Not such a relaxing weekend!

Well it's been a long weekend here in the UK and today is the last day, but I've had more time off that most, but I haven't been relaxing, far from it!!!!

I had transformed the tip and junk room that was my dining room into exactly what I want a beautiful, fully useful dining room and even though I swore and injured myself, and ached like hell, I wallpapered for the first time, hated every minute of that, I sawed and mitred corners for the edge of the floor, I painted, and did I mention I ached?

Here's the big reveal, just like on all those DIY shows....

See a previous post for what this room looked like before it's quite a transformation!

As you can see it's red and grey to fit in with my dinette set, but I was so nervous about the grey, which actually I picked up from the curtains cos the curtains matched the dinette and it's hard to take a dinette into the DIY shop to colour match ;o) However I'm really really happy with the grey I think it really works but I was aware it could have gone horribly wrong, it's a funny old colour grey....

Here are some of the close up details, below is my sideboard, with some of my favourite bits on, a coffee set which we were given for our wedding (20 years ago this year eeek!), a painting by my lovely husband, and a lamp given to us by friends in San Diego.

I had been looking for curtains to go in this room for ages, something that matched the colours and design of our dinette and I was super lucky some months ago when I found these, I think they match pretty much perfectly!

The only thing which isn't done yet is the light fitting, see below, given to us by some lovely friends, sadly it needs rewiring so that will have to wait for another day, but it's going to look amazing once that is up and it's all finished!

As if that's not enough I had another super lucky find this week! I have been looking for a cabinet to put my record player on and stereo in FOREVER, well ok maybe a year or so, I just couldn't find something that would fit in with our other stuff but be just right for what I need and be small enough to fit in the corner, but big enough to do the job, you can see why it's been a problem, oh and affordable too!!!!

Well I went out to lunch on Tuesday, and spotted a second hand furniture store down a side street not far from my work which I have never seen before but apparently has been there for about 5 months. I thought oh well I'll have a look, and there it was the ideal bit of furniture, it's not terribly exciting as a piece of furniture but I can't tell you how excited I was! So last night, I set it all up and after all the work I've done, I got drunk and danced around the living room for most of the evening!!

The first picture is of it is next to my record cabinet, fab eh?

And there she is, I need to tidy the cables, but I was slightly intoxicated when I set it all up and though it best to do that when sober ha ha!

I could now do with a loooooong weekend to recover, instead today I will rest, relax, sleep, eat, not get dressed and generally recover, who needs a gym, just decorate!!!

Hope you like it and hope you all has a fabulous break over Easter

It's the little things in life....

Well this week has gone so fast already I have no idea where my blogging routine went, totally out of the window clearly!

So to my blog title, what do I mean? Well Spring seems to have well and truly sprung here in the UK,  although to be fair one can never be sure there may be snow next week! However although with some changes I'm making in life and some changes that have happened anyway, I've been taking a little step back and trying to appreciate the little things in life.

I am not a gardener, never had been, but I like plants and flowers, there is one particular tree/bush I see every spring and I think, I'd quite like one of them, only this week did I find out it's a Magnolia! Oh please let it be a Magnolia and I'm not showing my gardening ignorance ha ha

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How beautiful? There is nothing that quite shouts Spring to me like this, I think I'm going to get me one, although I imagine by the time I do, blossom season will be gone!

I also went for a long walk yesterday in  the sunshine, listening to the birds singing and the sun on my face. It was truly blissful. As someone who is self employed you so often get into the habit of thinking that you must work every hour of every day and every evening and weekend too. This is not good for the soul! I recently lost a contract which was quite a number of hours, so I am left a little adrift, not quite knowing what to do and not quite earning enough but trying to make a decision where to go next. I've realised decisions will only be arrived at by stepping away from working all the hours, getting some fresh air and making some changes! So that's where I am....

I'm back at the gym & swimming despite my ongoing knee problems, saw the consultant on Monday it will be 4-5 months until I have an operation and I'm not waiting that long to exercise again. I've only been back to it a couple of days and apart from an aching knee, I feel good!

I just took 10 minutes out to have a Café Cubano made by myself of course, the only way to drink espresso coffee!

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So do you ever step back and take it all it and try to appreciate the little things in life? Does it help you to come to a decision? Or is it just something you do regularly anyway?