Welcome to the New Yvestown

Hello lovely people who found their way back to my place on the internet. I’ve missed it but I was a bit lost the past few years. I was getting anxious working with brands and turning into an influencer as I really do not wish to influence anyone I’m here merely to inspire and to give you a little nudge to be creative.

I’m turning 50 next year and when I started blogging about 20 years ago I was eager to be out there, to work with brands and to gather as much free stuff as I could possibly obtain because that’s what I did in my thirties. I’m quite settled now in a home that’s almost completely renovated and that never happend before. But again, I miss blogging in its true form. The content creating, the little snippets of text that pop in my head when I’m doing things and want to share with you. But I do need to pay off that mortgage, buy bread and feed my cats and as I don’t want to work with brands, don’t want to be called an influencer I have landed upon Substack. From now on 50% of my blog will be free and the other 50% will be for subscription only. You have to know that when you subscribe I will be able to create a lot of content like I used to do: home and garden stuff, decorating, renovating, DIYs, recipes … there will be video tutorials, vlogs and podcasts. And my blog will be 100% ad-free. I will however recommend things I’m wild about, I will even take you on holidays, trips and shopping adventures, but only to inspire.

I’ll be posting weekly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can get a 7 day free trail, subscribe monthly or annually and cancel whenever you want.

Enough shoptalk, so where does all the magic happens? In a small Belgian border city close to The Netherlands. I’ve been living in Lommel for the past 14 years and enjoy the advantages of being only 3 minutes from the Dutch border, 45 minutes from Antwerp, and hour and a half from Amsterdam and, if I leave early, it takes me 5 hours to be in Lewes UK where a few of my very good friends live and I call my second home.

I have a studio space next to the kitchen and next to the study all North and garden facing so I have good light and I’m cut off anything that happens on the street.

The Smeg fridge is the “party fridge” for when we host dinners or for when I bake a lot of cakes and don’t know where to put them. The poster is from Studio Boot, I was born in the year of the tiger grrr. The apple basket will be for sale in one of my upcoming pop-up shops, more about that soon.

Poster of the American flag by Jenna Alexander. Behind the curtain I stack my sewing machines.

Stuff that’s been with me forever and tools I use for crafting.

The old IKEA cupboards were all here when we bought the house. I took them off the wall, painted them in Farrow & Ball Shadow White and I designed the MDF shelving around it so that Bo could cut it out and enclose the cupboards with the shelving. I absolutely love the turnout. I store fabrics and craft supplies behind the doors which I sand frosted with foil.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions just leave a comment below. Until Wednesday when I’ll be sharing a video tutorial.

Love, Yves