Lounge Revamp, And A Letter Written

Today I have mostly been Quite Busy, if that includes time lurking on here and time spent gauging the nation's reaction on twitter to last night's Home is Where The Heart Is programme. Colin and Justin are now the New National Treasures. Alex James, with his own bootcamp-on-the-cheese-farm, apparently is Not.

After that the nagging file of paperwork pertaining to various authorities' interest in my parenting skills needed to be addressed. I whipped off a letter to Chief Meddler our key-worker and requested that they circulate my points to the relevant people in order to update the 13 year old's by-now-very-weighty file.

I followed that one up by deciding at midday I could perhaps get away with a quick snooze on the sofa before 60 Minute Makeover, but changed my mind and stuck to Today's Great Ambition of tarting up the lounge.

Remember this bit of unpainted wall?


 ...umm it had been like that since last year.

 It now looks like this:


But not as dark as this. Its just the room faces north and the lighting was pants by early evening. This is merely for photographic proof that the wall is Now Finished. Its dulux urban obsession, 17 shades lighter than the grey I used 2 years ago.

From the colour proportions being, most-used first, darkest grey, white, black, metallics, and a bit of purple and green, its now going more "washed-out-coastal" - mid-grey, white, cream, metallics, black and purple'n'green.

The room's being lightened up largely because this little baby came home to roost at the weekend, from the boyfriend's office, and she just didn't look right in such a "night-time" room. Besides which, there's no other space in the house for her:

Ex-stock purchase from Royal College of Art, £35, back in the days when I wore red lipstick and got taxis.

And then because the leylines that run through TKMaxx propelled me through the doors yet again on my way home yesterday, I found this beauty:


TKMaxx, £8 from £19.99 because of a tiny scratch. And yes, the shade is leaning but thats because I changed the original dumpy flared shade for this one.

I'm keeping all this though:

Thank you for the encouraging comments re technical tips. Lord knows what's made me now start a twitter account - I'll never work out  how to keep up ;)

Crazy Horses

Ho hum. Got the people Who Really Do Have The Friday Appointment here tomorrow. Ran the idea of them being very insistent on doing the visit past a friend at The World Of Work, who reckoned its now gone to some sort of statutory status. And what impression will these folks get of Mother of Teenage Recluse? That I am a kleptomaniac on the waiting list for DIY SOS probably, seeing as the dining room is full of bits of wood from last week's taking down of shelves and the walls are practically dust.

Swanned around TKMaxx for a while on my way home, hoping to find something to signal The Right Look to kickstart me putting the kitchen back together. Maybe a white piece of ovenware? I honed in on a gigantic lime green swirly vase, some fabric covered birdhouses (???), a navy and silver painted union jack canvas that was way bigger than any wall in the house, a set of scarily expensive red saucepans, a lovely shiny red metal horse... then pulled myself together and left empty-handed. I have a love-hate relationship with that place, it brings out the schizo-kleptomaniac aspect. With each thing you see you mentally dissect every room in your house trying to judge whether something would "go", and end up with half a dozen parts of your brain competing for attention. I'm banning myself - for my own good. Though that red metal horse was awesome.