Chic Showcase: The Ideal Home Show with Hillarys Blinds

Usually on the Chic Showcase I like to pick out one product or a particular range to highlight but this time it’s a bit different. Last week I was thrilled to be invited to the Ideal Home Show as a guest of Hillarys Blinds. It was a day of inspiration, of home interiors and design, of blogging relationships and window dressings.

 

There was a huge amount to look at. The show has changed significantly in recent years and now has a more market feel to it but the old staples are still there and so I’m going to show you some of my favourite bits.

The Showhome:

The infamous show homes are still very popular and so Amanda, Penny and I decided to join the queue and take a peek early on.  We found modern, Eco living with gorgeous, colourful interiors, clever use of space and light, bright rooms. This was just my cup of tea and I could really see myself taking inspiration from this set.

 

After a  jolly good browse around the show home and wander around the interiors stand it was time to take a look at what Hillarys have to offer.

 

Hillarys Blinds:

Hillarys Blinds, a Nottingham based company, offer a bespoke made to measure service for your window dressings. The tour of the stand illustrated how Hillarys appear to have moved with the times and seem to be keeping up with new trends and fashions as well as sticking with traditional designs to please their devoted customer base. I was really impressed by Hillarys roman blind collection as well as their fabric swatch selection which seemed to cater for every taste.  There were blinds, shutters and curtains galore on a stand designed to be touched! I couldn’t help myself, it had to be done. Penny has some lovely film footage of us testing out Hillarys conservatory blinds and putting them through their paces.

 

I was surprised to learn that shutters are really popular with many people having them all over the home, not just in the bedroom as we may have done in years gone by. Hillarys are now focusing much more on their white blind collections and this was evident in their displays. Shutters are great for a modern home, and even better for the family as they are easy to keep clean.

 

Of course, roman and roller blinds are still the mainstay of the range and their fabric selection blew me away to be honest. I loved the retro, more mid century feel of many of the colours and patterns and am sure these are extremely popular.

 

The Rest:

After our in depth tour of the Hillarys stand and lunch it was time to explore the rest of the show. This is where the show seems to have changed so much in the last decade and there is huge focus on beauty, food and wine now. The whole of the upper floor was dedicated to these areas and, in fact, proved to be great fun. As bloggers we don’t always get to spend much ‘real’ time together even though we communicate online a lot, so having fun, girly time together was a real treat.

We had our teeth whitened!

 

 

We had a Benefit mini makeover!

 

 

And we had plenty of fun!

 

All in all a fabulous day out!

Thank you to Hillarys Blinds for inviting us, providing the tickets and lunch and giving us a tour of their stand.  Here’s to next year.