Life – The Decorator

In summary: Six months of baby

We’ve not been doing much decorating recently, unless you count being on the receiving end of several coats of baby sick over the last six months.

Our ‘decorator’ is baby Anna and, as many a new parent will say on repeat, she’s amazing. But there’s no denying that the first few months are tough. This was one of many things we were told before she was born, but there’s plenty that still surprises you once the big stuff’s out of the way.

So, in the hope of helping out other new mums and dads-to-be, here are a few of the curve balls – some really great and others slightly tricky – that might come your way during those smushy first few months.

You’ll find those sleepless nights useful
“I loved the sleepless nights and broken sleep”, said no-one ever – but they can be useful once you really can’t do any more social scrolling or news checks. Instagram will eventually tell you, quite smugly, that you’re all caught up on posts, and the midnight NCT group messages die down once everyone has said everything there is to say about feeling exhausted. Some mums have their headphones on hand for night feeds and rattle through a never-watched sitcom. Once I got used to being awake and stopped nodding off during feeds (doh) I started writing in the night, tracked down a few pensions I’d lost track of and planned the next day’s meals when I made a very half-arsed attempt at Veganuary.

You’ll learn your real priorities in life
You might not leave the house for days, or travel much further than the post box, but feeding, entertaining and comforting a young baby keeps you really busy – especially if you give birth to a crazy non-napper. Those non-essential habits (remember body brushing, anyone?) and addictive crime dramas drop away instantly when you have very limited amounts of me-time and – in a really boring version of ‘Would you rather?’ – you’ll quickly figure out your priorities in life. Like:

You have one minute ’til baby meltdown. Do you run for a wee or down the boiling hot mug of tea?
The rocking chair’s about to lose its magical powers. Foundation or mascara?

Ironically, this is the point in life when you actually need ALL the make-up.

You become ‘mum’
No big surprise, this one. You have a baby, you become ‘mum’. But it’s a huge change to get your head around. Within a few months of starting maternity leave, work life becomes a distant memory and, regardless of your perfect nap routine or baby’s early rolling skills, you stop earning your keep. You’re not fighting your corner in meetings or smashing client pitches. Your identity completely changes as you plough everything into raising your mini-me, and your definition of a successful day becomes one with no tears, or a really engaging baby class. It’s a really weird and sometimes negative feeling, but not everyone gets to have a baby or to have time off with them in their first year. I usually tell myself, when feeling this way, to stop being an ungrateful wench and embrace it because it’ll be over before I know it.

You’ll meet the loveliest strangers
Road rage, pavement hogging, people who like anchovies… strangers can be awful. But whack a baby on your hip and look a bit tired and you instantly get their best side. Not once have we felt any sort of negativity. Everyone just looks, smiles, asks questions. And while there’s always one who might lean in a bit too close, they all mean well. You’ll be inundated with offers to hold the baby while you inhale your lunch (whether you accept them is up to you!) and be eternally grateful to supermarket staff who look out for you and help out as you realise that no, you can’t push a pram and a full-size trolley at the same time. Been there, learnt my lesson.

OPINIONS
This doesn’t need much explanation, but from the second you tell someone you’re pregnant you’ll get opinions. Some can be incredibly helpful but others can be judgey, preachy and – the worst – conflicting. My advice (otherwise known as.. an opinion) is to build your own small circle of people to ask when you’re just not sure about something. A few mums with babies of a similar age, a seasoned mum who’s seen and done it all, a couple of trusted websites (beware of forums which can just cause confusion) and your health visitor or midwife.

Your family will lose the plot
However sane you think your family is… it’s not. Throw a baby into the mix, especially a first family baby, and everyone will lose their shit. You’ll see them make facial expressions and noises you never knew existed and even the most serious of uncles will go to mush. OF COURSE it’s because they love them to bits, but prepare for an adjustment period, and to feel a little invisible when you rock up and everyone races to the pram. I hadn’t anticipated this at all. Typically the madness is most full on in the early days, but every family’s different.

You’ll know every coffee shop menu (and the best seats)
Whatever the reason and pretty much whoever you’re meeting, there will be talk of coffee and cake at least a few times a week. Mum life is hard, and sugar and caffeine make the most simple yet excellent reward after a tough day.

