Oh, there I am!

I wandered out to the garage this evening to chuck some washing in the tumble dryer, muttering to myself "tumble dryer, strain stock, reload dishwasher, stick more washing on..."
Then I noticed the paint was all but dry on my shelves and got distracted.
10 minutes later I was walking through the house with a set of freshly waxed shelves.
Then after I'd put them on the wall (Mr KP did the wall plug bit earlier for me) they just screamed out for some mini bunting.
They did. They practically begged me.

Oh hang on, back up. I didn't talk about what I'd been up to in my blip yesterday did I? Ooh I had a busy day. I decided it was time for a me space. Somewhere where MY stuff can live. Crafty, sewing, crochet, paper, just stuff. Instead of rammed in boxes in a corner. Mr KP has a desk in an alcove upstairs that had been piled up with rubbish. Bookshelves were a mess and it was all just disorganised.
Yesterday I (mostly - his side is still not ideal) fixed that, put some legs back on a little table, stuck it in a recess, found a chair that I bought for my first house 14 years ago and unpacked and arranged my stuff.
There was stuff in those couple of baskets, that I swear I haven't even seen for 8 years. I've got a space to make messes. Just for me. SQUEAL!

So. Mini bunting. I sat at my desk, managed to reach to just the right places for a craft knife and cutting mat, knew where there was a bit of ribbon, pulled out the file with all my scraps of paper in.. Oooh then I remembered I had in there a couple of pages I pulled out of a Jamie Oliver magazine years ago. Beautiful Moroccan tiles printed across a double spread on heavy paper. I knew I had to keep them for something but hadn't known what.. PERFECT.
Ok, so I've stuck it all together AND on to the shelves with sticky tape, but I don't care. It's my space..

Sorry. This is going to be a long one. Just realised I have lots to say and I'm not sure how to structure it. Hmm. Doesn't help Mr KP is ironing whilst watching Burlesque, and it's on REALLY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOUD.

Right. Where was I? I know. Sticky tape.
So, I am my biggest critic. I know that. I'm horribly critical and precise and have very exacting standards. I'm also schizophrenic oddly able to let my standards slide when it comes to some things.
Generally, things that are just for me. That says a lot doesn't it?

I was looking at 10 year old photos the other day with Little One. That might be what started this. Remembering what "pre-kids me" used to do and how I used to be. When Mr KP and I bought our first house we had no money left, so I painted lots of things. It was the Changing Rooms/House Invaders era and boy did I adopt lots of their principles. Ok, so it wasn't pretty, but then actually, much of the 00s weren't. My particular favourite, looking back, was the nastily tiled bathroom mirror in our bathroom. Oh, not just tile paint for me. Oh no. I cut out lots of little squares of paper, stuck them all on with PVA like a mosaic, varnished the crap out of it and was very proud indeed. Ha, or (just remembered these) my mum's dog chewed 70's tiled, nest of coffee tables, that I painted blue. Then painted fake purple and pink tiles complete with fake white grout on the top of. Lush. Mr KP HATED them.

Then I had kids. Then we sort of felt like we ought to grow up. So we stopped bodging and scarpering make do and mending. Problem is, we didn't really have any money, so we just stopped making our house a home. We moved into a brand new one somewhere in the middle. That helped/didn't help, makes it easy to pretend you're doing stuff when you're not.
We keep using that "we'll buy new curtains when we can afford beautiful grown up ones from John Lewis" excuse to not do anything.

Well. Bah. Sod that. I'm going back to making do and mending.

Here comes the written apology to my dad to go with the ones I've been saying to the sky all day. The shelves were made by him to go in our kitchen.. don't know when actually, but well over 20 years ago. They were that lovely shiny orange pine colour. Beautifully finished. But orange.
Sorry Dad. I didn't sand them.. I slapped on 2 coats of primer. I ignored the dribbles (because they didn't sand off, they peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeled off because I hadn't sanded them). I slapped on 2 coats of my-bedroom-wall coloured emulsion on top of that. I waxed them a bit before they were properly dry. I AM BAD. They are, erm, vintage/retro/kitch/shabby chic tatty.
But actually, I love them. They're something I had that I made more me. A lot more me given the state on them..

My little space has made me very happy so far. I'm not kidding myself that I'm going to become one of those women I envy very much who seem to spend half their lives writing beautifully photographed, inspirational blogs about how delightful their houses are. But I've got a little corner to wrap a present, write a note, play with stuff again. Somewhere that if I get 5 minutes, I can spend 5 minutes without having to spend 30 mins finding stuff first. Somewhere that's mine all mine.. and when you're a mum, that just seems to drift away without you even noticing.
The next job is to find some fabric I love, cover and paint that chair (probably equally messily) and make a pinboard in the same fabric.

Woe betide anyone who puts anything on that desk ;)

ps - Still full of sinus nonsense. Thankfully I have a bit of mojo back so can mostly ignore the remaining symptoms. Just as well, I was about to throttle the dying duck that had taken me over.
pps - They're a bit empty deliberately. I now have somewhere to put those "things" that I don't buy/make even though I think they're very cute because I have nowhere to put them
ppps - Sorry. That was an enormous rambling blip
pppps - WAKE UP!