If you’ve been keeping up to date with Stacey Solomon’s new house renovation, I’m sure you’ll have been suitably impressed with what she’s done so far. But it is her most recent project that has made the Ideal Home team team it up straight – her orange striped bathroom is surprisingly bold and stylish.
In September, Stacey posted a video of the orange bathroom suite she’d salvaged from her new property, and with all the comments begging her to keep it, it seems she’s done exactly that.
Posting a video of her transformed space, the orange suite took pride of place in her new bathroom, alongside bold orange striped walls, accessories and a bath mat. I asked design experts if Stacey had managed to start her own bathroom trend.
I have to say I was surprised to see the bathroom was quite so colourful and bold. From her time at Pickle Cottage to the George Home x Stacey Solomon collaboration, I’ve come to expect Stacey’s style to be more neutral, with a blend of rustic, cottagecore charm. This bathroom shows Stacey can also nail a contemporary maximalist style, too. It’s unexpected, but I love it.
In her post, Stacey explained the bathroom was to be her sons’, and that the space brought her so much joy every time she opened the door. ‘I’m ready for people to hate this 🤣 But honestly I love it so so much…‘ she said. But it turns out interior design experts love it, too.
‘I love that Stacey has taken something most people would have ripped out and made it the star of the room. An orange bathroom suite is never going to be shy, so why not have a little fun with it? The transformation has a wonderful retro feel, but the stripes give it a freshness that stops it looking like a bathroom that’s been stuck in the 1970s,’ says Lesley Taylor, interior designer and founder at Baked Tiles.
‘The stripes are particularly clever because they pick up the orange of the original suite and carry it across the room. Rather than the bath, basin and toilet looking like three unusual pieces that happen to be there, everything suddenly belongs together. Vertical stripes also draw your eye upwards, which is a lovely trick for giving a bathroom a greater sense of height.
‘What I like about the tile choices is that they don’t compete too much with the pattern. The more understated stone-effect tiles give the eye somewhere to rest, while the orange tiled detailing carries the colour through into the bathing area. If I were changing anything, I’d perhaps go a little warmer with the neutral tiles. A lovely biscuit, chalky cream or soft limestone shade would really bring out the richness of the orange and give the whole scheme a softer finish.’
Coloured suites are still seen as dated in 2026 (although there was a brief avocado bathroom revival in 2024), however, trend experts have noticed that bold bathroom colour schemes are increasingly trending. This is because there has been a big move to make bathrooms a further extension of our tastes and personality, as we do for other areas of the home.
‘Coloured sanitaryware is absolutely finding its way back into bathrooms, although I don’t think we’re necessarily heading towards a wholesale return of the matching suites of the 1970s. What’s changing is our attitude to colour. Baths and basins are no longer expected to blend quietly into the background. They can shape the entire design, and we’re seeing much more interest in everything from soft blush and peach to deeper greens and rich, earthy shades,’ says Keeley Sutcliffe, design manager at BC Design.
‘Orange is a particularly interesting colour because it has so many personalities. Terracotta and burnt orange can feel wonderfully warm and sophisticated, particularly alongside natural stone and darker woods, whereas Stacey’s tangerine is much more playful. It has a real sense of nostalgia, but that’s part of its charm. And for a children’s bathroom, I actually think it’s rather lovely to create something cheerful that they genuinely enjoy spending time in.’
While I don’t know the paint Stacey used for her bold stripe, I do love bright and saturated this shade.
You can also introduce colour throught your accessories. The lobster design adds some fun to your bathroom without making any permanent changes.
I love Stacey’s use of tiles in her bathroom. This orange feels more sophisticated for a colourful, yet grown up finish.
‘Stacey hasn’t tried to disguise what was already there. She’s taken the colour, embraced it and used the tiles and decoration to give it a completely new personality. Sometimes the most interesting bathroom is the one where you don’t start from scratch,’ concludes Lesely.
Are you nay or yay towards the orange tiles?
B&Q’s seed advent calendar has returned for 2026, and after using the 2025 version, I can safely say that this one is well worth the buy.
If you’re looking for Christmas gifts for gardeners (or a treat for yourself!), the Verve Shelter Seed Advent Calendar is just £15 at B&Q. It’s a steal, given everything that’s inside: a huge range of flower, herb and vegetable seeds, and a handy little growing kit behind the 25th door. I had great fun opening the 2025 version, and I’m just as excited about this year’s now that I’ve got my hands on it.
