Sonnaz Nooranvary is famed for her upholstery and soft furnishing skills on BBC’s The Repair Shop. The upholsterer is known for brining treasured pieces of furniture back to life and has partnered with the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) to help tenants improve the energy efficiency of their homes with some simple tips and tricks.
In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Sonnaz shared her advice for keeping homes warm on a tight budget.
She began: “There’s a few key things but one of the big ones is actually to have proper fitting curtains so your curtains are not falling and sitting in front of your radiator and if they do, having the confidence to have a go and rehem them so that they sit above the radiator.
“The best way for you to figure out how they’re done is to actually have a look at them and copy what is there exactly.
“So you’ll see that the hems can be just slip stitched or a running stitch closed and actually they’re quite simple techniques and it’s that old thing, isn’t it of the unknown and being scared to give it a go and have that confidence.”
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In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Sonnaz shared her advice for keeping homes warm on a tight budget.
She began: “There’s a few key things but one of the big ones is actually to have proper fitting curtains so your curtains are not falling and sitting in front of your radiator and if they do, having the confidence to have a go and rehem them so that they sit above the radiator.
“The best way for you to figure out how they’re done is to actually have a look at them and copy what is there exactly.
“So you’ll see that the hems can be just slip stitched or a running stitch closed and actually they’re quite simple techniques and it’s that old thing, isn’t it of the unknown and being scared to give it a go and have that confidence.”
“But I implore and encourage everybody to have a go themselves and implement these small changes to make a difference.”
The Repair Shop upholsterer explained there were plenty of hacks that cost very little or even nothing to try.
“Another really quick hack would be if you can move your room around so that you don’t have a sofa in front of your radiators,” Sonnaz said.
“If you move it to a different spot, you’ll gain a lot more heat and you won’t have to feel like you’ve got to turn it up more to feel the benefits.
“At the NRLA, when we were in the rag market, one of the big things that we spoke to people about and what we were giving away there was draft excluders.”
“Key for that is to make sure that the curtains actually puddle on the floor so that the draft doesn’t come in through the bottom.”
Sonnaz is the resident upholsterer on The Repair Shop and has featured intermittently since the show’s beginning in 2017.
She explained she often calls on the help of her co-stars for the restorations she’s tasked with.
“You have to draw on all your years experience to get it looking fab and generally, they’re really difficult,” she said talking about items she restores.
