A little back story …
Updated: Aug 22, 2021
I was three months pregnant and was literally (on that day) preparing to call our landlady to say that her two tenants would be becoming three the following September. Turns out she beat me to the punch and called me first, in tears, she needed her house back due to family issues (I decided not to tell her I was pregnant)…
OH SHITBALLS ... Basically! ... Anyway … cue the start of the most stressful period of life so far
My husband Marco and I had saved for about 8 years getting our deposit together, and we were extremely lucky that our families were able to help us finically too. We put an offer in on this house, it was the first house we saw and we waited for MONTHS to get a mortgage approved as we both work freelance (turns out the bank don't like freelancers much). But we eventually got through all the house buying bullshit and picked up the the keys in June of 2018.
I was 7 months pregnant, getting bigger, and getting actually quite ill in my brain the further along I got. I’ve always suffered with anxiety but I was in the realms of it being next level during pregnancy. I didn’t find the whole pregnancy experience overly enjoyable let’s just say.
Marco and I always wanted to do up a house together, we've both got the skill sets, I’d say I’m quite a proactive/ creative person. But being preggo whilst we were finally doing it wasn’t ideal, and I couldn’t get stuck in to the level I wanted to. I still managed to chip old plaster off brick walls among other jobs, but if I had my time again I’d be swinging sledge hammers at the walls too boi.
We didn’t have very much money to put into the project so Marco did most of the work himself (luckily he’s had loads of building experience). He put up a new ceiling with my Dad, and a new wall with my cousin’s bf, he did countless things on his own along side working his normal job, poor guy got absolutely burned out! We were both running on empty even before the baby was born. OOPS! (1 STAR - Would not recommend).
My parents painted the entire house white for us the week before we moved in (I bought the white to just start completely blank and it was cheap) and we finally slept our first night in the house 3 weeks before my daughter was due. She was born 5 weeks later (yep 10 days overdue! (THE WORST! IYKYK!)
Long story short I had a really traumatic birth but in hind sight I was already pretty ill beforehand, and I spent the first 4 weeks of being a Mama in shock basically, and quickly developed depression and symptoms of a mild kind of psychosis, it went on and on and on, and just became my new normal. The person I used to be was pretty much 100% gone in my view. I absolutely HATED this house with a passion, it was my white walled prison. I was ill for quite a long time, the doctors and health visitors picked it all up but it was that age old story of having to recognise it yourself before anyone else can help you. I definitely souped around those first years, feeling kinda scared, and bad about everything, and not really here. Quite weird to explain but actually just really fucking horrible especially when you have an amazing little kid to look after too.
Fast Forward 2 years, it was lockdown 3.0 in the UK after Christmas and I was really struggling again, I had what I call some sort of a mental break one morning when Marco was at work (I also had a massive stye in my eye at the time, was super run down). My lovely Mum drove up to town picked up my little one and I, and we stayed at my parent’s house for a week. I called the doctors and finally got some help.
FFWd again to starting to feel A MILLION TIMES better after a couple of weeks (literally like a new person). One of the things I knew that I wanted to do was a house instagram account. As I said I’ve always been creative, I trained in Musical Theatre, I’ve worked in TV documentaries for a good couple of years, I also ran a little Wedding Styling side hustle for a while. Being ill had killed my creativity and I just wasn’t doing anything. So I set up the account, started styling up the house, doing DIY and painting, buying art and home accessories and flowers and got posting.
Doing it made me feel sooo much better, and my house became such a nice environment to be in. I also got to swing my sledge hammer when I was smashing the garden to hell… all good things right? 😆 I can confirm I absolutely LOVE my house now, its full of personality, it’s my creative sanctuary and a really happy place! We all love it (Marco included, he does massively ‘tolerate’ a lot of the pink poor dude, but lucky for me he’s V laid back about stuff!)
So welcome to my little home, and also I guess the inside of my head, which is basically a pink neon disco Prosecco bar that went down a dark hole for a while and came back out again.
It's definitely eclectic here!
Soph x
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