MY EXPERIENCE

After buying this house in December 2019, we rushed out to find new furniture that would fit in the small living room. Sticking to neutrals, we opted for a beige sofa and grey floral loveseat, along with a new grey carpet and curtains. I wasn’t brave enough to deal with colour at that point.

However, when family came round at Christmas, we quickly realised there wasn’t enough space for everyone to sit. It made sense to block up the doorway from the hallway so we could fit in a large corner sofa. We had one in our last house and I loved how sociable it was. I also started to feel like the boring, bland décor just wasn’t me. Working as a critical care nurse during the pandemic, I was so stressed with everything I’d seen that I needed a bright and colourful retreat at home. Although I was itching to change everything, it took a while to persuade Alex to sell the furniture we’d only recently bought. However, after six months, we hired a plasterer to skim all the walls and board up the old door, leaving just one entrance from the kitchen-diner. Alex and our son, Oliver, laid the wood laminate flooring as we wanted something easy to clean as we have pets. They also took out the wall-mounted electric fire and added new skirting boards.

There’s still quite a lot to do in the house as we’ve been so busy with work, but it’s lovely to have one finished room that we can retreat to. Although we made a mistake by jumping in too quickly and buying things, rather than living with the space for a while, we got there in the endfl