Keeping organised in my home office is an ongoing challenge! I look back over the years as I’ve grown from the living room floor to the kitchen table, to a tiny spare bedroom to my current office which is a big double bedroom sized room and I wonder – how on Earth did I manage to keep organised back then, let alone now? I remember one Christmas working from a giant cardboard box as a makeshift table because I just got way too many orders to fit in the kitchen. It’s nice to look around my pretty, colourful home office now and feel somewhat more settled, haha.

Organising my orders is one of the most important parts of my business. I have to keep them in sight, safe so as to not lose any customer information and I have to be able to separate the ones that are ready to be shipped, from the ones that need to be made, from the ones that have just come in. I’ve tried loads of different ways to keep them, but this wall unit from IKEA is by far my favourite. I’ve had letter racks before, but they take up valuable desk space of which I’ve never really had much so when we bought our house this was one of the very first things to be mounted to the wall! It’s made of metal, too, so it’s really robust!

I added some colourful flowers to make the area less business and more fun and bright and it sits just below my handmade noticeboard which is decorated with colourful letters too. The table underneath I actually created from a long, thin shelf from IKEA and some table legs as I was looking for something really bespoke for the narrow space – it’s perfect for making a huge batch of jewellery and light enough to move around the room as and when I need extra workspace, but also sits neatly under my windows to create a pretty display when not in use.

So that’s one of my favourite corners in my home office – you can see more peeks into my studio here.

Loves x xx

Living in rented accommodation we had a handful of tools for around the house – mostly to build all the furniture my IKEA obsession was responsible for bringing into the house, but anything further than that we didn’t need to worry about. The luxury of renting! When we bought our own house we had to vastly improve our tool collection, much to the disappointment of our bank balance – I want to spend my money on pretty things!

Here’s my essential tools you will need when you buy your first home:

// Now we actually own the walls, we can fix things to them like bookcases and heavy guitars, maximising our floor space – woohoo! For heavy stuff you’ll need to use wall plugs. We picked up a set of them with different sizes for pretty cheap, meaning we don’t have to think twice next time we want to hang something on the wall. Make sure you choose the right ones for what your walls are made of!

// Even if you’re not planning any renovations, you’ll need some simple tools. We were caught short a few months ago when we needed to turn the water off in the house – because it’s a fairly old house and hasn’t been particularly well looked after, the water taps wouldn’t budge just by using your hands. We had to get ourselves a hefty wrench and plyers to turn on and off that rusty old tap!

// There are so many different drills, oh my God! We had no clue what we were doing, so in the end we popped into ScrewFix and the guys there gave us some pretty solid advice. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t just try to sell us the most expensive one. He recommended a brushless drill which was pricer, but will last longer over time (read more about brushless drills, here!). A random customer gave us some advice when we were looking lost in front of the drills in another popular DIY store. He kindly told us to choose a Makita or a DeWalt over a ‘hobby drill’ and that the deals are often better at ScrewFix.

// No matter how nice your new place is, you’re likely to want to put your own stamp on it so if you’ve got any wallpaper to strip off buy yourself a wallpaper stripper or borrow one from a friend. I definitely wouldn’t bother hiring one as they’re so cheap to buy and they make the job like 100 times easier! Watch for the steam dripping out though – it can really burn if it gets you!

// Engelbert Strauss asked me to share their website with you guys and they have a wide range of tools, workwear and office supplies all in one place… plus their slogan is “enjoy work” which I am definitely a fan of – I’m a live to work kind of gal, not work to live! We were lucky that someone offered to help us pick out all our new tools and supplies and drove us round all the local DIY shops! If you can’t drive either, it’s really hard to manage all the big tools on your own! Instead you could pop over and have a look at the Engelbert Strauss tools from the comfort of your own sofa and get everything you need delivered to your door!

What would you recommend adding to my tool collection? Loves x xx