2 Year Anniversary – What Is ‘The Home That Made Me’?

 

I first set up this blog back on 14th January 2015 which is an incredible 2 years ago today, although the first year was taken up by moving house, a newborn baby & all the joys which come with it which meant that year 1 was sporadic & it wasn’t until January 2016 with part of my ‘New Year/New Me’ resolutions that I vowed to take blogging more seriously.

My first ever post was an introduction –

‘For some, their house is simply that; a house. A roof over their heads to provide them with the basic necessities in life such as a warm place to sleep, electricity to power their devices, a kitchen to cook their meals and a place they store their possessions. A house is purely bricks and mortar.’

You can read the full post here. When posting this, I didn’t in a million years expect my ramblings to become my career or allow me to work with such incredible brands from around the world.

I’ve never really gone into detail about how I came up with my blog name though & what it means.

It was actually about my first house (see the full tour here) which I bought at the tender age of 18 & went on to spend 6 happy years within those walls including having my daughter in the ensuite bathroom & walking over the threshold a married woman. Memories I’ll treasure forever.

The house was a repossession which meant blood, sweat & tears went into painstakingly renovating it. This all went on whilst I was attending a 6th form that I absolutely hated, studying topics I had no interest in (business studies, sociology & psychology) & sitting exams to get me into a university course (marketing) I didn’t really care about either. It was the ‘right’ thing to do.

It was then that I found my passion for interiors & from kitchen planning to finding nick-nacks to eventually coming across the world of upcycling (before Annie Sloan was even a ‘thing’). I immersed myself into making that house as beautiful as I could & would redecorate as quickly as I finished things.

In 2009, I had a pretty rubbish year with splitting from a long term boyfriend who mentally drained me & I lost myself along the way. I decided that enough was enough & that things seriously needed to change. I decided to drop out of university, 6 months before I was due to graduate, get myself the first job I could find & change EVERYTHING in my life that didn’t truly make me happy.

In December 2009, I met Joe at a works Christmas party & the rest, as they say, was history. He moved in to the house after 1 month of dating & we’ve been inseparable since.

I went from a very lost & unhappy person to the content mother & wife that I am now. I firmly believe that the unloved house which I so lovingly restored had a huge part to play in that.

I didn’t make the home, the home made me.

Love,