Thoughts on a home

English Bridge, Shrewsbury, from a riverside garden

I had such a strong moment today of remembering being in my childhood bedroom it took me a while to remember the layout of my own house… I had to focus to mentally separate the places I’ve lived, and it made me realise how many similarities my home now has to the house I grew up in. There’s probably some deep psychological meaning to that, and maybe the reason this house felt like home the moment I first entered (despite some truly horrendous decorating choices by the previous owners). Maybe it’s the layout – same or very similar orientation and arrangement of bedroom and living room and kitchen… 18 months and it’s only just consciously occurred to me. It was a very strange sensation, and left me feeling a little lost and uprooted, especially as that childhood house was sold years ago. Brains and memories can be very odd things…

I have a lot to be grateful for here where my life and choices have led me, but my home town still has a strange pull on me… It still feels like a homecoming every time. Perhaps it will always be a home, those roots never truly working loose or dying away, in much the same way my Mum still refers to where she grew up as home despite there no longer being a particular place to return to. Or maybe because over time ‘home’ becomes people and emotions rather than a place. And those things are more important and valuble than any building could ever be.

Sewing chaos

I’m in a weird mood with my sewing at the moment… I have a long list of planned projects (Christmas gifts, tops, sewing set, skirt, dress, birthday quilts) but I don’t seem to have the patience or the motivation to get on with things. I just want it all to be completed! And then I get frustrated that I haven’t achieved anything and stressed that nothing is ready, which is all ridiculous because it’s supposed to be fun. I can sit in the office all day mentally designing all sorts of things, but in the evenings I don’t seem to be doing more than the basics of living – eating, cleaning, sleeping… And recent weekends have been busy with events and trips and things like food shopping. I can probably blame the darkness and increasing cold, it’s much easier to curl up and read. No one but me will know if home made gifts never get given or finished, it just feels like there’s creativity going to waste somewhere. And I could really use some new tops and skirts and a way to organise my desk 🙂

This is my sewing desk right now, featuring: the finished blue skirt that needs a hook to stop the zip undoing, a half finished grey skirt that ground to a halt when I couldn’t locate my zip foot in the mess, scattered fat quarters for Christmas gifts, a stack of fabric for organisational things for my desk, piled with dressmaking cottons and a vest top that I added sleeves to then tried to adjust and made a horrible mess of and just needs hemming as a vest to be wearable (but it looks like camouflage fabric from a distance so how wearable I’m not sure!). And the tubes are to store quilt binding.

I think I might be just a little overwhelmed. I’ll put some of it away and focus on one thing at a time – maybe that way I’ll get one thing finished 🙂

A good omen

“Everything in life is an omen”

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

Sunset from my new balcony. I’m now completely moved in, and this is the evening sky…

Guess who just moved house!!!

I now have a new flat full of boxes, but the furniture is re-assembled and I can see it’s going to be great 🙂 

Top rental tip: when you see mold, move out before things go green and smelly. Think I just managed to avoid major problems… The new place is 10 years old and 2 floors up, if it’s a 3rd damp place then I’ll know it’s following me!

I can’t wait to make it home 🙂

Let it snow!

…well, a little bit. Hardly the all day heavy snowfall that was forecast, and by the amount of dripping I can hear it won’t last long – but it’s properly winter now! Soon I’ll even have to venture out in the lovely 2 degree weather, the things I do for a social life…

Upcycled coffee table

I got this coffee table from the BHF furniture charity shop a couple of weeks ago. I got a few funny looks carrying it home, but I’ve been really wanting something to put my drinks on while I lounge on the sofa…

The original plan was for a shabby chic sanded corners look, but of course I got the wrong paint and it looked terrible when I tried so it’s now just a plain white. All I really did in the end was paint it, but the table was so knocked around before that it didn’t take much to improve it. And with the corners being battered, sanding them down to show an extra colour really just showed the dents! It looks bright and clean now so I’m not too disappointed, and my real focus was the top anyway.

 

I’ve been looking for a while for a coffee table with a glass top to display my growing stamp collection (14 years of pen friends and a year of Postcrossing adds up to a lot of stamps!). I didn’t realise until I got home that the glass is smoked but it works 🙂 There are stamps from 46 different countries on there, all except for 2 that I’ve received myself (Fiji and the old Isle of Man stamp if you’re interested). They’re lightly stuck on to a piece of picture mounting board cut to shape using the glass as a template. It should be easy to change them around when I get any particularly nice new stamps arrive.

I’ve already added some books to the shelf, but I’m going to try not to dump too much stuff on it, it took a long time to sort out the best stamps and how to display them!

Baby, it’s cold outside

It’s finally hot chocolate weather 🙂 Hot milk and melted chocolate drops, with a generous serving of marshmallows… Winter is not a healthy season!

The weather isn’t celebrating with me…

Decorated bedside drawers

I’m on a roll! Soon I hope to have brightened up all of my bedroom furniture – but I started with the smallest bit 🙂 The drawers came from my Dad who didn’t have space for them after moving house. They’re a basic fairly attractive Ikea design, but with magnolia walls I’m feeling the need to add some colour… I gave the drawers a bit of a wipe, then painted the top. I thought about painting all of it but decided not to.

                    

I’m aiming for a soft green and bird themed sort of room, and I found some great antique style bird print wrapping paper. I measured off the drawers and the gaps in between and nearly managed to cut the papers so that the print lines up (but don’t look too closely!) I also cut out a set of birds on a branch and decorated the top. I have a habit of putting things on any available surface so the top may not be visible for long! The varnish made the paint and paper look a bit darker, but it’s now solidly protected from night time water spills and the water that seems to come through the tv aerial when it rains…

And the bedside table in use! It’s not very visible tucked into the corner, but it’s nice to have more colour and pattern around.
 

Dining table renovation

Me and my brother moved house at about the same time, so I ended up with his dining set – an (at least) 3rd hand folding table, and some basic folding Ikea chairs. All good free stuff, but I’d had vague daydreams of a bright dining room with colourful mismatched furniture, big windows…maybe one day 🙂

Anyway, I decided to brighten it all up a bit. First task was cleaning the table, the water went brown and it took several goes to get the worst off – I’m not sure this table had ever been properly cleaned!

To get rid of the worst of the dirt and scratches, I decided to sand the top and some of the legs. It’s a nice wood but sanding was hard work.

Painting the whole table would have been too much, so I decided to just paint the bottom of the legs. I measured up to a good height and used masking tape to mark the areas that I was planning to paint, and to give the paint a neat edge. It took a couple of coats to get it looking good. I used pale pink on the feet, and a metallic paint on the cross-bar because I liked the colour 🙂

To brighten up the top I stuck flowery paper to the central panel, then I dragged it outside and used a spray varnish to coat it all. It could probably do with a thicker coat at some point, but the varnish ran out…

And the finished result! Much more fun, and brightens up my little dining corner. I spray-painted a chair too for a bit more colour – it’s a bit patchy but much more colourful!