Well, only just. I’ve just had a failed attempt to mow the lawn, only to be halted by grey skies and pelting rain. I am cheering myself up by looking at wonderful summery kitchen ideas!

Everyone loves a blue kitchen, I’m sure. This sky-blue cabinetry is set off to wonderful advantage against the glorious CRL Quartz by CRL Stone work surface. It’s got huge levels of scratch and stain resistance, never needs sealing, and comes in 39 colours. Something for everyone, see the range here.

If you’re still undecided about flooring options for a new kitchen, perhaps wavering between types of stone, consider Ceralsio porcelain tiles, also available in wall cladding format (6mm thick) and in 10mm format for floor tiles. Investigate the range here, there’s also a porcelain work surface material available.

With all this talk of floors and work surfaces, I am still easily distracted by colourful and patterned ideas for walls. It feels as if I’ve only just finished my own kitchen-dining room and bathrooms – nearly two years ago now – but already I’m considering re-painting and adding wallpaper. Does it ever stop! Houseology continues to be a great inspiration; this wallpaper system is Glasshouse Dawn by Bespoke Atelier and adds just the right amount of on-trend colour and pattern. Full marks for hitting exactly the right themes regarding colour and pattern …

As it’s the end of April it’s not unreasonable to be planning outdoor drinks parties, summer evening soirees and so on … virtually all my family birthdays and anniversaries happen between May and August so I expect to be able to ‘do’ outside entertaining! Goodness knows how this summer will pan out, judging by how the weather is behaving at the moment. For further inspiration see these super ideas:

More lovely dining furniture from Houseology; these are Thurloe chairs by Garden Trading, from Houseology, as before.

One of the advantages of walking past a giant Asda several times a week is that there are always home accessory shopping opportunities to be taken, in the George Home department. I am seriously in love with the Pineapple accessories, which include bathroom bits and pieces as well as a brilliant table and glassware. Have a quick look online here.

More envy-inducing outdoor dining furniture; this is an eight-seat dining set, from Out & Out Original. This is totally weather-proof, in aluminium, so even if it’s raining it can stay outside and look pretty. See the rest of the collection here.

Making a quick detour back to George Home to pick up some cushions/seat pads for the garden furniture, in anticipation of several hours spent lingering over cocktails and BBQ! Try the Flamingo & Pineapple Print cushion, a set of three tea towels and a Round Flamingo cushion – all absolutely guaranteed to add a dash of style to outdoor entertaining.

I’ve been asked recently to recommend a filtered water jug or tank to a couple of friends. Being the proud owner of an Omni 4-in-1 filter/hot/cold/boiling water tap Franke. I had to do a bit of investigation on their behalf. The Zerowater filtering system is impressive; available as a jug to store in the fridge, in various sizes, or as a more substantial tank/dispenser to sit on a shelf in the main fridge area if you have a bit more space available. Zerowater is definitely worth a look, the quality of water it delivers is as close to purified water as can be, it prevents limescale in the kettle and has the interesting (but ultimately not very helpful) ability to filter red wine into clear, alcohol free water. So if you still use a kettle and don’t have a four-in-one tap, consider the Zerowater system instead.

Ooh the excitement when a new vacuum or cleaning system arrives is a wonderful thing to witness! The new Vax Platinum carpet wash landed in a huge box, and as these things always do, looked extremely complicated. However, once we’d wrangled it out of it’s box and spread all the accessories out, it then looked straightforward. 20 minutes later we were up and running, tackling a not-very-old cream carpet that had suddenly begun to look shabby, despite there being a strict no-shoes-upstairs rule. The Platinum performed beautifully (we’ve used Vax carpet washers before), and although I wouldn’t have expected it, pulled out a satisfying amount of dirty grey water. Without going into huge amounts of technical detail (you can see all the gen here ), don’t be scared of these cleaners, I’ve heard so many people say they’re too heavy/big/complicated/awkward to use etc. This one isn’t. This one works. Next week I’m nominating my daughter to tackle a living-dining room carpet that has never been wet-cleaned, and which has been down for over 20 years. Stand by for further reports.

My Ercol dining chairs project hasn’t progressed very far, mainly because there are too many colours to choose from. I’m still torn between subtle shades of grey, four clashing brights, or mix and match. In the meantime, I’m still admiring these Ercol Originals designs, from left to right, the All-Purpose chair, the Stacking chair and the Butterfly chair. Remind yourself how gorgeous the rest of the collection is here.

Cleaning Update! I think I wore my previous steam cleaner out, so will be trying out the Steam Fresh Power Plus from Vax   in the next few days. Time to have a massive spring-clean all through the kitchen, dining room, hall, utility room and bathroom. Months of horrible weather has meant that there’s a build up of grub around the edges. And the bottom of the oven needs attention too … Stand by for the steam report next time!