Polish the Turd. Sprinkle it in Glitter.

I design beautiful homes for a living. Months of it, even years. Hours upon hours of client meetings, drawings, revisions, more meetings. Frantic back-and-forths over door handles and floor finishes and paint swatches and technical drawings. Hundreds of suppliers. Countless site visits. An enormous, messy, unglamorous machine - all grinding away to produce one beautiful, finished home.

And finished means finished. Styled and zhooshed to within an inch of its damn life. Every cushion considered, every lamp angled just so. We will always cram in a photo shoot before handing over the keys - a few more stolen hours to actually see the thing we made, to soak in the result before we close the door, say goodbye, and move straight on to the next one.

Then I drive home.

Home is a place we scraped together every last morsel to own. When we bought it five years ago, although THE most beautiful setting, the house had zero character to speak of internally - rotten windows, orange pine at every turn, moth-ridden pink carpet, a kitchen untouched for forty plus years, and two bathrooms that screamed mould the moment you walked through the door. On paper, a complete disaster. In practice, ours.

So we did what any self-respecting interior designer would do when faced with such a challenge: we began to polish a turd. Actually, that’s not entirely fair to ourselves. We’ve sprinkled that turd in glitter. We’ve coaxed and cajoled it, painted and plastered, snuck in some proper renovation work along the way, and slowly - slowly - turned it into something we’re genuinely proud of.

But here’s the question I get asked more than any other: What does it feel like to spend your days designing sprawling homes for clients, only to come home to your own modest one?

Honestly? I really quite like it.

You see, I am living proof of the cobbler and his shoes. The cobbler who spends his days crafting exquisite leather footwear for the good people of the town, only to shuffle home each evening in a pair of battered old slippers held together with optimism and a bit of gaffer tape. Does it keep him up at night? Absolutely not. Because he spent all day doing what he loves, and frankly, his feet are exhausted.

The secret, if you can call it that, is compartmentalisation. When I close the door on a client project, I genuinely close the door. Work brain off, home brain on. And home brain is significantly less demanding - she’s just grateful for a roof, a comfy sofa, and a sofa that nobody has asked her to reupholster in a statement fabric.

Because here’s the thing nobody tells you about having an imperfect home: it’s freeing. There’s no pressure to perform. No one is paying me to live here. My house is not a portfolio piece, it’s not a mood board, and it is absolutely not a showroom - yet. It’s personal. It’s ours. It’s the place where my children are busy leaving handprints on walls I haven’t got around to painting yet, and I have decided, quite firmly, to call that texture.

The kids, bless them, do not care one iota. They are not lying awake lamenting the absence of a considered tile choice in the family bathroom. They care about snacks, their friends, and dragging out every bed sheet in the linen cupboard to construct a den of truly ambitious proportions. My favourite floor lamp draped in a duvet and held up with a broom handle is, to them, a palace.

And so I have made a conscious choice to enjoy the journey. The slightly wonky journey, with its rotten windows and its ongoing kitchen situation and its bathrooms that are - let’s say - a work in progress.

As it happens, that journey is about to change. We are finally, finally, embarking on a proper renovation. The real thing. And I find myself feeling something I didn’t entirely expect: oddly, quietly sad. Sad to say goodbye to this house in its current form - this imperfect, draughty, orange-pine-clad house that has held our family together, just as it held so many families before us. It has been more than enough. It has been, in all its unpolished glory, exactly what we needed.

Yes, on the other side of the dust and the chaos and the approximately one thousand decisions about grout colour, I will finally have that beautiful home I have spent years helping other people create. And I cannot wait. But I also know I will carry this chapter with me - the handprints, the gaffer tape holding the fridge door together, the glitter on the turd - and I will be grateful for every imperfect, joyful moment of it.

The cobbler may be getting a new pair of shoes at last. But he’ll keep the slippers. For sentimental reasons.

Now, as promised, every essay will round off with a round-up of things I’m loving - the books, objects and rituals making life feel that little bit more beautiful.

Votary Cleansing Oil - Rose Geranium & Apricot
This product is divine. English made, cruelty free, vegan, female founded - so gentle and smells ridiculously good.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Beautiful, atmospheric and completely transportive - the kind of book that makes you want to cancel plans and disappear somewhere windswept for a few days.

Solesino - More Pasta Dish
Hand-painted in Italy, gorgeous warm Tuscan design, with the message "More Pasta". You don't have to tell me twice.

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Jojo x