If you had told me two years ago (when I started this interiors blog) that it would lead to me presenting some video content for B&Q to be hosted on the Mail Online, I would have laughed you out the door. Yet, a couple of weeks ago that is exactly what happened! A full film crew from The Mail rocked up at my house, and we spent the day filming a short video all about how the viewer can inject some colour into their home with a few selected products available to purchase at B&Q.

Even though B&Q is pretty much my second home as I frequent it most weeks to pick up various DIY paraphernalia, I had zero experience in front or behind the camera. I'm also no You-Tuber, so even though I was honoured and humbled to be asked to present this video, I was actually completely bricking it. I was well aware that on the day they may well shout 'action' and I would be a lost-for-words, shaky, sweaty mess. So, to not let this happen I studied my lines and I studied them HARD. I had 5 long paragraphs to remember off by heart, so I recorded them on repeat on my phone and played them back to myself while driving a full week before shoot day. Every evening I also sat my poor, long-suffering husband down on the sofa so I could practice saying 'vibrant Trentie Sage tiles' over and over to him without crumbling or getting tongue-tied.

When it came to the day of filming, it was a flippin' good job I had put in the hard work. I thought that filming a 2 minute advert wouldn't take that long, but there are so many things that put a halt to filming - an airplane going overhead, the slight squeak of a floorboard, a car going past - everything had to be on hold until the noise had subsided. The set-up also took hours - not just setting up the equipment, but overcoming problems like reflections in windows, dealing with shadows and getting the perfect angle all took time to get right. Each take I did therefore mattered - there was no time for 50 takes! So, with the help of the wonderful hair and make-up artist Shari, who stood behind the camera grinning madly at me to get me to remember to smile, I just had to crack on and not mess it up for everyone involved! I now have a massive new found respect for TV presenters as it is really is hard work. I dread to even think how people do live TV with someone talking in their ear.

The crew first set up in my kitchen as part of the video was to promote B&Q's Valspar colour matching service. The week before a lovely guy named Andy came and painted out my dining room in a Valspar emulsion that was colour matched to a pale blue vest that I own. I had taken the vest into B&Q myself beforehand, and came out with a 2.5L tin of paint in the exact same shade! I've got to say I was surprised at just how good the match actually was:

The next product to promote were some lovely sage green tiles that Andy had incorporated into my home with a 'fake splashback' hosted on a MDF board. A few weeks prior I had installed a new splashback on some plasterboard, so we copied the same idea for both these Trentie sage and ivory coloured tiles from B&Q:

Andy used industrial strength velcro to hang up the tile board on my existing tiles without damaging them - such an amazing hack!

After the kitchen we moved on upstairs to the sitting room which had been styled up in all new homeware products from B&Q:

To counteract the sunlight coming in from the front window (it was a sweltering 31 degrees on filming day), loads of lighting had to be set up outside the front of my house, making it look like movie set and caused a number of neighbours to linger around outside to see just what was going on. This is where we did a lot of 'walking shots' and I felt incredible guilt for the cameraman who had to walk backwards all while dodging the step in the middle of my living room as I sashayed towards him.

The video and accompanying article came out last week and you can view and read it here!

I just want to say a huge thank you to Blunt Communications, Phil Vinter Productions, Shari Rendle Make-Up and everyone at the Mail Online and B&Q for being so fab to work with on this.