So the last bits of skirting board may not have found their way onto the walls yet,and if you look closely there are plenty of places where the paint needs touching up,but the arrival of Easter meant that work on the ground floor could pause while we enjoyed living and socialising in the space.
That is,after all,what it’s all been about. It’s been about creating a space that works for us as a busy family. An organic space that we can mould to different occasions. But most of all,a space for us to enjoy each other’s company.
Your children will be more excited about seeing the builders every morning than seeing you.
You will gain about half a stone through eating convenience foods and takeaways.
Your standards of ‘clean’will reduce dramatically,although you will experience manic ‘I must clean up’moments despite knowing another layer of dust will quickly replace the last one.
You will become expert in the supply of hot beverages,even when a lack of electricity means the kettle doesn’t work.
You will become immensely interested in details that previously you would never have noticed. Examples include the perfect finish of a skimmed ceiling,seamless worktop joints and mitred tile edges.
The presence of builders in your house will immediately quadruple your patience with your children as you desperately endeavour not to be overheard shouting and snapping. Ditto swearing (which I never do of course).
You’ll become accustomed to having to make urgent make or break design discussions with a toddler hanging off each leg.
Your toddler’s favourite toy will become an electronic screwdriver and you’ll find attempted drill holes everywhere,including your prized Conran coffee table.
Your vanity will be checked by the need to let the builders in every morning in your pyjamas,face free from essential makeup and sporting crazy bed hair (not in a sexy tousled way).
You will lose count of the number of times you have had to reset your bedside clock after the power has been switched off for the umpteenth time.
You’ll panic if you stir during the night because you know you’ll start running through design ideas and will be awake for hours.
We’ve had a blackboard wall in every home we’ve lived in,but it’s really come into its own now we have kids. They love doodling on the wall and we can write notes to remind ourselves of shopping items or other things we know we’re likely to forget. Adding magnetic paint under the blackboard paint means the wall also doubles up as a noticeboard to make it even more useful. It’s so simple to do – here’s my easy video How To….
Now that the new ground floor space is coming together,it’s time to start making exciting choices about furniture,decoration and accessories (my favourite bit). Until the wall between the kitchen and dining room was knocked down,Ben and I really struggled to picture the new layout,and what furniture would work well in it. It’s a good thing we didn’t rush into buying a new kitchen table,because we changed our minds at least three times.
We started off thinking we’d like to buy a old traditional pine table cheap on eBay,and then paint it a bright colour. But we’ve already bought a beautiful old dresser from eBay,and are thinking about painting that,so we thought that might be bright-paint-overkill.
Then I spotted this beauty on Made.com (a fantastic interiors site if you’ve never heard of it before),and I fell in love with it. I’ve always dreamed of having the Super-Elliptical dining table by Fritz Hansen,but it’s way over our budget,but this one from Made.com had the same sort of feel without the designer price-tag.
Ando dining table from Made.com
It’s lucky my usual impatience didn’t win out and I didn’t buy it there and then. We thought it would be a good idea to cut out a cardboard template the size of the table and check it for size in the kitchen. To make it even more realistic we balanced the cardboard on two chairs so that it was at table height. And it was far too big. It would have totally blocked the natural flow through the rooms. There’s no way the twins could have indulged in their favourite sport of careering round the space on their ride-ons.
Our mock-up table
So it was back to the drawing board. In the end we decided a small square table would be perfect for everyday use. We created another template and lived with this in the space for a couple of days and it worked nicely. But we do also want to entertain,so we agreed that an extending table would be perfect. We were about to order one from the high street but a six-week wait for delivery put us off (did I mention we are both ridiculously impatient?),and then after googling,‘gloss white extending table’,I came across one from Danetti that extends from 120cm to a whopping 240cm. This means we won’t have to buy an extra folding table that we’d planned to keep in the garage and get out when we have a lot of people over for special occasions.
We ordered it last night. And it will arrive next week. Perfect for impatient people like us.