It really is ideal for budding gardeners – and a fun novelty for the more experienced green thumbs.
B&Q’s Verve Shelter Seed Advent Calendar includes everything you need to start a small vegetable garden: a mixture of seed sachets, from peas to pumpkins, and even herbs like basil and parsley for indoor and outdoor growing.
There’s also a healthy selection of flower seeds like sunflowers and sweet peas, so you can kit your 2027 garden out with blooms you’ve grown from scratch. My two favourite companion-planting flowers are in there, too: marigolds and nasturtiums, which keep pests at bay. In fact, Ideal Home’s Editor, Rebecca Knight, had great success with the nasturtium seeds from the 2025 Verve Seed Advent Calendar (she couldn’t believe how many blooms appeared!).
If you’re wondering where to grow all of those seeds, you don’t need to order extra equipment to get them started. Behind the 25th door is a grow house, soil tablets and even plant tags. The plastic tray grow house is no heated propagator, of course, but it’s a brilliant starting point for the seeds inside the calendar.
The 2026 Verve Seed Advent Calendar is even prettier than the 2025 version, featuring Father Christmas himself inside a greenhouse filled with seedlings, poinsettias and Christmas trees. There’s also a very sweet dog on this year’s calendar, replacing last year’s robin.
The Verve Shelter Seed Advent Calendar is currently only available to click and collect, and there’s limited stock – B&Q says ‘when it’s gone, it’s gone’ – so it’s worth grabbing one before it sells out like it did last year!
You’ll find 25 heirloom vegetable, herb and salad seeds in this one!
Ideal for bird lovers, this advent calendar contains various bird food.
Or, go for an advent calendar dedicated to flower seeds.
For just £15, B&Q’s Verve Shelter Seed Advent Calendar is the perfect treat for young, beginner and seasoned gardeners alike. It’s a great way to try growing lots of different vegetables, herbs and flowers at once!
Gozney, the name behind some of the most coveted outdoor cooking kit on the market, has released a range of accessories designed to solve a whole range of pizza oven problems with prices starting from £29.99.
From a prep board to prevent your dough sticking to a solution to the ugliness of gas bottles, this range is tailor-made for those who want to perfect their best pizza oven set ups.
My favourite of the bunch solves a longstanding issue I’ve had with my pizza oven – how to properly clean it. That’s where the very clever M.O.P. Stone Cleaning Tool (£59.99 via Gozney) comes in. Here’s how it works.
Cleaning your pizza oven with regular kitchen tools has long been a huge no-no. Instead this clever new brush features a dual-purpose head which can withstand the high temperatures of an oven.
If you’ve spent an age styling your outdoor kitchen only to have the whole scene thwarted by a big, bright gas bottle then this cover was made with you in mind. It’s water repellent and fits gas bottles up to 13kg.
You’ll never get caught out with an empty gas bottle again with this clever digital fuel gauge for your prized oven. It slots neatly into any Gozney Dome or Arc oven stand and gives you an accurate reading of how much you have left until you need to refill.
The new M.O.P. is speficially a pizza stone cleaning tool which rewrites everything you probably currently think about cleaning your oven. In our guide to cleaning a pizza stone, we advise waiting until your oven is entirely cooled before getting stuck into cleaning but this accessory changes all of that.
Rather than hanging around before you can get stuck in, this brush can be used as soon as the flame on your oven is off and once it’s cooled down to 250-400°C. From there you first use the scraper side of the brush to get rid of the top layer of debris from your pizza cooking session.
The stainless steel element of the blade should make it very hard wearing – but do remember you need to keep it flat to the stone to avoid causing any damage. Once the hard layer of debris is gone, you then use the damp sponge side to clean away any other visible mess.
The long aluminium handle makes this brush safe to use and effective at really getting into the cavernous space of your pizza oven. And the removable sponge head, made of aramid fiber, should last for 50 uses before you need to replace it.
For me this cleaning tool solves a longstanding problem I’ve had with keeping my oven as tidy as I’d like it. Often the advice with pizza ovens is to let debris burn off but if that doesn’t quite cut it for you either, this will be a real gamechanger.
And I predict that the other products in this collection, including a clever non-stick prep board designed to contain mess and make the handling and stretching process easier (£79.99 via Gozney), are also going to go down very well with the pizza making community. If you’ve been at the helm of an oven during a pizza party, you’ll know anything that keeps the stress levels at a minimum is always going to be worth its weight in gold!
Which of these new problem-solving accessories is your favourite?
