On a drizzly Saturday evening, inspiration arrived. For a while now, I have had colours and fabrics and fittings swirling around my head, coalescing at the strangest moments into the perfect vision of “home”. We are planning a renovation, you see. Of epic proportions. We currently have a cute, but small, 1950′s bungalow in a great location. However, with baby #3 on the way, our two-bed-lounge-kitchen-sleepout/office little house is bursting at the seams.
So we dreamed. We doodled. We spent hundreds of dollars on copies of House & Garden magazines. And countless hours poring over it’s pages, stopping at each floor-plan, seeing if the original house matched ours. If the finished house was “us”. And finally, we found it. Extravagantly large but wonderfully off-beat. But large. Huge. Bordering on massive. So I did what any other creative-type mama would do. I pulled out the scissors and the glue! With a bit of fiddling, and checking back at the photos to ensure I wasn’t cutting out the features that excited me, our house took shape.
And I was in love. It was perfect. It was traditional, yet quirky. It was different. It had fun shapes and interesting angles. It had a walk-in pantry. A toyroom with a door. An inside laundry. Bliss on a stick. Or a sheet of A3 paper.
Four months later, I am still waiting for my house. I waited for the finished design. I waited for the engineer. We pegged out or back yard and built castles in the air. And we waited. The pegs came down. We picked the kitchen. The bathroom. Flooring, carpet. And we waited. We laid out the gardens, and dreamed of lazy Sundays on the patio. And now we enter the minefield of council red-tape, and we wait.
I’m a dreamer. So as I wait, I plan. I dream of paint colours, of upholstery. Of bespoke furniture & custom art, melding with vintage finds. Most rooms came together easily. I have even started designing quilts for the boys’ new bedroom. And yet, our bedroom remained a mystery. Nothing felt quite right. I wanted something moody and dramatic. Something completely different from our current shabby-chic-compelte-with-pink-feature-wall. Last night. It struck me. A combination of inspirations. Firstly, the author of a blog I love, has recently married. With an orange and grey theme. It slowly grew on me. And then, yesterday, the final inspiration came from, of all places, Pumpkin Patch. Yes, the children’s clothing store. We went shopping for the children, and bought them each a lovely thick winter jacket. The outside was a rich charcoal grey. The inside, soft fleece, burnt orange in colour. And I was smitten.
I put it to the “board” this morning. Dove grey walls. Mid-grey trims. A feature wall of textured wallpaper and a reading nook with a funky chair & light fittings. Orange accessories. Maybe a hint of lime green as well. Or maybe swtich out the orange/lime green accents and go with mustard yellow. The only comment from the board – “I don’t do wallpaper”. It wasn’t a flat-out no. It wasn’t “I think that’s look ick”. It was a minor detail, that I can work on. I think we have a go-er!
My little house of dreams is almost complete in my mind. I just hope it comes together as easily in real-life.
