When I was at work, I was never that concerned with how the house looked. I wanted it to be neat and tidy (well most of the house), but I wasn’t all that worried about making it look beautiful. Now I’m at home, I want to live in a house that make me feel good and makes me smile 🙂 I’m also aware that I’ve only got so much time to decorate and organise before Squirm becomes mobile. So, there’s probably some safety issues to consider too.

While I was thinking about decorating, I came across A Bowl Full of Lemons and the Home Organisation 101 Challenge. The challenge spreads over 14 weeks (with the understanding that you can take as much time as you need) with a different part of the house being targeted each time. There’s an example (with lots of detail) posted on A Bowl Full of Lemons, and you’re encouraged to share your own creations. This would work particularly well for me, as the current week is the laundry, which was exactly where I wanted to start.

There’s a few challenges with decorating our house. It wasn’t new when we bought it – it’s about 30 years old. The owners before us painted the whole inside of the house pale pink with pink trim, and since we currently have an 8 week old, we’re not in the position to repaint it. They also weren’t always careful with their painting, so we’ve had some trouble when we’ve had to change light switches and power points. Underneath our house has been built in, but it can be a bit dingy and dark down there, and some parts are unfinished.

We’ve done little bits and pieces around the place. Most of the work has been done in the front garden, where Mr Pilot has completely revamped it – removing all but one of the trees (one removed itself when we got the fence done), putting in a row of garden beds along the side and front of the yard and planting a range of beautiful Australian natives. Now, a year or so after we started, we always have beautiful colour out the front, and more lovely birds than we thought we’d ever have.

Other than that, we’ve done up the nursery for Squirm and done little things like hanging pictures and changing the handles in the kitchen. Mr Pilot has also done heaps to make the bathroom look better – putting in a new sink and taps. But the overall house is still undecorated and now seems like a good time to jump into it.

We’re looking at a relaxed country style in the house. We have some lovely handmade quilts and blankets, and we love things like cushions and rugs. We’re going to have lots of photos around the walls – of places we’ve traveled and family. And flowers – real and unreal – will probably make an appearance. We’re not looking to repaint or change carpet or do big jobs like that (yet) but we’ll probably do some smaller things we’ve been looking to do for quite a while.

I’ll be posting the results here, of course, starting with the laundry and moving on from there. But here’s a sneak peak of our laundry before photos 🙂