Stacey Solomon may have left Pickle Cottage behind, but her new home already has all the makings of a dream renovation project.
No matter how cosy and quaint, there comes a point when a cottage becomes impractical. For Stacey, that point was perhaps reached when she welcomed her fifth child with husband Joe Swash in 2023 (although, of course, Pickle Cottage can't be described as small).
In September, the family moved into a vast eight-bedroom Victorian mansion in Essex, trading their much-loved cottage for a period property with serious scale. For Stacey, who has built a following around her love of DIY, decorating and family life, it offers the ultimate blank canvas.
And it seems she has got her work cut out for her because the place is truly enormous. In a recent reel shared to Instagram, she showed off the new living room: a sprawling space with soaring ceilings and abundant natural light pouring in through floor-to-ceiling sash windows (we counted five).
'This is one of my favourite rooms in the house,' Stacey said in the self-shot video. 'There's so much light, the windows, the tall ceilings, everything.'
One of the standout features is the original timber flooring, which runs throughout the room and has a gently worn, time-softened quality. Stacey has already earmarked it as one of her next DIY projects.
'I can't wait to hire one of those big sanders and sand it all back and then restain it 'cause there are some light changes from the windows,' she said. 'Imagine this in a dark walnut – I can't wait.'
But the real showstopper is the fireplace. Set into a red-brick chimney breast and framed by an enormous, ornate, dark-wood mantelpiece, it immediately commands the room.
'It's the fireplace of my actual dreams,' said Stacey, adding: 'It's the biggest fireplace I've seen in my life.'
To prove the point, they set the camera down and stood beside it. Stacey, who is reportedly 5ft 6.5 inches tall, barely reached the underside of the mantel.
'Is it too tall?' she wondered aloud. 'It's so pretty, but it does give the illusion that the room is short because it's so big.'
Any doubt quickly gave way to excitement. 'I can't wait to decorate that fireplace for Christmas,' she said. Us neither, Stacey. Us neither.
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