Clean sweep: five steps to a spring-ready home

Cleaning up: the peak of utility room chic at Plain English
Cleaning up: the peak of utility room chic at Plain English

The heartening hint of spring in the air means it’s time to start freshening things up indoors, ready to welcome in the new season. From buying a bunch of flowers to painting your front door or radically revamping a room, a space can be entirely transformed in a weekend. Here are some suggestions to banish the last vestiges of winter. 

 Make a fresh start 

The thought of deep cleaning might previously have been enough to give us the collywobbles, but the rise of beautiful products with which to do so is making housework less of a chore.

Natural cleaning products from Tincture
Natural cleaning products from Tincture

Who knew that the latest lust-haves for the home would be designed to scrub the loo? From ostrich feather dusters at the A. G. Hendy & Co Home Store in Hastings to American aluminium dustpans at London’s Labour and Wait, covetable cleaning kit is (almost) enough to turn even the most notorious scrub-shirkers into beacons of domesticity. 

the A. G. Hendy & Co Home Store in Hastings
The A. G. Hendy & Co Home Store in Hastings

On the high street, John Lewis sells a range of products from the French hardware company Perigot which aims to ‘breathe new life into the mundane, transforming utilitarian items into objects of desire.’ Its bamboo duster mop is certainly that and won’t fail to look smart - even if it is utilised less often than it should be.

An ostrich-feather duster from A. G. Hendy & Co Home Store
An ostrich-feather duster from A. G. Hendy & Co Home Store

Minimalists and those short on space might prefer Muji’s cleverly designed cleaning system, which has an extending pole with nine different attachments including wet and dry mop heads and a glass cleaner. 

The ultimate accessories for the aesthetically-minded housekeeper are the smartly packaged cleaning products from Tincture. The all-natural range (including all-purpose, bathroom, glass and floor cleaners) is made made from a blend of botanical ingredients and essential oils. The posh products smell delicious and work well, but with prices starting at £7.50, you may feel it’s too much like pouring money down the drain. 

Join the petal pushers 

Hankering after something more sophisticated that supermarket flowers but just as easy to get hold of? One of the burgeoning number of flower subscription services could be for you. 

A floral arrangement from Bloomon
A floral arrangement from Bloomon

Dutch company Bloomon offers beautiful, fuss-free arrangements - just plonk them in one of the large vases it also sells and they look brilliant. 

“The varying stem lengths and spacing between the blooms help to build an artistic style and each flower gets the attention it deserves,” says Michiel Bakker, managing director of Bloomon UK, who claims their flowers are fresher than those typically found in high street florists and supermarkets because they are sourced directly from growers. “The flowers arrive on the customer’s doorstep within 36 hours of being picked, so they last longer.”  

Prices start at £20.95 for weekly, fortnightly or monthly deliveries and customers can pause or cancel the service at any time. Bloomon currently delivers in the south-east of England and plans to expand to other areas. 

Bloomon founders  Patrick Hurenkamp, Bart Troost and Koen Thijssen
Bloomon founders  Patrick Hurenkamp, Bart Troost and Koen Thijssen

Bloom & Wild offers a cheerful nationwide service (£20 per bouquet with delivery); flowers are delivered through the letterbox in slim cardboard packaging and come with a pamphlet explaining how best to style and care for them. 

Discerning Londoners may prefer the FlowerBx delivery service launched in 2015 by Whitney Bromberg Hawkings, formerly head of press at Tom Ford. There are no blousey arrangements here; chic, single variety and colour bouquets (as favoured by Mr Ford) are FlowerBx’s specialty.

“All of the fashionable men and women that we know love single-varietal flowers in a bunch rather than the mixed bouquets stuffed with filler that are on offer elsewhere,” says Bromberg Hawkings. “Our flowers come straight from Holland and are often half of the price of most high-end London florists.” 

Go green 

Pantone’s colour of the year, ‘Greenery’, is a zesty yellow-green that evokes ‘flourishing foliage’ and ‘the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew’. As lovely as this sounds, it’s a difficult shade to embrace in interiors. But that’s not to say that green isn’t having a moment - muted, mossy tones are being championed by the style set. 

KItchen cabinets painted in Cactus paint from Neptune 
KItchen cabinets painted in Cactus paint from Neptune 

“Green is the colour everyone is talking about at the moment,” says Rebecca Malyan, head of product at Neptune, “We’ve blended a new shade of green paint - Sage - that sits beautifully with soft whites and our deeper green, Cactus. It works wonders on walls or painted wooden furniture.”

Spring fabrics from Neptune
Spring fabrics from Neptune

If that sounds too much like hard work, Neptune’s spring collection also has scatter cushions in soft green stripes, florals and plains, as well as matching fabrics sold by the metre. 

Change your view 

Designers are bringing the outside in with painterly wallcoverings, textiles and accessories inspired by the great British countryside. 

The Garden Room collection from Sainsbury's
The Garden Room collection from Sainsbury's

Textile designer Imogen Heath’s new fabric collection for Sofa.com is based on a visit to her ‘local National Trust garden which was full of blooms in lilac, lime and emerald’. The resulting designs are a mix of botanicals and abstract geometrics with a contemporary feel. 

Designs from John Lewis' new Leckford collection 
Designs from John Lewis' new Leckford collection 

The Speckford collection at John Lewis offers a new take on country florals inspired by the gardens at the Leckford Estate, once home to the company’s founder Spedan Lewis, and now the Waitrose Farm. The Longstock duvet set is especially pretty. 

Smart shoppers should do a sweep of the aisles at Sainsbury’s. The Garden Room collection (in store now) is bursting with bright, breezy florals and the crockery is just the thing to bring a taste of spring to the dining table. 

Let the light in 

The net curtain-twitching neighbour’s days are numbered - or at least they’re likely to be peeping through the slats of smart shutters soon if they want to keep up with the Joneses. Throughout suburbia curtains are being cast aside and blinds ditched in favour of sleek shutters. It’s now possible to match them to your decorating scheme, too. 

Custom colour shutters from the Shutter Store 
Custom colour shutters from the Shutter Store 

“Louvred shutters are a stylish and affordable option and ideal for sitting rooms, letting light into your home whilst ensuring privacy,” says Murray Clark, director of The Shutter Store, as “unlike curtains, they don’t obscure the architectural details of a window frame. Coloured shutters are an interesting alternative to a feature wall and solid shutters in a calming colour like soft pink are perfect for bedrooms as they completely shut out the light.”

The Shutter Store’s colour colour matching service means you pick virtually any colour you like to suit your interior. Prices for its MDF shutters start at £168 per square metre. 

 

License this content