Book Review – Kirstie’s Vintage Home

Kirstie’s Vintage Home is the latest book from Kirstie Allsopp. Kirstie is famous for presenting Channel Four’s hugely successful Location, Location, Location and Relocation, Relocation with co-host Phil Spencer. She went on to present the hugely succesful Kirstie’s Homemade Home, a programme that defied the generation of flat pack furniture addicts and encouraged us to up-cycle, reuse and hand make our furnishings.

Kirstie then co-founded Raise the Roof, an independent production company which produced the series Kirstie’s Handmade Britain and the up-coming series Kirstie’s Vintage Home on which the new book is based.

As a vintage home addict and a big fan of Kirstie’s I was really looking forward to receiving the book. I’m always looking for inspiration and ideas for things to make and up-cycle at home.

In the book Kirstie looks to the past for inspiration to create vintage style furniture decorations and home accessories, and shows us how to achieve vintage looks within the home. Kirstie is a passionate advocate for buying second-hand and vintage items and loves filling her home with handmade items.

This book is a step-by-step guide to planning and furnishing your vintage home. She runs through the planning stage working through the different eras and explaining why and where to look for vintage things for the home. Everything from creating your own look book to drawing floor plans are covered, so for anyone who’s not a natural interior designer this is essential reading.

The book is not just about going out and buying vintage things for your home. It’s more about acquiring and using new skills to create a vintage style home. There are still the usual handmade projects and up-cycling tips, including making and arranging soft furnishings and little craft ideas which make the prefect finishing touches. Projects include creating a shabby chic chair and sewing bits of fabric together to make a memory quilt.

The projects are a mix of things that anyone can do at home, to more complicated projects that you would need to visit a craft school or craftsmen to complete. Although thrifting can be a cheap way to furnish a home some of the projects require a lot of materials and equipment so not everything is suitable for people on a budget. That being said Kirstie’s guides to buying at auctions, salvage yards, second-hand shops and finding things in skips are really helpful.

The favourite idea that I will be re-creating is the bedside cabinet made from a reused vintage crate. It looks fantastic and is a great place to store some of my favourite coffee table books.

You’ll love this book if… You’d like to create vintage looks in your home but don’t know where to start or you want some ideas for things to make for your vintage home.

You can buy Kirstie’s Vintage Home from Amazon here

Published by Hodder and Stoughton

I’m definitely going to be trying some of the ideas from the book so look out for future posts.