Tap to Tidy at Pickle Cottage: Crafting & Creating a Home with Love

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Solomon met her future husband when she was crowned “queen of the jungle” and Swash, the 2008 “king of the jungle”, gave her a congratulatory hug. Twelve years on, and now 32, Solomon is thriving on numerous fronts – a mother of four children, newly married to Swash (the father of her two youngest), a regular panellist on ITV’s Loose Women and making a new BBC series of Sort Your Life Out With Stacey Solomon, in which she and her team help people transform their homes. Many of those who wrote her off as dumb have realised Solomon is a pretty smart cookie. Perhaps best of all, she is a kind cookie in a world notorious for cattiness. Helping people transform their homes in Sort Your Life Out With Stacey Solomon. Photograph: James Callum/BBC/Optomen Solomon returned to college and took Zach with her. She felt people regarded her with pity, at best. “They would say: ‘It’s a shame you won’t be able to fulfil your ambitions because you’ve got somebody else who relies on you now.’ I was a kid with a kid and that wasn’t appealing to anybody.” Did she think she would never get another boyfriend? “I didn’t want another boyfriend!” She gurgle-giggles. “If this is the result of relationships, I’m out!”

Another clip saw Stacey completely revamp her bathroom which began with yellow walls that the star painted blue and added white panelling to with her nifty glue gun. The Loose Women panellist and host of BBC One's Sort Your Life Out, who recently tied the knot to Joe Swash with a ceremony in their garden, says: 'This book is for you to use as a guide, as inspiration, or even just to read without any pressure to do anything at all! Grab a cuppa and dip in and out of it at leisure.Well, there’s always room for improvement, she says. “I’m yet to find someone with the perfect infrastructure for life.” Cheesy as it sounds I’ve learned so much along the way and things I wished I’d know before I started, but most importantly doing as much as I could myself has given me the most strong sense of self & made me feel like I can achieve anything I put my mind to. We pinch ourselves walking around here sometimes. We can’t believe this is our garden, this is our road. I remember when we moved in I said to my dad: ‘Can we afford it?’, and he said: ‘If you can afford it now and it only lasts you 12 months or two years, go and work your butt off so you can enjoy it for the moment.’” Each chapter is dedicated to a room in the house and shows readers how she transformed each room herself. Each chapter will also include a combination of hero projects (big renovation or organisational projects)

Joe added, "It's brilliant, I'm really chuffed – it's just nice to have the secret out. It's been quiet for so long, we're so excited," as Stacey laughed, "It's been the normal length of time," with Joe agreeing, "But we've had to kind of keep it undercover. But now we can sort of breathe a little bit and let people know." Solomon says the first thing she would look at is efficiency. “This sounds really sad. But I’d love to look at how we do things and reevaluate. My sister is a paediatric nurse and I’d love to look into how things are spent, because I know her hospital needed certain equipment and couldn’t buy it from a place that was loads cheaper because it was contracted to buy from somewhere else.” You’d use your organisational skills? “Yeah, I’d love to go and give it a shake-around.” Now we’re on to the royals. It’s a week before the Queen’s funeral and the patriotic fervour is gathering pace. A Loose Women clip from 2018 recently reemerged on social media in which Solomon said she didn’t get the point of the royals: how could we elevate one family over any other just by fluke of birth and why did we pay towards their upkeep when they were already phenomenally rich? The clip went viral just after the Queen’s death and Solomon found herself feted by republicans and lambasted by monarchists. “They’re regurgitating it at the moment, which is really difficult because obviously I didn’t say it on the Queen’s passing.” The next big milestone in this relationship came in 2019 when they announced their pregnancy! Joe first announced it by sharing a series of photos of Stacey napping with the caption, 'Have been driving myself mad thinking that she's bored senseless of me and can't stand to be awake for longer than 10 minutes of my company... So you can imagine my delight to find out that she still loves me and my company very much she's just been growing a baby.This book is for you to use as a guide, as inspiration, or even just to read without any pressure to do anything at all! Grab a cuppa and dip in and out of it at leisure. I want you to know that you really do have the skill to do anything you want - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I can't begin to describe how happy we are to be able to share this wonderful news. We've been so blessed with 3 incredible children that we've had the privilege of raising and we are forever grateful to have the chance to become parents to another wonderful child. It's all very overwhelming and emotional and we couldn't be happier right now.' sic The home renovations didn’t stop indoors and Stacey videoed herself and helper Rex as they created an outdoor playhouse while also showing off the stunning pool transformation. It’s time to go. I tell her I’m looking forward to future books such as Tap to Tidy the Royal Family or Tap to Tidy British Politics. “Hahaha! Oh God, no. Tidying politics would be so long!” Stacey said, "Joe doesn't often get emotional so there's something really nice about everything he says," with dad-to-be Joe adding, "We feel really blessed. Really excited. I can't wait to see what our little kid's going to look like, can you?"She still finds it hard to believe she was mentored on the show by Whitney Houston and sang for George Michael. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a teenage mum from Dagenham, carrying her kid up the station stairs every day in a pram, then being in a room with Whitney Houston and singing to her. It was just insane! Incredible.”

Also included are the kitchen with Stacey showing off how she managed a marble effect on the surfaces and how she painted the cupboards a deep blue. The cost of living crisis? Terrifying, she says – even for her and Joe, despite the fact that they are doing well at the moment. “If our energy bill doubles, then it might well be beyond our means in the future. I’m not saying it is the same for us as someone on the breadline, ’cos it blooming well isn’t. But it’s such a scary time. How have we allowed the country to get to this point? How can the government not be prepared for it?” Discover Stacey's Tap to Tidy DIY Method - with steps on how to get started. Each chapter includes:

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Stacey has glass bottles for her washing tabs and fabric softener. She has specially marked glass trays to separate the items in her fridge. She bought mason jars to put her craft kit in and labelled them. She unveiled tray things that make a shelf under a shelf just for like, her different types of Sellotape or batteries or something. It’s wild. We aren’t fully finished yet, these things take time and hard work but I’m so so proud of how far it’s come along. I’ve loved every single second of it. Cheesy as it sounds I’ve learned so much along the way and things I wished I’d know before I started, but most importantly doing as much as I could myself has given me the most strong sense of self & made me feel like I can achieve anything I put my mind to. Would she ever go into politics? Unlikely, she says, not quite ruling it out. “I’m passionate about circumstances and the way that some people get dealt certain hands and others don’t.” Which team would she bat for? “That’s where I don’t feel political at all. It’s all about: Are you Labour, Tory or Lib Dem? For me it’s not about any of those things. It’s about what you want for this country and the people in it.”