So I'm now several months into taking part in IKEA's Live Lagom project - I guess it's time for an update!

My resolution was focused on making my home cosier, and my new products have certainly helped. We've got throws in our living room and in my studio space too, and I've definitely found myself reaching for one rather than just turning up the heating straightaway! I do think that they make our little flat much more homely and welcoming in general which is always a bonus. We've got our lovely new pink Adum rug in our bedroom too, making the room much warmer as it was just a big expanse of cold wooden floor before - so much nicer on my feet on those cold mornings!

My favourite product is definitely the Tillreda induction hob and matching pans that I’ve been using for my jewellery work. They’ve made my whole making process so much more efficient, and I love that it’s portable so that I can work in different rooms if I need to. I’m at a point with my jewellery business where I’m looking to expand and am hoping to start renting a separate studio very soon, so I’ll be able to bring my hob between work and home which will be so handy!

As for the recycling bins… they’ve certainly reduced clutter in our kitchen and given us a proper storage space for recyclable materials. However, we’ve had some issues with the council around getting the correct recycling bins to leave outside for collection, so we’ve just ended up with a hoarded collection of tins, plastic bottles and cardboard! Hopefully we’ll get this sorted soon so that we can get into a proper recycling routine.

So far it's been really hard to see whether these changes have really affected our energy usage (and bills!). Spencer and I have only lived in our flat since September, and before that neither of us were responsible for paying household bills in our previous homes, so we don’t have anything to compare our current bills to. It’s also been so cold recently, so we have had the heating on more each month! As we go into spring and the temperatures begin to increase, it’ll be interesting to see how our monthly energy spend changes.

As for future Lagom plans - we live in a first floor maisonette, with nothing separating our open plan living area from the front door. When walking down the stairs towards the door, it gets noticeably very cold, so our next project will hopefully be putting up a thick curtain at the door to try to reduce this! We’ve also got quite flimsy blinds in our bedroom so I’d like to put curtains up in there too to see what effect this has.

I’m also really looking forward to hopefully moving into my new studio soon and applying the concept of Lagom to my workspace as well as my home - it’s always exciting getting creative with a new blank canvas!

I spend a lot of time in my flat, as I work from home, so my main resolution is to make the flat much more warm and cosy in an attempt to stop me from just turning on the heating! I’d like it to be a much more comfortable and homely environment, as well as hopefully keeping my energy bills low too.

I also decided I needed to rethink my recycling situation - we didn’t have anywhere in the kitchen to store recycling. We ended up in a situation where we didn’t want to throw recyclable materials away, but also didn’t have anywhere to put it.

As part of the project, each participant has been allowed a £100 budget to spend on products which IKEA deems to be sustainable - this covers a broad range such as food storage, LED lighting, hydroponics kits and so much more. When it was time for my personal shopping session with Izzy, I had already made a list of items I was considering (safe to say I was super excited!). Here’s what I got:

• TILLREDA Portable Induction Hob
  If you look around the rest of my website, you’ll see that I’m a jewellery designer! Much of my work focuses on hand-dyed acrylic, and achieving this involves heating the plastic over the hob for long periods of time. When I spotted this portable hob, I realised that this might be a much more sustainable solution to wasting all that energy from the gas hob! This is definitely a very niche use for an IKEA product, but that’s what I love about it!
  
  
• ANNONS 5-piece cookware set
  A set of induction hob compatible pans to go with my shiny new TILLREDA