155 Ways To Bottle That Feeling.

May 6

A brunette woman sits in a bed holding a cup of coffee. The bed is a double sleigh bed in mink velvet styled with white bedding and a toile de jouey throw. An antique chest of drawers and a modern bedside table are underneath Tom Dixon dupe lights

I’ve just had a conversation with someone about sausages.

No I’m serious, sausages - as in, what’s in them and what makes them delicious. Now, when you think about what they’re made from and how unappetising it sounds, then quite frankly, I’ll pass - but when you put them in a pan, that’s a different story. In fact, one whiff of that tantalising sizzle makes you completely forget that you’re trying to embrace the vegetarian life. Stick a bit of HP Sauce on and you’ve got magic. Comforting and delicious.

So why am I telling you this (I can only assume that’s what you’re asking - if you’ve made it past that ridiculous description of a sausage then more power to you, I guess)? It’s because I was asked what the sizzle in 155 is? What is the bit that excites people about this business?

Well, what if your home was the sausage? Bear with me - I swear I’ve got a point.

Imagine you want to redecorate your room, what are your basic ingredients? You’ll need paint, you might need wallpaper if you’re feeling a bit adventurous, you’ll need some furniture most probably and you’ll need a mirror - because I’m sorry, you should always have a mirror in your room, but that’s another post, for another day.

Once you’ve got all your things, you’ve picked your colours and you start decorating. The wallpaper is a nightmare to put up, you’ve had several rows with your significant other over the missing screws in your flat pack coffee table and if you’re anything like me, you have paint in your hair. Or perhaps I’m not giving you enough credit and you actually enjoyed redecorating because it all went so well. Sometimes it happens.

Then finally it’s done, and it looks pretty good, but it’s missing something - it’s a little under seasoned. So then you keep moving things around and waste hours in Homesense trying to find the perfect accessories. You tinker - you add, you take away, you think “ I just need something else”.

It’s because you’ve got no sizzle.

We can put all the colours we want on the wall and throw cushions around like they’re going out of fashion but if it doesn’t feel right to you, then you might as well have just painted yourself a white box of nothing. It’s really hard to articulate that feeling but I can only describe it as being able to walk in a room and you just feel at home. You feel it right in your gut. Instead of sitting and wishing it was different you can sit and feel like you can just be. You can find somewhere for your eye to rest and it’s beautiful and you’re proud to be in that room because look what you’ve made. You can even have your friends over for too many Proseccos and not enough carb based nibbles and they can be suitably impressed.

That isn’t to say a room can’t still evolve and you can’t still add things, but you need to get to that feeling of being at peace in your home - even if you’ve got young kids or stroppy teenagers or a home office on your kitchen table - there should still be a little corner of your home that sizzles for you.

So what’s my sizzle in 155? It’s helping you create exactly what you intended so you can just relax. Let your home be exactly what you need it to be, whatever your lifestyle. I am but the “metaphorical pan” to help you get your sizzle. And the HP sauce? That’s you. You, your personality, your lifestyle and the things you love are the added magic.

Whilst I can draw things up for you, or source a shopping list or collate a sample box of colours and fabrics, I’ll also encourage you to collaborate, to give me all your ideas and in return I’ll give you all the tools you need to create and build. So when you’ve got the perfect space - well, it’s a perfect feeling.