There’s just me living here, my three children, 2 cats and 2 dogs.

This was a re-possessed house. I liked it because it was affordable and close to the school for the children…and it had a small garden. It needed a bit of work doing to it but not too much.

I just saw there was room for improvement.

The previous owners had the Pantheon painted on the back of kitchen wall. The floor was half tiles and half wood. So the table was on a painted green wooden floor with a decoration round it and tiles there… And then a very old sort of brown wooden kitchen. Then they had a fake polystyrene wall over the top of the cooker, the hob.   It was very odd….and there was a vine stencilled all the way round the walls. It was horrendous!

You forget…all those things. And I was pregnant at the time. I was doing all those things while pregnant and working.

My piano is in there. I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s going to have to come out of there. It’s just an old tacky thing  … The children started, but they weren’t interested. I want to keep it in case… so it’s there.  The middle one is very musical. He is on the ukulele and if he carries on with that I will buy him a guitar… He’s already asking for an electric guitar.

It was the fact that there were gardens there…. Being able to grow things is important to me. I would never have decking or anything like that. I like things growing. And it’s a bit of space for the children. It’s not big but it’s a bit of space to get out if they need to.

My neighbours are lovely. They are all elderly and ..I know them all by name, they know me by name…..

My husband left me in October. They have all been absolutely lovely and have all pitched in and tried to help and look after the children when I needed to do stuff.

Since he’s left I’ve re-decorated.

This was all duck-egg blue. I only got it done 2 weeks ago. I just wanted a change, just to change… brighten things up…and yeah definitely to get rid …of him. There’s not one piece of him left.

I got a bigger table. It’s more social and there’s always people in the house.

When they were little there would have been things all over the place.  Now L. loves her drawing, she sits at the table or colours in. M. would go upstairs and go through books. S…. it’s just games, games, games … X box. 

They are all into different things but it’s not like when they were little. They have their own things they like doing.

I have just moved into the box room because it’s just me.

The boys get the bigger room so they can play in there. My daughter has the biggest room. I’ve re-decorated it because it was the brightest pink you ever did see. When we moved in she was only 4 and pink was her thing. It’s now a beautiful shade of green….

The boys’ room I did that quite a while ago. They have the superheroes on the wall. It’s just my room… and the bathroom really that need doing next. Small rooms that I can do in a day.  I needed to take my mind off things.

Home.. is somewhere to feel safe and loved and l to love my children.

I work. I’m a nurse in intensive care.

I get up at quarter past seven and jump in the shower and try to get the rest up at half seven.

L. is getting more and more difficult to wake up in the mornings, she’s nine.  She would read all night. She’s just finished reading all of Harry Potter.

They come down get some breakfast and then they get dressed. There’s normally a lot of shouting and a lot of this do this, do that..do  the other and we eventually all get out. If the weather is like this we walk. If it’s pouring down with rain we jump in the car. Then I come home take the dogs for a walk… and  I try to get stuff done.

The fireplace was already here and there was like a gas fire in it but I  told them to take it out and painted that black. I couldn’t afford a new fireplace and thought that colour would go with it.

I buy everything second hand and… I bought those tables and I will paint those up..

The book case I just painted up… that chest it’s just got all the  kids’ toys in but I will get round to painting that….  I’m an environmentalist. I suppose I don’t like to waste things you know.

I just liked that colour, I thought it was cosy. The red … more because it matched the fireplace and it was warm and cosy. I didn’t want a bright red I wanted a deep red…

I just think … see with the plants, as well it’s kind of Victorian. I like that.  I will eventually get round to getting curtains… it’s just the money you know….Because you can’t afford to change everything, you just go with the flow….