Interior Design, Creativity and an element of Madness….

Hi, I’m Lucy and I have a problem, I like to move the furniture around in my house at least once a month. Now this might not seem like a giant issue in the grand scheme of things however it does at times cause anxiety, stress, back issues and that’s not just for me but my husband too!

We have always worked really well as a team and I am massively lucky that my husband pretty much gives me free reign in the house to style it however I think is best. I, in turn offer him the same privilege with outside space and he does as he pleases with the garden and numerous outbuildings we have accumulated over time (he does love a shed!)

This has at times caused much comedy for our friends as often I don’t know what his next ‘project’ is. Over the years I have come home to a large wood store built entirely of old pallets (a beautiful and clever creation but currently we have no fire to burn them on!) Elaborate designs etched into the grass with one of his many lawn mowers and my personal favourite, the day I went to a training course for work and was picked up by some colleagues to return home and say, ‘it’s the one on the left here’ for my friend to say ‘the one with the skip?’ I can’t imagine the look on my face when I saw for the first time what had only that morning been our driveway that now housed a large skip, giant mounds of mud and a very dirty but happy husband who took the initiative to expand the driveway.

Don’t get me wrong, I am quite sure that he would accuse me of being terribly impulsive with my interior design. He has before now come home to rooms being changed round and the occasional wall painted in an accent colour that he has always taken with good humour (honestly!) He particularly enjoys it when he leaves and a piece of furniture is one colour and comes home and not only has it moved but it also an entirely different colour, sometimes two!

Sadly it’s not just Karl who is at times affected by my need to change the ambience and format of a room. The children often walk in and say, ‘MUMMY! What have you done now?!’ We also have a very lovely cleaner who comes to help out once a week for a couple of hours who I am sure curses me and the movement of my ornaments on an almost weekly basis as she can never quite get used to where they are.

We have always owned many tape measures, so many in fact at one point I was tempted to get rid of some as I don’t think there is a need to have one on every available surface, however over the last year they have slowly disappeared. I now have one of my ideas to move stuff around and need to measure and have to ask Karl for a tape measure. He then makes an awkward face and tries to say he doesn’t know where any of them are, can’t recall the last time he saw one and I  had better explain what I want to measure before he looks. I know he knows where they all are and he knows that I know!

This compulsiveness in my interior design comes to the fore at Christmas, particularly in the bit between Christmas and New Year when you look towards a fresh start and the tree starts to look a bit tired. I have hit this in dramatic style today and come up with what I think is a fabulous idea to create a library wall in the living room, a new toy storage and seating system in the boys room and the repurposing of an old chest of drawers into a desk come craft storage system. The issue of course is that I am recovering from major surgery and I can’t actually move anything myself so I will need an assistant. An assistant who doesn’t want me to have the tape measure again.

I will let you know how this latest idea pans out and I will also give you some sort of update on the new car port, fencing and shed system Karl is currently embarking on in our now finished driveway. I think we are both just as bad as each other!