After watching Kirstie’s Homemade Home last week, I realised that a lot of the crafts she learns appear to be pretty inaccessible. But they’re not! The show is only meant to inspire you – you’re not meant to go out every single week and take up pottery and glass blowing.  Once you’ve spotted something on the show that you think can really get into, it can make a huge difference to your home. But let’s be honest here, you’re not going to pop down to your local community centre and start a glass blowing class. So here are a few places you should look when you’re ready to take the plunge into the crafty world!

If you’re London-based, the choice of courses is huge. The Make Lounge is a great place to start. They do day courses in everything from cushion making, to vintage soy tea cup candles. Everything is really simple, the tutors are fun and you come away with skills that you can use. You can also try The Studio London, and brand new Papered Parlour are worth a look as well.

For those of you a little further afield, The Liquid Glass Centre in South West England might well be the perfect place for you to start your own glassware collection! London Glassblowing will cover those of you who are capital-bound.

Pottery classes are much easier to cater for. You’ll actually find that most evening class centres have a pottery class. It’s surprisingly cheap to learn so it’s well worth looking at a ten week course instead of a one-off. Make your own crockery set! Take a look at Hot Courses and you’ll find all sorts of crafty classes. Try your local community centre too.

If Kirstie knitting a draught excluder got you inspired to pick up some knitting needles, your local craft shop will have details of knitting classes in your area (in fact, you’ll probably find that they hold some themselves. You’ll find that most of them are pretty informal. If they’re anything like Stitch and Bitch in London you’ll find yourself knitting and pearling with people in a pub! great fun. Check out the Stitch and Bitch website for more details on UK knitting networks. There’s nothing bitchy about them, I promise.

There are loads of different things that you can try yourself. Check out Crafty Crafty for more ideas. Being crafty isn’t meant to be difficult and once you’ve got started with something that you enjoy, you’ll soon find ways to transform your home. It might not be as grand as the one Kirstie is doing up, but it’s yours.

Q. I live in a sympathetically restored 1858 cottage and am currently thinking about replacing the flooring in the sitting room with genuine reclaimed oak floorboards. My dilemma is that I have beautiful original high skirting boards which are in fine order. Should I lay the floor and adjust that to size or would it be better to take up the skirting and lay the oak boards underneath?

A. If you have sufficient skills and the right toolkit, by all means take up the skirting as fitting your flooring underneath will always provide the more professional finish. However, please be mindful that your internal walls behind the skirting are probably made up of old lath and plaster. This will be extremely crumbly and should you take off the skirting, you could be storing up all manner of problems when it is eased away from the wall, leaving you with an expensive and time-consuming re-plastering job which could lead you to have to re-size the presently perfectly fitting skirting boards. If you decide not to remove the skirting, you must allow a 10mm expansion gap around the perimeter and use a suitable beading or moulding to cover this gap. It is not an authentic finish by any means but less complicated than skirting removal.