Inside Ideas, Tips & Guides

Learning through pretend play is essential to a child's development — and a playhouse can encourage kids of all ages to take their imaginations to the next level. Playhouses can broaden creativity, build physicality and motivate socialization, all under the guise of playground-like play.

There are plenty of reasons to become a houseplant parent. Plants foster wellbeing, they help remove toxins from the air and they feed into our nurturing instincts. Plus, they look great, especially when you pair them with the right planter. That's why we're sharing thebest indoor plant pots to keep your plant babies vibrant and full of life.

How to Overwinter Begonias

Looking for a fun basket planter DIY? I got you covered. I recently stumbled upon some spacious outdoor storage baskets and had a brilliant idea – turning them into charming porch planters! With a few simple steps, you can create your own unique planters that will add a touch of greenery to your porch or outdoor space.

Scope creep is something that can sneak up on you when you are working on a project in the garden. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it is often used in project management to describe when the scope of a project alters over time and is not properly defined or controlled.

Now that fall is kicking into high gear, that means football is back—and we're as excited as you are. Game day parties have been a long-standing tradition full of fun with friends and family, and of course, the yummy snacks.

Just because the weather is cooling doesn't mean that we have to stop using our patios. In fact, sometimes it's even more enjoyable to spend time outdoors in the crisp autumn air. So if you have a patio, why not make the most of it all year long? 

Here are different types of radishes you can grow! From vibrant colors like black, white, red, pink, and green and amazing taste for your palette, these types of radishes with pictures will leave you in awe.

Fancy turning your homegrown fruits, berries and other produce into tasty jams, pickles, chutneys and jellies? Then make sure you’ve got everything you’ll need, by checking out our handy guide.

Shifting to a new residence can be quite a task, and if you’re a plant parent, then it can be hectic! To rid you of your worries, we have some brilliant tips on How to Transport Large Houseplants in this article!

There are areas in our homes that tend to be common storage areas, such as attics or basements. But just because a space can hold a stack of boxes doesn't mean it should. Before you stash a box of clothes or holiday decorations away, consider the ways in which factors like temperature, moisture, and household pests might affect the items you're storing.

Using wallpaper to update your space brings in patterns and textures that plain old paint just can’t match. Especially with numerous peel-and-stick wallpaper options, you have various designs you can choose from without having to fully commit for years.

Entryways are the first thing that we see when we enter a home. They welcome us in and send us off every time we leave. As a result, they are a common dumping ground for a number of different everyday essentials, from shoes and coats to keys, hats, gloves, and sunglasses. Amidst the hustle and bustle of a busy family home, it’s common for the entryway to become overwhelmed with stuff.

When it comes to interior design, it can be tricky to know what decor trends to buy into and what to skip. While 2023 trends included leaning into bold color, maximalist style, dark countertops, and a nod to Art Deco, some others like all-white interiors, sparse spaces, and wiggly furnishings weren't as popular. They may not be entirely trends to skip, but at least ones to put on the back burner if you are currently designing or updating your space. Looking for some advice? We sat down with interior designers to get their take on design trends they wish they'd skipped.

If you spend a lot of time behind the wheel, chances are your car needs a good tidying up. Maybe you’ve amassed a collection of wadded-up napkins in your glove compartment from frequent drive-thru outings (hey, no judgment here). Or perhaps there’s a bunch of coffee cups and water bottles left over from your work commute. Suffice it to say, you’ve got a lot of stuff that’s hitching a ride—and it’s time to part ways. “As a professional organizer, I've learned that many individuals treat their vehicles as an extension of their homes, leading to unintentional clutter,” says Aaron Traub, owner and lead organizer at My Professional Organizer Dallas. “While keeping certain items in your car for convenience is tempting, some can create messes, odors, or even deteriorate due to temperature fluctuations.” Below, experts weigh in on what needs to be kicked out and stored elsewhere.

Kraft Mac & Cheese

If you’ve been wondering how to get rid of poison ivy without developing an itchy poison ivy rash, you’re in the right place. Roughly two out of every three people are sensitive to the chemical compound called urushiol which is found in poison ivy. If you’re one of them, you’re probably used to giving poison ivy a wide berth. But what if it finds its way into your garden beds or it’s growing too close to high-traffic areas where you and your family regularly walk? By taking the right precautions in advance, you can safely remove poison ivy plants—without harming your family, pets, or area wildlife.

Cooler days and cozier evenings are just around the corner, and we’re officially craving some Halloween-inspired decor in our lives. While it’s still a bit too early to set up our autumnal displays, it’s never too early to get a feel for some of the great options that are out there for the coming season.

