I’m completely biased, but I think that the best place to live in London is Wapping, near Tower Bridge. For me, it still feels like a quaint cobbled community, despite how close it is to Zone 1. It’s definitely to do with its geography. Wapping is conveniently nestled in the bend in the river, which means that there’s very little road traffic or noise.

Christian and I absolutely loved our old Wapping flat, which didn’t suffer from many of the downsides of London living (pokiness, damp, rats?!?). Unfortunately our landlord decided to sell up this year, so we needed to spread our wings and find somewhere new.

We found a lovely flat in the heart of Wapping, even closer to Tower Bridge (and more importantly, a Waitrose). Cue lots of bungling by the estate agent, lots of bungling by the landlord and lots of heavy lifting by Christian and myself and finally we’re moved in and somewhat settled. Below are some photos of the new flat with all our colourful wares in (you’ll probably recognise many of them from the previous flat). It’s not quite finished yet, but it’s already starting to feel like home. Happy browsing…

The New Wapping Flat:

Before Photos:

Below are a few photos of the flat before we moved in. As you can see, it was pretty minimalist:

These are the photos that were used to advertise the flat. It wasn’t quite as sparse as that when we moved in, but was pretty austere.

The Living Room / Kitchen:

Christian and I love a good open-plan kitchen/living room and this room was what sold us on the flat in the first place. It’s HUGE, by London standards at least, and gave me the space to create a sort of home office. Hooray! No more working off the kitchen table. The funny story about this room is that I accidentally bought a children’s desk online instead of a full size one… ooops! The happy ending is that we managed to repurpose it into a chic TV stand, so no harm done. Hilariously, everyone keeps bashing their knees into the glass coffee table (me, Christian’s dad, about five of my friends so far), but it came with the flat so nothing to be done about that:

The living room / kitchen gives off a very calming vibe.

There’s plenty of colour in the new flat.

The artworks on the far wall are from Antigua, Thailand, Cuba, Italy and England. I like to pick up different bits of art on my travels.

Finally I have space for a proper desk in my new flat!

The sofas, rugs and most of the furniture came with the flat.

I’m sure that I’ll move things around a bit, but the flat only started to feel like a home once we’d got some art on the walls.

Christian and I like having an open plan living room / kitchen as it means that we can make conversations wherever the other one is in the room.

Thanks to my darling friend Kellie for sending me these flowers as a thank you for running her hen do 🙂

Our new kitchen.

The Bedroom:

Not the most exciting room in the house, but the bedroom is always a fun one to decorate. I’m still working on the feature wall, but here is how the space is looking so far:

Our new bedroom…

With one of my many rag rugs.

This poster was from the Burri exhibition that I visited in Italy earlier this year.

I’m still working on the feature wall, but here it is so far.

Art doesn’t need to be expensive to be good. This was a card a friend sent me 🙂

The Garden:

The garden was probably one of the biggest transformations in the flat. Christian and I have been desperate for some good outdoor space for a while so we decided that we would make the most out of the outdoor space by laying down artificial grass (thanks for putting the idea in my mind Joyce!). It was less of a faff than we thought it would be and really helped to brighten the space. Fingers crossed that a squirrel doesn’t get in and ravage it like our balcony in the last flat!

The artificial grass in all it’s glory.

I schlepped this table and chairs from the same place where I picked up my kids size desk AKA new TV stand.

I’ve tried to stick to quite a neutral colour palette for the plants outside. Let’s see how long that lasts!

Right, that’s it for now – I hope you found the “tour” interesting 🙂 If you happen to book onto a workshop at our Ragged Life HQ in London then you’ll get a chance to see the flat in person too.

As always, happy rag rugging, Elspeth x

Connect with us:

If you’d like to be the first to hear about new rag rug products or to see our new creations first, why not join our Rag Rug Community on Facebook for advice, resources and gorgeous rag rug photos: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RagRugCommunity/

OR CONNECT WITH US ON SOCIAL MEDIA AT:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raggedlife/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raggedliferagrugs/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/raggedlife/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/raggedlife