Sunday 29 July 2012

Duck Egg TV



The Duck Egg team have been in somewhat of a whirlwind! It is only on a Sunday night when the little rascal has exhausted Daddy, who has gone to bed (wrong way round), whilst he is happily bouncing around in his cot that I have managed to sit down and take stock. What a crazy couple of months! Duck Egg TV is coming to you shortly!



In April Duck Egg after idly browsing through our tweets came across an interiors challenge for an makeover programme airing on Channel 4. After coming to a grinding halt in the renovations work and being overwhelmed by the delightful yet daily chaos of our lives, we jumped at the opportunity to be involved in an exciting interiors programme aiming to help DIY amateurs such as ourselves! A beloved interiors specialist was to present and knowing that we shared similar tastes, we sent off an application. Glass of wine in hand, a Marks and Spencer lasagna to the rescue and we filled out our form! The next morning dawned with bright sunshine and rather hurriedly I uploaded and sent off our application with the little man whooping and laughing as we set off for another of our eagerly anticipated journeys to the Sussex coast. I hardly dared hoped someone somewhere sitting at a desk sifting through hundreds of similar pleas, might read it.

Needless to say the application had not been perfect. I cringed at the spelling mistakes, what I thought were jovial comments and the mild hysteria that had ensued in our application, fuelled by the alcohol imbibed to gain the confidence needed. The whiff of desperation was palpable and in fact it stank of it. However, that Someone Somewhere saw Something in it and the rest as they say, is history! We were assigned a winning team and together our passion for transforming our Victorian cottage was reignited and we were underway with the planning! (I also was concerned with my outfit planning aiming to achieve practical yet sophisticated however always seemed to find the closest thing to hand that didn't look like I had stuffed it into a drawer. My wardrobe options were therefore drastically reduced!)


Along the way we have met some amazing collaborators. We have been inspired by beautiful interiors and refreshing design ideas. No one was as perturbed as I was by the space restrictions and the inventive ideas for storage were inspirational and have really influenced the way we are building our business. Interiors aside, we made some fantastic friends and the support and fun we had on the journey to create the programme and makeover our rooms were as much a bonus as our beautiful sparkling made over rooms! We filmed on location, hunted down treasures which will become family treasures, our little person was in heaven with the camera equipment and we all learnt a whole new skill set. The whole experience reaffirmed how talented our British craft society is and how genuinely encouraging this group that we are endeavouring to join is towards one another. There are so many unique skills out there and we are amazed every day on twitter by the people we meet and the unique items they create. The idea of our Duck Egg community is taking shape and when the website launches we can not wait to involve our new creative friends! Because that is what Duck Egg has become; from a  nascent shell as creative entrepreneurs, we are tentatively sticking our beaks out and finding that the world is an exciting and welcoming place!


The fabrics are done, and whatever response we find, we are proud of what we have achieved. The designs fulfilled my brief and are, I hope, a fresh take on shabby chic. I wanted them to have a sense of humour, be a little eccentric and  add a relaxed timeless beauty to any home. They also feature on the programme and of that there will be more on our next blog post on Duck Egg TV... Thinking of which I had better stir myself and deal with the devastation of toy cars, banana, soggy rice crackers and solo socks that now adorn our made over home! (But it's so stylish that even housework feels slightly glamorous now in these surroundings..!)