Well, I officially have no projects to prepare for now, apart from my novel writing pursuits. Everyone close to me has moved house, there are no more weddings planned, and we haven’t even booked a summer holiday yet because my husband needs to find a job for when he is made redundant at the end of May. So what shall I do with myself now?

I need a project. Which is where my mind turns to the house and garden. I need to personalise it, bring it up to date, make it mine (or ours) in some way. But I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I want or how to begin changing the look and feel of our home.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions? In the garden, for example, I would like to landscape it a bit differently. If we could afford it, I would love to install a hot tub and shady area for me to sit outside (I burn very easily). My daughters would love a swing set and/or garden play area. But I don’t want to interfere with the established plants and trees that we have. Inside, we need to completely redecorate and modernise. The house was built in 1959, it is your average 3-bedroomed semi-detached property. I would love to put in new windows and doors, get rid of the dark brown we currently have, and make it look more contemporary. We also need patio doors in the dining room, in place of the window.

But first we need to do something about the gaping hole where our fire used to be in the living room. There is no proper lintel in the chimney, just two copper pipes holding the bricks up. Our gas fitter was very bemused by the set up when he removed the old fire and back boiler! I would like to install a log burner, but we will need to have the chimney inspected by a builder I think, get it tidied up and rebuilt, plastered and painted. It seems like a lot of effort and mess, so for now it is covered with a large mirror propped against the wall. Decisions, decisions! I will be spending a lot of time browsing blogs and Pinterest for inspiration, while we save up for the necessary work. Exciting times!

Did you enjoy this article? Join my tribe to keep informed of new stories from SpookyMrsGreen.

*Article contains affiliate links