At Home With Tracey @ourquietcountrycorner

This week we are at home with Tracey, the creative lady behind the beautiful home interior instagram account @ourquietcountrycorner where she shares wonderful images of her fabulous self build home. Read on to learn more about Tracey, her home, family and top decor tips. 

 

Tell us about you

My name is Tracey and I'm a mum to a little girl and baby boy. My husband and I built our home nearly 7 years ago on my family farm in Ireland where I grew up with my parents and grandparents. The exact spot where we built our home is where my husband proposed to me and where I would walk with my grandfather counting cows and sheep as a child. I'm so thankful to be able to give my children similar memories to those I had growing up here.

 

Tell us about your home

Our build was designed to look like a traditional stone farmhouse from the front and is then more modern from the back, people are always surprised by it and how they complement each other. I should also mention that our two pet pigs Bebop and Rocksteady live in our front garden!

It’s also slightly unusual that we have two sets of stairs in the house, a traditional curved one in the front entrance hall and a more contemporary one in the kitchen leading up to a mezzanine that you can go out onto a balcony area from.

 

How would you describe your home?

Our home is a mix match of styles we like to call it vintage with a modern twist!

 

Which is your favourite room in the house?

 Our open plan kitchen and living area as it is the heart of the home. As mentioned it connects to an upstairs mezzanine area which is the games room and downstairs it connects to the children's playroom. It's where celebrations occur, decisions are made and discussions are had. It is also where you can view sunsets in the evening, which is enhanced by having a double height window in this area.

 

How does your home reflect any passions or interests?

It reflects our interests in vintage pieces, upcycling furniture and enjoying family time. We always have a project on the go as a family especially out in our large garden areas, both front and rear. We have an expanding fruit and vegetable patch, apple trees, a hedgehog house, bat boxes, bug hotels and our pet pigs to keep us nice and busy.

 

What are your favourite items in the home?

A lot of my favourite pieces are old vintage finds or gifts such as a 1930s typewriter, vintage suitcases, my old Singer sewing machine and an old school writing desk. We also have a heart shaped stone on the gable of our house, we found it walking on my husband’s grandparent's farm. The minute we set eyes on it we knew we had to get the stone mason to put it in the wall. It was a very precious find with huge sentiment behind it.

 

When you moved into your house was it the finished article or was it a project?

 Definitely not the finished article! When we moved in it was still very much a work in progress. The only piece of furniture we owned was an IKEA bedside locker and our bed. We had no kitchen, no fridge, no flooring, no cooker apart from a George Foreman grill and only had a downstairs shower room. It took months to make it more liveable and years to invest and work it towards our end vision.

 

What renovation and decorating have you done?

We've decorated our whole house from a plastered finish ourselves, so have become quite adept at painting. More recently we've started to redecorate individual rooms and update their styles as we're far more comfortable with choosing colours now than when we first started.

 

Have you had any DIY or styling disasters?

No major disasters thankfully, maybe a few 'safe' paint choices to just get rooms finished to furnish them but trying to round back on those now. I do regret not finishing the master bathroom (tiling, plumbing, sink units etc.) during the main build as it ended up difficult to get tradespeople and was a very slow process to get it completed afterwards.

 

What is your top home styling tip?

Ignore all the trends and follow a style which brings you joy. Don't be afraid to check out charity shops or carboot sales, you never know what hidden treasures you might find. If you are building then build it to the highest standard you can afford and think of your future needs e.g. children, elderly relative moving in, accessible entrances, as these can be more easily and potentially cheaper to address now than down the road.

 

 Is there anything in your home that you couldn’t live without?

 My relaxing freestanding bathtub. I'd be lost without my milk baths for a treat.

 

They say that every home tells visitors a story about who lives there. What do you think your home says about you?

Warm, welcoming & fun.

 

 

The Home Edit

 

Lived-in or showhome?

Definitely lived in.

 

If you could only paint your walls one colour, which one would it be?

Off white you can always add as much colour as you want with furnishings, pictures, paintings and accessories, plus good lighting can work wonders.

 

What is your pet hate when it comes to your own or other’s homes?

The smell of cigarette smoke, our home is strictly no smoking.

 

Favourite front door colour?

I love pink front doors.

 

Carpet or Floorboards?

Floorboards - definitely easier to maintain with young children!

 

Kitchen table dining or formal dining room?

Kitchen table (or pizza on the couch in the kitchen living area watching a family movie).

 

High gloss or rustic?

Rustic for sure.

 

Wallpaper or Brick Walls?

Brick Walls.

 

Want More?

If you enjoyed being at home with Tracey, you might like to take a look inside other popular home styling accounts on instagram and find out more about the people behind them. You can see more of these "at home with" articles here

You can catch up with Tracey's instagram account here. It's well worth a look!