Last summer, my flat got put on the backburner while I focused on helping my parents move house then settle into their new place. We took up the old laminate flooring and got carpet fitted in two rooms in June (very exciting!) and I moved the last of my furniture and boxes from my parents' house... and that was about it.
On paper, that doesn't sound like much but actually it made a huge difference to the experience of living in this flat. Two lovely clean rooms to put my stuff in! And shelves to put that stuff on after months of living out of boxes! Hurrah!
It felt kind of amazing - particularly because some of the stuff I was unpacking had been in boxes ever since 2011 when I'd split up with my then-boyfriend and moved back in with my parents to save money (god bless their patience, they are so glad to finally no longer have me living in their spare room!!).
I spent a few very enjoyable afternoons working out where I was going to put all my shelves, then slowly unpacking boxes to fill them. Arranging and rearranging things and generally feeling pretty darn thrilled to have this space to call my own.
One end of my living room is my "home office", which is a phrase that always makes me laugh. It sounds so serious when all it really means is "some shelves and a desk and a printer that doesn't work properly".
Then gradually my personal stuff takes over from all my craft supplies: books of poetry instead of books about sewing, photo albums instead of boxes of felt, etc, etc.
Oh, and I finally had space for my potplants again!
I missed my pot plants while my parents were "babysitting" them. A little bit of green and life in a space is so transformative, even if my potplants are all a bit funny looking thanks to years of my terrible plant parenting.
One "flaw" with this flat is that the windowsills are very narrow so I can't put plants on them. I'm still deciding where to put them for the best, but in the meantime they're squeezed onto shelves as close to the windows as possible. Some in my living room, some in the spare room and some in the kitchen (not pictured).
Mmm... lovely shelves...
Obviously it would have been nice if we'd got loads more DIY projects done last summer (it's always great to get stuff ticked off the To Do list), but it was actually really great just having some quiet time to sit and appreciate the work we'd done so far.
It was also lovely to spend time thinking about things like "where should I put these teacups?"...
... and "what should I put in this basket?"...
... instead of thinking about stuff like appliances and plasterwork and power tools. Simple pleasures, huh?
More flat updates coming soon! In the meantime, you can catch up with all my previous home renovation posts here.
5 comments:
It's the little things, isn't it? Looks lovely. So much organization.
What a big difference from your last post on the subject - it's a home! Looks cozy and pretty, you've done a great job on sorting things out! Enjoy!
Jennifer - it absolutely is! I have so much random work-related stuff, I've gotta keep it organised or it takes over my whole house ;)
bairozan - thanks! I'm really glad I decided to blog about this big project, it's so great being able to look back at the photos (and through my blog archive) and see how much progress we've made already.
I love your bookshelves and your tea cups :) I use baskets for everything - to keep my crochet yarn and current projects in, for stitchy stuff, for magazines...I'm sure you'll soon find I use for it, I can't resist pretty ones like this!
Thanks, Aurelia! The basket belonged to one of my grandmothers (those pretty teacups were hers, too), it's lovely being able to display and use some of her things. I'm actually currently using the basket for my paper recycling (!) but I'm hoping to find a more aesthetically pleasing use for it :)
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