Whilst we start tidying and preparing for the spring growing season outside, I’m also tackling years of clutter and accumulation of “stuff” inside the house. As the growing seasons gets into swing, I’ll definitely be spending more and more time outside. But as I also work from home a lot, I need inside to be a calming and ordered space to live in.
My house is now calming and not orderly. It’s filled with clutter and stuff and boxes and tools and animals lounging about everywhere. I don’t mind the animals at all. But I mind the stuff, and the piles and the clutter. In this house, with no attic or cellar space, we are seriously lacking in storage and so “stuff” tends to be left out, on show, teetering in piles or dumped in boxes whilst we try and find somewhere to put it. Added to that, we’ve been attempting to renovate for the past eight years, and our late bunbun Moppy got a bit chew happy with some of the furniture. It’s not the most relaxing environment to live in right now. We need new, updated furniture, fresh paint on the walls, and some serenity flowing through the house as we open it up for spring.
I had originally planned a general tidy up and quick spring clean. Then a rat was brought in by our cat Pudding (cats are supposed to keep rodents out, right?), and promptly disappeared under the kitchen cupboards. I FREAKED. I don’t mind rats per se – we would never purposely kill or poison one, but wild rats carry a lot of diseases and mi casa es so not su casa, Mr Ratty. We tried to flush it out by emptying the kitchen and taking off the kickboards, but it was wily and escaped up into the ceiling where we’re renovating in the utility room, and there’s a small hole where the pipes run into the ceiling. The ceiling. Whilst Ratty was temporarily re-located, my mum and I shut the utility room door and set about (in full-body suits and face masks) scrubbing every available surface in the kitchen with bleach. FOR FIVE HOURS. I bleached, bleached again and re-bleached.
We heard the rat scrabbling about in the ceiling, and with visions of chewed lighting cables and house-burning-down disasters, we invested in a humane rat trap and spent a couple of weeks tempting it out with peanut butter dinners, belgian-chocolate covered popcorn and bird food. Finally we found the rat actually inside the trap and released it, and our house was ours once again.
Well, once I’d bleached everything again. And once more.
So where I was planning on just tidying and decluttering, now I’m in full-blown spring clean mode. During my freak out session, I chucked out pretty much anything that the rat COULD have touched. It had taken refuge under the freestanding cupboard where we store all our cutlery, oven and baking trays, so they all went to the recycling centre and we invested in some new bits and pieces. We were in dire need of some upgrades anyway. So it’s sort of kickstarted a lot of chucking out (recycling/upcycling/charity shop donations where possible) and upgrading, and it’s now extending to my bedroom. My little haven.
Floral granny-inspired chic is where it’s at… my planned chair of choice for my bedroom.
I may be 32 going on 17, but there’s always been a part of me that just loves florals and patchwork quilts and all the archetypal “granny” stuff. Especially in spring! Mum is currently crocheting me a patchwork bedspread, and I’m now on a mission. I’ve decided to finally chuck out the old decrepit, threadbare office chair with the stuffing falling out that I used when I was a student, and replace it with a pretty armchair to go with my new dressing table. For years and years Rich and I have used second and third-hand furniture, utensils etc – which is fine – but now that we’re getting to the stage where so much of the mismatched stuff needs replacing, I’m trying to bring some harmony to my home. I will be looking to buy yet more furniture WITH DRAWERS, shelves or cupboards to try and tackle the perpetual clutter problem in the house. And in the bedroom, with all my lotions and potions and hair waving wands and girl STUFF, I need it to all be put away and just find some clean, uncluttered space that will help me just generally feel more organised and less chaotic in my day to day life.
So this is the year that I want to finally turn the house into my home.
