Our cottage curves around a corner. This means that the kitchen and the room above it (the guest bedroom) have what is essentially, a kind of diagonal slanted wall. Some may view this as a cute quirk or a unique feature where as for me personally, it just hurts my eyes.

In the fullness of time it was always the intention to “straighten” these walls internally with a method that would provide some kind of storage facility in the void space that would automatically be created by correcting the angle.

The kitchen curves will have to wait until we fully extend and re-model the downstairs but for those of you that follow me on instagram, you may know that I have managed to persuade my long suffering husband, that the guest bedroom should also serve as a dressing room for yours truly. I am very much an advocate of your home working around the way you want to live, and not sticking to traditional expectations of what particular spaces ordinarily should be used for.

I would use a dressing room every day, and it would make me very very happy indeed. I would see it as a small sanctuary where I could disappear for a while and have some time to faff and make myself look presentable, ready to face the reality of the daily grind where I endeavour to run a business, maintain a semi-organised household and juggle a crazy three year old and a newborn.

The family home I grew up and where my parents still reside, has a dining room with beautiful oak panelled walls. When I occasionally have a video call with the team from there they joke it looks like a posh library or a place of sumptuous grandeur. I have never really considered introducing panelling to my own abode until faced with this slightly peculiar on-the-wonk situation. I figured panelling would a) look lovely b) I could paint it a colour to make a bit of a statement c) I can have “secret” cupboards within it to store shoes, bags and all sorts of trinkets.

I have also decided to introduce a panelled wall in the nursery – purely for aesthetic reasons. And as we were considering having bespoke cupboards in the snug/playroom we’ve put together all of the required details and have already had a quote from a carpenter. He is coming over this week to take final measurements and discuss and draw up the exact design.

I am very excited. A dedicated dressing room is like a childhood dream. I am finally fulfilling my 13 year old self’s obsession with MTV cribs-esque fantasy. It feels like a small personal victory and a reward to myself for it being exactly a year to the day since my book Your Day Your Way was released.

In the header image above you will see a snowy depiction of my curve-around-a-corner cottage and my Sunday colour scheming “shelfie” effort which I’m hoping to achieve in the aforementioned room of girlhood dreams. I bought a “colour fan” book from Farrow & Ball over the weekend and am officially in love with Oval Room Blue. I have also purchased a rather fancy sofa bed from Made.com (sadly seemingly no longer available) so I can drape (also see “throw haphazardly and leave in an untidy pile”) my garments across it as well as provide somewhere for friends and family to kip overnight.

Do you have a wooden panelled wall? What was your childhood fantasy in terms of imagining ” The house you would live in when you were a grown up”? And what are your thoughts on Oval room blue? I’m also a fan of “Pigeon” but I may keep that for the nursery/and or the snug cupboards.