A MUM-OF-TWO has revealed how she's spent four years and £25,000 transforming her house into a colourful Wonderland.
Lucy Hamilton, 39, who lives near Henley-on-Thames, has racked up millions of views on TikTok thanks to her eclectic style and love of clashing colours.
But not everyone's complimentary about the home she shares with fiancé Steve, 44, an app developer, and daughters Darcy, eight, and Alice, five – with some labelling it "claustrophobic".
Speaking to Fabulous, Lucy says: "I get a lot of messages about how I've inspired people to add colour to their own homes, which is really nice.
"The majority of my messages are positive but I get the odd troll who sends me nasty messages, especially now I have more followers.
"Some say it’s over the top, makes them feel claustrophobic or just 'too much'.
"Others say they couldn’t live here, it would give them anxiety and they'd prefer grey.
"That’s fine, there’s lots of grey houses out there. My home is to my taste and TikTok is a creative platform. I don’t know why they feel the need to comment.
"I get a whole range of opinions but I don’t take much notice. I’m on the creator programme for TikTok so I get paid per views, which is why I do it.
Some say it’s over the top, makes them feel claustrophobic, would give them anxiety or is just 'too much'
"I have a lot of teen American followers, who say stuff like ‘oh my God I want that house’ or ‘adopt me’.
"My house is unique so I have a nice little niche. I love doing videos to music, it feels fun and people like to watch it.
"Going viral has been really good for my business, too."
Lucy worked as a long haul air hostess with Virgin for 15 years, but quit her job after having her second child.
Since then, she has been a full-time mum and working on transforming their four-bed home, which the family moved into in 2015, into a colourful pad.
She's also done some design work for friends, transforming their kids' bedrooms, and launched her Instagram account three years ago – which now has 36,500 followers.
She has a quarter of a million followers on TikTok – where individual videos rack up over a million views.
Three months ago, the mum launched an online shop Lucy Hamilton At Home, selling new versions of the most popular items from her own house.
She says: "I started my Instagram account as a hobby, but when it became popular I got inundated with people asking where stuff was from.
"I realised I was selling loads for other brands, so I wrote down all the things people were asking about and started my own shop.
"It's all fun, colourful, quirky pieces at a reasonable price, so people can recreate what I've done with my house.
"When we moved in, this house was brown and beige, it was boring.
"We painted the whole place white and then started adding in colour and wallpaper.
"I’ll use two different wallpapers in one room which some people find weird but I like the clash.
We haven’t done anything structural to our house, we didn’t even change our kitchen. We just put down Ikea flooring, painted the cupboard and added a wallpaper mural. People absolutely love that room, it's like a fairytale
"We haven’t done anything structural to our house, we didn’t even change our kitchen.
“We just put an Ikea floor on top of the brown tiles, painted the kitchen cupboards and added a wallpaper mural from Woodchip & Magnolia.
"People absolutely love that room, in the summer with the back door open it's my favourite. You can see our playhouses in the background so it's like a fairytale.
"My main colours are pale blue, mint green, hot pink and I use a lot of black and white too.
"It still feels weird when people say ‘I love your home’ because I'm used to it, to me it’s normal.
"It’s not happened overnight, it took four years of doing everything really gradually to transform the space.
"Steve does all the painting, he is so good at DIY which has enabled us to transform our house.
"He painted our stairs, you can't even get a decorator to do that, and he sanded our wooden floors, painted them white and varnished on top.
"He's also painted the walls and kitchen cupboards, but it's all my styling – inspired by Disney, Alice in Wonderland and fairytales.
"I think we've saved over £20,000 by doing it all ourselves.
"I use a lot of washi tape, which costs £3 and is really effective for changing furniture without painting or damaging it. I use it on the kids' desks and our door frames.
"We must have spent £20,000 to £30,000 in total, but I don't think that's any more than the average person decorating their house.
"I've spent money on the wallpapers, which I'm obsessed with, but that's the only thing I splash out on."
Despite the fairytale-inspired decor, Lucy insists Steve loves the look and doesn't feel outnumbered in his house of girls.
She says: "Everybody asks me ‘how does Steve let you get away with it?’ I would say it’s been a bit of a slow process.
"We didn’t just move in together and I immediately painted the front door pink, but he does love it now, I think he’s become used to it.
Everybody asks me ‘how does Steve let you get away with it?’ Luckily he’s confident in his own skin. Some men would say ‘I wouldn’t have a pink door’ but he loves it
"He says it makes him feel happy, luckily he’s confident in his own skin. Some men would say ‘I wouldn’t have a pink door’ but he loves it.
"He lives with three women and he is an amazing man.
"If I said to him ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ he would say ‘pink’ now. I don’t think he feels outnumbered."
Lucy and Steve's first project was their garden, with them transforming two Costco playhouses and a brown swing set.
Lucy says: "When we first moved in, I went to Costco and saw a wooden playhouse and thought ‘I’ve got to get that’.
"I painted it pink. Steve laid fake grass and a picket fence, then I made it into a little cottage, decorated with flowers from The Range.
"I did the flooring with a £20 lino from eBay, I have the same stuff in my bathroom.
"That playhouse helped me grow a following on Instagram so I thought ‘I’ve got to do another one’ and made a little cafe, which the girls and their friends love.
"They're by KidKraft and cost £250 to £350 each, they're good quality cedar wood ones.
"Then I bought a wooden swing slide set by Playtime which looked horrible, so I painted it white to match the cafe.
"So many people have those swing sets and they look awful, but mine genuinely looks pretty and it didn't take much – just some paint, fake flowers and bird boxes. It's not as complicated as people think."
Lucy has accumulated lots of "quirky furniture" over the years, including hot air balloons, birds coming out of the wall and monkey lamps.
She says: "I have a lot of cheap stuff, my zebra vase is from Poundland for £1 and my daughter's bed cost £70 from Ikea.
"I get a lot from Asda, The Range, eBay and Amazon too. I'll buy accessories and change them myself, like an animal head which I'll spray paint bright pink.
"I used to spray everything but I don't have time anymore.
"Our bed is an original antique I got from a second-hand store for £150, it must be worth about £1,000.
"And the lino in my toilet only cost £10, but I have beautiful wallpaper in there."
Lucy admits adding colour can be "addictive" and says some of her rooms are "over the top" – but she still loves the look.
She explains: "It’s addictive, so once you start making one room nice you want it all to look like that.
"I didn’t want a house which looked like everyone else's, I wanted it to be different.
"My girls love our house, my eldest is so proud of it because all her friends think it's amazing.
"I know our bedroom's over the top, but I still love it.
"I’ve got hot air balloons in there, a hanging bird cage, butterflies all over the walls, pink candy stripes and a blue fireplace.
"There are two clashing wallpapers in the lounge too, but I love it.
"Now I have a following on TikTok, I know they wouldn't be interested if my house was boring, so I push it to the max because of that."
You can follow Lucy on Instagram, TikTok and shop her online store here.
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