Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 June 2016

This Little Garden...

Every year I look in envy on many pretty garden blog posts and now I'm on Instagram that envy has grown.
My garden is in all honesty pretty shot.  I've tried over the years to patch it but between 6 children and 4 chickens it has taken a battering. 

However that could all be about to change...

Take a look at it as it is this evening


The shitty shed is literally falling down,  but it can't just yet as it's holding the even shittier fence behind it up.  

Fencing contractor is booked for the middle of July to replace or repair the old fence. Pots of wood stain are sitting patiently waiting for that job.
I've got a smaller shed on the patio waiting to be put up as soon as the fencing is done and the old one comes down.
If this was a design blog I would be referring to this area as a 'sunken terrace'.  Looking at it as it stands, terrace is just too grand a description so we'll settle with area!
The long term plan here is to create a chill zone for the teens, I'm starting to gather pallets to create a pallette seating area with a fire pit. The floor is pretty uneven with a mix of paving slabs and various concrete hard standings. Too expensive to replace, turf or deck I'm going for a jumbo sack of pebbles to cover it all.

On the floor down the bottom you might have spotted the big blue plastic sheet?  It's covering up the pitted crumbling ground where once the chickens lived. That is to be decked. The decking been ordered and we have a man that can coming in at the end of this month to lay a large deck to cover a multitude of crap. 
 Long term (next summer hopefully) I'll be putting my workshop on this deck.  But I have champagne taste on a lemonade budget and finding the right workshop that ticks all boxes including price will take some research and even more saving.


The patio area is with selective vision not so terrible, put your blinkers on and it's bearable.


These old cable reels were picked from the bins of an electrical shop on the industrial estate I'm now working at.  They'll be handy little garden tables!


However I'm hoping we can afford this year to deck the patio and extend that deck over the crumbling weed ridden bank...


The man that can says it's an easy job to do but I just need to finalise my budget!

And there we have it.  It will take time and no small amount of effort and saving but this is the first year that I have an actual plan not just pie in the sky dreams.
Still without those dreams the plan may never have been made! 




Thursday, 21 March 2013

Green Eyed Monster...

I try very, very hard to push that churning, miserable, happiness sapping Green Eyed Monster firmly back into the pit of my stomach.
I have so very, very much to be grateful and happy with in my life...

but...

every now and then that rotten little monster creeps chokingly up my throat.

So what you ask am I bitching about today?

I'm wanting me space.

A space to call my own.  

Not to escape my family, oh no! 
I have the sense enough to realise the time with my little ones is borrowed time and precious...

I'm talking about time and space for me.

One day in the not so distant and now clearly visible future my littlest man will go to school.  One day I will need to fill my days with productive, cash rewarding work.
And there we spot that snipey little monster rearing its horrible head.  
I'm jealous of those lovely mamas who are able to create their little empires on their own terms doing what they love and what they are good at.
I'm not proud of this jealousy but I have to acknowledge it, to show it the light of day before kicking it firmly in the nuts and shutting it back in the dark!

I have a dream, a wish, a real want...
a space to take my suitcase of wonders, my paints, my old battered pieces of furniture, my sewing machine, my fabrics, my yarns, my books, my magazines...

my me-ness

To turn that space into a 'studio' a place of creation and work. 

Perhaps after a time working in the 'real world' the stars will fall into alignment, Gran will keep an eye out for me and hey presto without causing hardship to my families finances I will find this space of wonder?

It's all ifs, buts and maybes.

In my dream world I have it all!
A small retail unit, in a friendly little town, with space at the back to work and be me.
A family business, where my kiddos as they grow could lend a hand, where at the end of the day we head home to my brood and swap stories of our day, sharing it all.

**Wouldn't that just be peachy and perfect?**