Making my own bedding, curtains etc

jpscloud

A lot of people won't buy duvet covers/curtains etc. from charity shops but I've seen some real bargains there and bought them when I couldn't afford anything new. Add a few drops of concentrated disinfectant (one of the really nice smelling ones from Zoflora works well) to the washing powder, give them a good long wash in the machine and that gets rid of any charity shop whiff.

I'm renovating and decorating my kitchen on a shoestring - it had some quite big patches of rotton plaster so I splurged on a tub of plaster repair, which is perfect and saves hours of fretting with stuff you mix up, and a large tin of cracked ceiling paint (use on walls as well) from polycel. That really does a great job and is worth every penny if your walls are a bit rough, like mine.

I've had to take out the kitchen units (they were falling off the walls) and can't afford to replace them, so I'm using an old pine table with vegetable baskets under it, cheap wooden shoe racks fixed at the back of the table as shelves, and the splurge here is a tile top kitchen trolley from argos (£50) - I really liked the Ikea ones but they were a bit too expensive.

Some cheapo shelves, rails and whatnot, and a few plants dotted around, and I think it'll look like a nice rustic kitchen.