It’s August 2013 and this means a few things to me.
Firstly, Joe and I are celebrating being together for 7 years. Only last week, we had A-Level results day here in the UK, and I can’t believe it has been 7 years since Joe met me at the pub with some flowers and a bottle of bubbly to celebrate my results with me, shortly before asking me to be his girlfriend. Who would have thought that all this time later, I’d be sat here with him snoring next to me, as his Mrs.
Secondly, I’ve been writing this blog for 2 years now, which means we have lived in the house for the same amount of time. I can’t quite believe it.
As I stated at the one year mark, although nowaways I babble on about any old home design topic that interests me, in the beginning, this blog was intended to be a record of how well the house renovations are coming along – which of course I still do! Only they’re not quite so regular as they once were as we’ve waited for the seriously big projects to begin. So I thought it would be nice to look back on the past year, and see what we’ve been up to.
Sure, we still have a lot of exposed brick and I’m still trying to convince our house guests that “concrete-chic” is a thing, but sometimes you need to look behind you to see how far you’ve come. We’ve been working really hard and it’s mega rewarding to sit back and take that in occasionally. Here are some of my favourite picks from the past 12 months.
In August, we painted the fence in our front garden a lovely blue colour. It’s hard to miss us now!
In September, Joe and his dad built us a concrete driveway. Although a pretty dull topic at first look, Joe got creative by re-inforcing this with old golf clubs (silly thing) and we imprinted our hands as if we were Hollywood superstars.
With just 6 months to go until our wedding, October saw DIY home projects take a backseat as final preparations were underway, including wedding ring shopping, a new fitness regime and some epic cake tasting.
In November, Joe built a fence on the new driveway so that, as the nights drew closer and darker, passers by couldn’t watch me doing the dishes through the kitchen window anymore. Me? Paranoid? Never.
With all of our resources being dedicated to wedding planning in 2012, I took some time off from blogging in December, due to a lack of time and a new love affair with Baileys (‘Tis the season, so they say!) However, I did come back in January with a new web address and a new bathroom mirror installation.
February came, and Joe finally named his shed! Can you guess what he called it? Go on. You’ll never guess.
Again, DIY projects were put on as the 1 month to go mark for the wedding hit, and I started to mourn the maiden name. I got over it though, and in April, we got married. Happiest day of my life.
Around came May and after a bit of good fortune thanks to winning a competition, Joe was able attack the walls in Bedroom 3 – soon to be our office.
In June, I fell out with the birds that live in the huge tree in front of the house, so I wrote them a letter. Then in July, I got sad because our kitchen plans had suffered another delay and talked about what a kitchen means to me.
And that brings me back to August. Even this month alone has been jam packed. Our kitchen flooded, but we were also nominated for Wedding of the Year and have started on our extension– so to say it has been a rollercoaster is an understatement!
Hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did! I’m hoping that this time next year I’ll be writing my anniversary post in our very own brand spanking new kitchen. Here’s to Year 3!