From stamping to sculpting, unleash your creativity with these Potato Craft and Art Ideas and turn this humble vegetable into a canvas for your imagination. Let the artistic journey begin!

Winter and Summer Pears: What’s the Difference?

We all know that pineapples are green from the outside with yellow flesh inside. But What is Pink Pineapple? Well, let’s find out!

After a week trapped inside by work, on Saturday morning I happily pottered around the garden for several hours. I started in the front garden, cutting back the comfrey and stuffing it into buckets to make liquid feed, since the flowers have faded to the point where the bees are no longer interested. I also harvested the wild strawberries that had been wafting a ripe aroma around the place for several days. In doing so I disturbed a frog that was hiding under their leaves. Two hops and it had disappeared again; I almost didn’t work out what had caused the movement. We know we have frogs in the garden because they hop out when we’re working on the unruly corners, but other than that we rarely see them. Which is fine, they’re doing a grand job of pest control.

The kitchen is often referred to as “the heart of the home,” but what happens when the weather gets nice and nobody wants to be inside anymore? Enter the outdoor kitchen. It’s the perfect place to relax with friends and enjoy the backyard. Today we’re sharing tons of outdoor kitchen inspiration, ranging in scale from giant outdoor kitchen kits to simple grilling areas made with reclaimed materials.

Many years ago, long before my gardening obsession began, I spent a season or two living in a ground floor flat in Newbury that had patio doors that opened onto a backwater. Shortly after moving in we made friends with the local duck population, to the point where we bought poultry corn from the pet stall on the market for them – bread not being the best food for ducks.

It’s at this time of year, I think, that a polytunnel or greenhouse really comes in handy in the garden. Over the summer it may just be a tangle of tomato vines – productive, but a space that you really only go in to keep up with the watering chore, or to harvest ripe tomatoes. You know you’re going to come out with green stains on your clothes and hands that smell funny – tomatoes are like that. Those tomatoes will hang on longer into the autumn than you thought they would, and by the time you’ve cleared out the polytunnel the season will be so far advanced that it will be cold and dark and your crop of overwintering salads will barely be growing – just marking time until the days are long enough for them to actually grow.

Things have been a bit quiet here of late, as we have been working on the garden rather than enjoying it – it was time for the new sheds (yes, there’s more than one!) to arrive, and they had to be painted and assembled. Now that they’re here, we have more storage space, which meant we could order a new toy, something I’d been longing for since we saw one at the Eden Project in spring.

Ryan and I celebrated the start of National BBQ week (running from 25th – 31st May this year) with a slightly over-ambitious outdoor cooking session. More about that later, but for now I’m going to skip ahead to the end, because dessert was the best bit.

They may not look like much, but these little fellas could be the Holy Grail of growing citrus from seed – polyembryonic seedlings. What’s happening is that two seedlings are growing out of one seed (in other cases it can be three). One of these seedlings is a true seedling, formed via the normal process of fertilization. It will therefore have characteristics from both its parents.

The barbecue doesn’t need to be the preserve of meat – quality vegetable kebabs go down a treat with meat eaters and herbivores, they just require a bit of time and imagination. The halloumi adds some bite and additional texture, going beautifully crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Today I have taken all of the ripe fruits off the achocha vines, in a prelude to removing them to the compost heap. I had a small trug full of fruits, to save seeds from. I also found a little friend among the vines:

Seed viability

I have been out in the garden a bit more over the last week. Rather than wait until later in the day, when I generally don’t feel like going outside, I have started going out to do something first thing in the morning, before I sit down at my desk. The weather is very mild, and a lot of days have been dank and overcast, but on the brighter mornings I can happily potter about for an hour before coming inside. It’s quite often the nicest part of the day, weather-wise.

Header image: The future of agriculture? Nick Dragotta

A note caught my eye the other day that now is a good time to think about adding nest boxes to your garden, if you want to offer accommodation to garden birds this year! Ryan and I were doing a bit of bird watching in the garden today and it’s clear that the blackbirds and the robins are starting to defend their territory against incomers, so nesting season is definitely on their minds.

It’s time to shake the mud of 2016 off our boots, and to prepare the soil for 2017 (metaphorically speaking). I have the bones of a planting plan for next year, which will be subject to revisions, and we know which areas of the garden still need work.

There comes a day, in late winter, when the gardener inside me wakes up and emerges, somewhat paler, fatter and less able to heft heavy bags of compost than she was when she went into hibernation for the winter. It should have been yesterday, which was bright and sunny, but for various reasons she overslept and got up this morning.