I'm on a mission to reduce our 'stuff' again, and that means saying goodbye to pieces I love, but rarely use. The initial decisions can be hard, but I find more often than not I don't miss those things once they're gone. Naturally the holidays has led to the house being quite chaotic, the expected effect of 2 little whirlwind people in a home and that's fine. But our space is definitely feeling like a furniture storage facility of late and that isn't ok with me.
I've also been coming to the realisation that my Garden Room may be better utilised as an actual Shed, I don't mean a She Shed, I mean a grubby tools, fix a bike in there, store the beach stuff kind of shed. As much as it makes me sad to say it, since the extension, I just don't chose to go out there anymore and it has once again turned into a dumping ground. It's difficult to let go of a space that is specifically for me, but in doing so it would free up a whole new corner of the garden (and the very satisfying job of knocking down the old shed!)
There's an Oak tree behind and I love the idea of building the girls some kind of treehouse/platform, we're going to be doing away with the deck and slide to the left of the Garden Room, to utilise this space better for a potting table, wood storage etc.
I love the rustic nature of this Den, it's adaptable, the girls could get stuck in with hammers and saws and create their own little special place, just as I did as a child.I'd won at convincing Stu that the ugly shed should go, but the more I think about it the more I realise we're out there several times a day for things, whereas the only time I go in the Garden Room is to dump something in there!It looks like this at the moment, and yet it doesn't either, as it's buried under a layer of spare furniture, cobwebs, books and other such crap.
I imagined I'd get out there and sew and create, but in reality the last time I made something I brought the sewing machine in and sat at the kitchen table. This room felt much needed before we extended last year, but now it feels a bit isolated and unnecessary. An extravagance that could be used for much better, but less photogenic things.In my dreams we could create a workshop like this beauty, created by one of my favourite Insta accounts @Nordic_remake It's in her kid's playroom...
Total tool heaven! (Go follow her immediately!) But sadly Stu's collection of other people's castoffs wouldn't make much of a design feature at all!!It feels like the right choice though, at the moment I'm keeping hold of it for the just in case I want to take a nice picture moments, but that isn't real life. When space is at a premium we need every inch of our home to be working at it's very optimum, so I'm going to have the talk with Stu, I'm going to donate my She Shed, for the greater good of the family.But first I need to get rid of more 'stuff'!