Is it Spring Yet?

I normally find January and February to be boring months. Not this year. Nothing boring about the entire family having two stomach bugs, and then two colds. Throw in a toddler starting nursery, a teenager choosing their exam subjects, a husband working away from home, and a full-time job. Not a chance I could have been bored this year. Far too busy. I knew it was a bit too much to try to blog every day as well!

Our house is very dark even in the summer. It's not a "light and bright" house. It is surrounded by big walls and trees, and the windows are small. The hall carpets are dark red and the walls are in need of some paint. There's not much we can do about it because it is not our house and we are not allowed to decorate.

But I'm now on a mission, to try to lighten it up. I've taken down the heavy curtains to let what light there is in. This weekend I washed down all the walls in the hall, with carpet shampoo. "With carpet shampoo?" I hear myself ask. It was all I had in the way of detergent and it was surprisingly effective at brightening up the walls.

I've also got quite a lot of painted furniture, that I've painted various colours: lime green, turquoise, Cath Kidston red, cream. It looked good at the time, but now it's just a mish-mash, so I'm on a mission to paint it all in a lovely vintage white/cream. Started with a mirror frame at the weekend, and it is looking pretty nice. More next weekend since I have to wait until my husband comes back. It is practically impossible to paint with a little toddler around, who likes to test if the paint is dry.