/metre, as did Top Designer. There may be others, please share if you find them! Still, this was a bit pricey for what had now turned into my epic quest for amazing living room curtains in particular.

My next port of call was more successful though: Ebay. It turns out there are lots of people on the auction site selling remnants, “fat quarters” and offcuts of designer fabrics. So, I pored over the big designer stockist websites to learn about the kind of things I liked, but then searched for those names on ebay. For example, I’ve found Oriental Bird, Heron and Lotus Flower and others through people like AbFabs05, and Daarling! though the latter appears to have given up, which is a shame. There are also sellers, such as RedHoney66, who sell ready made cushions and the like in these beautiful fabrics, at pretty reasonable prices.

It’s not just about the one designer, though, along the way, I’ve found some lovely Designer’s Guild stuff, Romo, Lee Jofa and Sanderson have some interesting vintage-y prints, as do Jane Churchill and of course Liberty, all of which turn up on Ebay.

So, I’ve now built up quite a collection of offcuts, mainly GP & J Baker, which I bought for a fraction of their worth per metre on Ebay. Obviously none of these big enough to make my massive living room curtains, though I did pick up a large amount of vintage GP & J Baker Firebird for only about £30 which will make several smaller curtains or blinds. The other offcuts will be cushions, draught excluders, and maybe chair seats, so I can get that designer feel on smaller items. Well, that’s the idea, I think what has really happened is that I’ve become a slightly obsessive collector of these fabrics, which I just love to look at even if I never use them for anything.

One final option, if you are feeling very creative you could always design your own fabric and get it printed by someone like Spoonflower. I had a go at this for a sample and was really impressed with the quality of the print.

In case you are wondering, my curtain dilemma was solved, after a whole year of searching, by the appearance of Bayswater Gold on the John Lewis Made to Measure Curtain list, which I’d either missed or is new, and my wonderful new curtains arrived two days ago. My hunt for Peony and Blossum in the green colourway, or Hydrangea Bird on the yellow, though, still continues…

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Kitchen appliance shopping and some useful websites

I was thinking the other day about how lucky I’ve been with my kitchen appliances. I’d expected to spend hours on the phone with various customer services trying to find out where my oven/fridge/washing machine was, or why the wrong one had been delivered, or why it was missing a crucial part or so on. This isn’t (only) because I am a pessimist, but is borne out of painful experience; both personal (Dixons, I’m looking at you), and professional (in an office management role).

But really, thinking about it, it wasn’t that I was just lucky, I also did a HUGE amount of research. After all, there is so much to consider with any appliance, and a hefty amount of money involved. Some general things to think about:

Technical and Functional Specifications. What is the minimum that you need your appliance to do or be, and what are the extra ‘nice to haves’ that you’d like if you can afford them? For example, I decided in all cases that I wanted appliances with good energy efficiency rates. As close to A++ as possible (the highest energy efficiency rating). This was my baseline, and enabled me to filter out any appliances which didn’t conform. There is a lot to consider here, take some time to research your options and any terms you don’t understand. (Also check the amperage!)
Appearance. Obviously, you want the appliance to fit into your colour scheme and style!
Integrated/Free-standing. Do you want the appliance to stay hidden behind a cupboard door? This helps keep a sleeker look, but limits size choices, for example. In my case, I wanted a large fridge and freezer, and a large double oven (I like to cook a lot) and felt too restricted by the available integrated choices.
Size/Height. Most standard appliances fit into 600mm blocks so that they can be easily arranged in a fitted kitchen, but there is some variation with this. For instances, freestanding cookers are sometimes somewhere between 500mm and 600mm, so if you don’t want a large gap, or do want room to move, or to fit a cooker in a space with an overhanging worktop, make sure you have the right size. Also, it seemed that some free-standing appliances had more flexibility with adjusting the height than others, another thing worth checking.

DOING THE RESEARCH

So, how did I go about checking all of this out? In all cases, I initially just browsed around various sellers’ sites to see what was out there. I soon came across a few sites that I kept coming back to.

I found Appliances Online particularly useful for their reviews and clear listing of specifications. The site has useful filters and is easy to navigate. In the end I didn’t actually order anything with them though, as they weren’t always the cheapest, so I can’t speak for their overall service.

The Google product search was also useful for product reviews, is good for price comparison (it seems to be fairly exhaustive and reliable) and also for the seller reviews, which I found really helpful when deciding who to buy from. A tip, use the product code (like RFA52P or similar) to search on, makes searches more precise.

The site that I did eventually order my washing machine and cooker from was Electrical123.com, who were usually the cheapest with delivery. I know, the name is rubbish and sounds distinctly cowboy, but after looking up lots of seller reviews for reassurance I went with them first for the washing machine. I was hugely impressed. You pick a date for delivery, and then the day before they message you by text to let you know the three hour window in which they will arrive. Both times they were slightly early for this slot, which actually suited me better. I’ve had no problems with the appliances I ordered with them.

I ordered the fridge from John Lewis, having been surprised to find that they were the cheapest, and this was also a pleasingly painless experience.

I didn’t just go on the online reviews and pictures, though, I also visited various stores (Comet, Currys etc) which stocked the appliances I was interested in to see them in person. I also wanted to check I wasn’t missing out on any instore deals (I wasn’t, the best deals were always online). I took tons of photos in the stores so that I could remember details, including the price and information stickers, which I also found really helpful afterwards.

As always, please feel free to share any other tips or useful sites in the comments.

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