Millie Fender

Millie is Real Homes' Head of Reviews. She has been involved in journalism since she was 16, and when she found a role that combined her love of cooking and her career in e-commerce journalism, she jumped at the opportunity. Millie joined the Homes Ecommerce team in 2021, after working at another Future title, TopTenReviews, as a staff writer. She lives in London in a small two-bed flat with her partner, and laments her lack of a garden every day.

Experience

Growing up, Millie would eagerly read any magazine she could get her hands on, and would often circle or even make collages of all the things she liked best. Millie put her Mum's KitchenAid to good use with her early love of cooking and baking (and Nigella, of course). Aside from magazines and cookbooks, she also would read newspapers, which spurred on a keen interest in politics and journalism in general. She went on to study Politics and Philosophy at University, and alongside her degree, she was General Editor of the student blog and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the university newspaper, Palatinate.

After graduating Millie moved back to her hometown of Bath, where she got a job at Future Publishing as a Staff Writer at TopTenReviews. Millie immediately gravitated towards the site's home content, and when a job came up in the Homes Ecommerce team, she jumped at the opportunity. A year and a move to London later, she's always cramming as many appliances into her kitchen as possible, and completely dedicated to bringing the very best recommendations to our readers. She has passed our five-step certification process to become a verified customer advisor on coffee machines.

Millie's Home Style

Millie is still very early in her home journey. Growing up in Bath she was always enchanted by Georgian architecture and quality antiques, and one day she would love to move back to Somerset and buy an old farmhouse to live out her true cottagecore fantasy, complete with a full herb garden. 

She loves interiors that are warm, classic, and rustic, and couldn't imagine anything better than an expansive open-shelved kitchen with a very large pantry. Living in South London though, that dream is still quite a way away, and Millie currently lives in a lovely top-floor two-bed flat with her partner. The natural light, hardwood floors, and in-built dishwasher were what really won her over, and although she's blessed with a decent amount of storage space, she still struggles to fit all of her appliances in her cupboard. 

Living comfortably while renting is something that Millie is very passionate about. Just because she's renting, she sees no reason to treat her home as temporary or to not invest in her space. The kitchen is the busiest room in her flat, so she recently re-imagined her home and turned her living room into a hybrid dining space. Now she has a large island from IKEA in her kitchen, which has heaps of storage and is helping to keep clutter at bay.