it's the little things

my favourite very 'little thing'. -birthday pressie from very patient lovely man.

The list could have been so long and it would have ended in a huge bill at various poncey ... but lovely, furniture shops. Fortunately, for all of us who are now living in My House (we've added three more since our first arrival here.), I was restrained by the one thing that admittedly usually inhibits creativity. Hard cash.
So in between babies I could usually be found up a ladder or on all fours painting floor boards, browsing in secondhand furniture shops or up early, driving to big antique fairs. We needed lights, chairs, oh and maybe some more lights and chairs. (Yes, I admit, I became slightly weird in my addiction to finding LIGHTS AND CHAIRS! - I'm still working on that.) Anyhow, over this period of time we have come to acquire some really great bits and pieces and few of them would cost more than twenty quid. Of course, my constant hovering around the shops twentytwentyone and atelier did also mean that we have lived without some bits of furniture for a while until...kerching, the coppers might add up and the boss man would, by then, almost happily let me make that longed for purchase in the hope I would stop wittering on about 'how wicked it is going to look, over there, when we fill it with the fluffy pink  giant poodle thing that hangs from a trapeeze.' (- not really by the way. Bit nervous you might start wondering about my taste here. Hopefully, in time, you'll just get that one.)
And now, seven years on, punctuated with intermittent lame attempts to jump ship and move us all to Bath (- went to a great wedding and saw big gardens!), Norfolk (- stayed with friends and didn't have to sit on a loo WHILST talking to a dreamy son about gremlins because they had SO MANY LOOS THAT THE LITTLE MUNCHKINS COULDN'T FIND ME) and oh, I don't know, other places that seemed well,finished, we are still here. And it is due to all the little bits of work we have done (often very late at night!), small purchases and that thing called time, which makes this place feel like home. 
And I love it. 
(Plus, I've become rather fond of our little gremlin chats.)

sparkly cheap secondhand shop lampshade thing

dirt cheap once expensive last one left sale clock

"feet up for a fiver?"  - "sold, to the overexcited lady with a fluffy poodle on a trapeze."

ps. Mave Rebecca Doherty, born last night to my brilliant sister Raccadackers and John. Yeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! She's a peach! Well done, you northeners. x