#3 Making my flat feel more like home
Some weekly updates and chatting about finally getting a bed
This week, I feel like I have more to say – generally just in a more loosey-goosey mood for some reason. Some big strides of progress have been made in the flat this week, so it felt like a good time to chat about interiors (which I’ll be talking about a lot in upcoming sunstacks).
This morning, it felt so much colder but I put on my running gear and headed down to running club for a very autumnal 7k. Chatting made it pass quickly and it was lovely to be around the trees and streams. I’ve been following my friend Dora’s advice for the last two weeks and waiting an hour after I’ve finished breakfast before I have my first coffee, and today I didn’t end up having one til after lunch. I know right. Some mornings, especially towards the end of the week, it feels really hard to resist the caffeine boost, but it’s made me cut down from 3 to 2 a day on average and it’s good to feel like I’m not quite so dependent on it. Now I’ve started, I want to keep going with it, but we’ll see how it goes.
I got back home from running and settled on the sofa (duvet brought in from the bedroom, a hot water bottle, and dressing gown) with Northanger Abbey, disrupted frequently by Whatsapp, obviously. I’d been in the mood for some Jane Austen for a while and thought I would start at the beginning. I’m around halfway through and really enjoying it. One of the best things about reading before bed is noticing when you are tired enough to doze off to sleep, and you really know when you’re tired when reading Jane Austen. It’s a good litmus test for sleepiness as sentences instantly lose meaning, you lose the thread immediately. I think the rhythm and fullness of her sentences, and her observations of human beings and emotions are unparalleled.
I promise I will get onto interiors, but while we’re on the topic of books, I did enjoy Weirdo by Sara Pasco in the end. As I said, the narrative voice is distinct and funny but I personally missed some background descriptions or more nuanced and in-depth portrayals of the characters. I felt like she was taking me along for the ride, and it was fun, but it didn’t leave me with much and I don’t feel like I’ll remember it for a long time. I liked the ending, I liked the addition of ‘deleted segments’ at the end that her editors had said to leave out, but it didn’t feel like stepping into a world (even if it was based in Essex), it felt more like being told a story over a coffee.
It felt hard to leave my sofa duvet nest, but I picked up ingredients to make a banana bread with chocolate chips to take for my brother and sister-in-law when I visit them in London this week, before I head down to Devon. It’s just finishing off in the oven – I’ve never confidently put a knife/fork into a cake and thought, ‘yes, it’s ready.’ There’s always a little bit of something on the knife, surely?
I just checked on it and it’s quite a tan brown shade now so I’ve taken it out.
The main event this week was finally getting my bed built (I got this black, four-poster bed from Dunelm if you’re interested). The flat was unfurnished when I moved in, which honestly I preferred because even though it’s more expensive, you’re not lumbered with someone else’s ugly black sofa. The first week or so living here I was working with my monitor resting on some still unpacked cardboard boxes in the living room, so was glad to find a standing desk on Facebook Marketplace. Then I gradually added furniture to the flat with some Billy bookshelves, a white tulip table (also from Facebook Marketplace), a sofa, and finally a bed.
My bedroom isn’t huge so I wanted to downsize my mattress to a double to improve the flow of the space and make it easier to access the wardrobe. The smaller mattress took a while to come, so I had the boxes of the bed parts knocking around in the flat for ages, but on Tuesday last week, the mattress arrived.
My cousin helped me build the bed on Monday night, but we probably only got about halfway through the instructions (which said ‘Don’t be daunted by the number of parts’ – reader, there were a LOT of parts). So my dad finished it off the next day, and I wrestled the mattress onto the bed. The door handle to my bedroom came off in the process.
I’d told my dad I’d pay him in pies, so once the mattress was on, I headed down to the pub to meet him for dinner. Later on, friends got a lot of messages along the lines of ‘I am sat IN BED’ and it’s been less than a week but cosy mornings reading in bed and feeling less at the mercy of house spiders has been a real game-changer.
I still need to change the bedroom curtains, find some more dining chairs and a console table for the hall, sort out the little cloakroom cupboard, and think about painting. And put up an Aperol print in the kitchen that’s been taking its time in the post. But having the main key items of furniture has made it feel much more homely. The sofa was a big step – I’d looked and looked on Facebook Marketplace and spent way too much time sitting on the floor, and eventually bought a green velvet sofa from Snug. Now autumn is here it’s essential.
When I first moved in, getting the bookshelves up and filled with my books, plants and decor made it feel a lot more like home, as did simply having people over for dinner, for cups of tea. I think it just takes time. I’ve also swapped some of the lampshades out and have seriously deep-cleaned the wardrobe and kitchen, and while there are still a lot of boxes hanging around, it’s calm, it’s comfy, and I know when I come back from a trip to Devon in a week or so, I’ll be really glad to be home.