You’ll also change the way you eat. However quickly or slowly you finished your meals before baby, you’ll adopt three approaches:

Tiny mouthfuls at a time, carefully spooned over the feeding/sleepy baby on your lap (and not without the odd morsel splatting onto their head)
Huge chunks devoured in minutes before baby wakes up or needs a feed
The shove-it-all-in approach, most common when you finally get time for a seven biscuits you’ve been thinking about all morning and you hear baby stirring. Just GET IT ALL IN and run. It’s definitely not sexy but is an essential skill.

You’ll get good at charades
I never realised how loud babies cry. So when you’re in the middle of a full scale meltdown and try to make a suggestion to your partner in crime.. they won’t hear you. The first month of parenthood was mainly us saying “WHAT?” to each other. Maybe agree some vital hand signals in advance 😉

Decorating, Home, Interiors, Life

Well hello, new kitchen

When we moved into the house almost three years ago, the kitchen was always “the big project”. It was the one we’d think about once we’d tidied everything else up and paid for practical but annoyingly less exciting things like composite doors…

I wrote about it just after the foundation work had started – here – and now, endless dust and clock watching later, we are officially finished. Oh, and we got married somewhere in between, too! It’s taken four months and around £30k, but we now have a much bigger, more open space that gives us an extra living area and will hugely improve our lifestyle.

The builders started on the foundations in late December, and the shell was airtight by mid-March. We were SO excited when we arrived home to see that the bi-folding doors had been fitted. And again when, three days before the wedding, we came home to working taps and dishwasher. It was almost the best thing in the world when you’ve been washing up in the bath for several weeks. After that, it was a bit of a waiting game, as various workmen came along to fit the flooring, then the skirting boards, and then to fix the final snags.

Here’s a reminder of where we were and where we are so happy to be now:

When we moved in…

kitchen diner

When work started…

The worst bit… (see that plank of wood behind the insulation? That’s what separated us from the Beast from the East)

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Now…

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So we’re now pretty much back to normal – PHEW – having painted everything white (for now), hoovered up the dust and somehow kept the cat sane.

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We’ve moved an armchair into the corner, for post-work chill time, and our mackerel and mussel paintings have joined it to create the start of a washed out blue theme which so far gets the thumbs up:

There’s still plenty more to do, but it’s cosmetic and can be done with a little less urgency and a little more time for saving. On our list:
– Wall tiles – most likely white metro or hexagonal tiles with dark grey grout;
– A feature wall. Controversial, this one. We don’t often go for wallpaper (AKA HASSLE), but with plain white units and white walls, we need a subtle point of interest. The AMAZING pineapple wallpapers I fell madly in love with don’t really fit the subtle brief, sadly, and they will most likely look dated by next year. There’s still the option of papering, but it will be something far more simple that can fade effortlessly into the background;
– A new table. I love ours, but with the wood effect flooring and cement worktops, it feels like a clash of textures. It will also be a chance to go slightly larger or extendable, so we can have more guests round. Or just serve ourselves more food 🙂
– Statement side plates. As a certified dessert girl, the idea of whipping out some extravagant plates to serve up a big fat cake just feels right. The animal plates below are top of my list, and would team up perfectly with the gorgeous elephant teapot that is already waiting for them by the kettle!

kitchen accs

Lovely items from: Luna table, animal side plates (set of four) and elephant teapot, all from John Lewis; Dom plant from Ikea; Wallpaper from wallpaperdirect.com.

Home, Interiors, Life

Big project alert: The extension

Here’s a clever thing to do…

Start a house extension that’s due to complete the second before you walk down the aisle 😉

A mere seven weeks before getting married, we are bang in the middle of an extension. From the front of the house, everything looks normal. From the back, we have full-on scaffolding, torrents of mud, breeze blocks, and half a new kitchen diner.

The timing isn’t amazing, but it’s taken months to get drawings completed, planning approved and builder time allocated, so here we are. It’s something we’ve needed to do since we moved in, and it’s really exciting to finally see the bricks going up and to be able to visualise the end result. It will mean that we can replace the perfectly functional but very ’90s kitchen, and wave goodbye to having narrow rooms – a kitchen and a dining room – that make entertaining more than two house guests a game of musical chairs.

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Here’s the current state of play, in its full unfiltered glory….

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Isn’t it stunning?

Over the next few weeks, the builders will pop on a roof with roof lights, knock the existing external and dividing walls down, rip the kitchen out and create a lovely open plan kitchen diner. There will also be a couple of days when we won’t have any kitchen, so HELLO TAKEAWAYS.

Kitchen-wise, we’ve gone for very simple white gloss units by Wren. We’ve heard good and bad things about them, but heard the same about Howdens. And B&Q came out much more expensive for what is a kitchen and house that we will probably move from within five years. Wren gave a great side-by-side demonstration of their unit build and quality next to brands like Howdens and John Lewis, and the service so far has been great.

The units will be topped with an Italian concrete laminate worktop (we LOVED the granite tops but they added about £1.5k onto the kitchen cost) and a black range cooker. With the units staying to the left hand side of the room, we’re hoping the rest of the space can be dedicated to dining, with a long dining table, and chilling out. Here’s what we’re thinking:

Kitchen diner

Quick-Step vinyl flooring, Carpetright; J-Pull kitchen units, Wren; Geo cream and gold wallpaper, Graham & Brown; Pineapple cushion, Dunelm; Blue and white print cushion cover, Maisons du monde; Rug, Next; Two-seater fabric sofa in denim blue, and fabric sofa in romario denim, Made.com; Mini potted plants, Dunelm;

An extension and serious building work is completely new to us, so if you have any tips or helpful stories to share, let me know!

If you want to see how this eventually turned out, here you go!

Life, Work

New job bingo

If you’re a believer in the ‘New Year, New You’ way of life, then you may be thinking about a career change in January.

Having just finished a five year stint with an agency, and moved in-house to a pensions firm, here’s a friendly taster of the hilarious* scenarios that could face you in your first few weeks:

You’ll have a fashion calamity
For me, the change from agency wardrobe (skinny jeans, tattoos, ‘about to do some decorating’ up do) to business wear was always going to be a shock. Not that I was the snappiest agency dresser, by any means. But my fear of the corporate fashion police inspired at least three slightly jittery trips to the shops during my notice period. Included in these lunchtime shopping hauls were fine knit cardys, classic shirts and (hold on to your hats) bootcut tailored trousers. BOOTCUT. Remarkably, this purchase isn’t the fashion calamity.

The calamity (and take this as a finger-wagging warning, dear reader) was underestimating the importance of the little button at the top of the trouser side zip. Apparently it does actually serve a purpose, but you don’t always realise it until you’re halfway down Leeds Canal, just breezing past all the windows of Asda House. It stops your trousers falling down as you saunter into work on day three of your new job.

Luckily, it didn’t actually get this far…

But there was a sudden, urgent realisation that things had become VERY LOOSE FITTING. And then a need to do a sort of wide legged swagger, to hold them up with the top of your thighs, while trying to solve the zip situation without catching the attention of the taxi boat crew. I’d say we were five seconds from an awkward pants down situation. True story. Always check the safety button.

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You’ll watch your mouth
It’s funny how much your workplace changes the way you talk. And how much it stands out when you move into a new office. On day one of corporate life, I became acutely aware that I kept saying ‘sesh’ and was sailing close to ‘smashing it’. I think I even did a wholly unecessary ‘woop’. There’s really nothing you can do to prevent this, other than being aware of what you’re saying and looking for slightly raised eyebrows when you say it… Also, don’t drop your habits too quickly – maybe they hired you because you are a bit different.

You’ll feel like going back to school
Who doesn’t have their bag packed and ready by 9pm the night before D-day? And who hasn’t set off from home a mere three hours before work starts, just in case there’s a minor prang, the car’s iced up and ooh, the road caves in? I took pens, notepad, porridge oats, and lunch. Y’know, just in case this thriving business has done so well by not having any pens, and in case this office is the actual paperless office of the future… It’s stupid really, because most of us are back to pressing the snooze button and pulling questionable morning outfits together again within two weeks.

You’ll say ‘nice to meet you’ to everyone.. twice
If you never forget a face, lucky you. I’m better at remembering names and what someone posted on Twitter three weeks last Tuesday. So, naturally, I’m no stranger to double introductions and mistaken identities. All you can do here is laugh and cringe inwardly – it happens – but I tend to hold off on enthusiastic introductions once I’ve been there for a week, now, and hope my work does the talking instead.

You’ll lose weight…
…for a week. Do you lose your appetite when you’re stressed, or a little on edge? Me too. For my first week, I thought my metabolism had undergone a miraculous change, and that I’d finally become one of those legendary people just “not that fussed about chocolate”. But by week two, once I’d had some inductions and found my feet, the normal eating had kicked back in.

*Also possibly cringeworthy, soul destroying or sackable

Have you had a new job calamity? Share the shame below!