Progress report on my writing and crafting shed- almost all the timber is up!
It’s now completely panelled in spruce tongue and groove, painted white, and all that’s left to do is add a couple more pieces of woodwork to finish the window surround and get that painted white too.
My husband loves the zen simplicity of the white space. He thinks I should just have one cushion and a single polished pebble in there. That idea does have a certain appeal, though it won’t be as much use for writing or crafting that way! He’s right about one thing. It’s a very small space for the amount I hope to fit in there. I’m trying to imagine how it will look with a wide full length desk at one end and full length shelves lining the long walls.
Smaller. A lot smaller, even though they’ll all be white too.
And smaller again when I add in all the stuff I want to put on the shelves and the windows and the doors and the walls. Lots of books. Big brightly coloured patterned bags holding my fabric stash and clothes for restyling. Boxes and bottles of buttons and threads and other sewing bits and pieces. My sewing machine. My overlocker. My big laptop. My Alphasmart. A heater for winter. A fabric covered pinboard over the desk and on the door. Patchwork cushions on the chair. A matching patchworked blackout blind on the window.
It will be quite cluttered and busy, but hopefully in a good creative way!
Anyway, unfortunately progress has now halted. I managed to break a tiny bone in my foot on Saturday night, a one of those stupid, clumsy, ridiculous accidents. I’d been standing on a chair putting up a new lampshade in the living room (just one of those lovely cheap big round bamboo and paper ones) and as I stepped down, my foot landed on the side of one of my shoes. I twisted my foot sideways as I fell.
Instant pain and swelling and bruising. The result is, I’m now in a fair bit of pain and have to wear an ugly clumpy walking boot for at least a couple of weeks. And I need to sit with my foot up as much as I can.
Stupidly, because we’re short-staffed, I went in to the Day Job yesterday. That was a mistake. I managed okay, taking plenty of pain relief, but by the time I got home from work the foot was hugely swollen and bruised. This morning the swelling has gone done a lot, but it’s more painful. I couldn’t have gone to work on it today without going through hell. Not so much the actual job, there are two separate nursing roles in the office and one is fairly sedentary, most phone and email work. It’s the two hour each way commute that’s the killer. Walk then train then walk then bus then walk, and the same in reverse going home. No other way to do it, short of taking a cab from the train to work, which pretty much wipes out the day’s pay! Luckily it’s not too busy right now, despite the short staffing, so I’ll stay home tomorrow as well.
But it’s so frustrating to sit inside all day itching to work on the shed and not be able to! I just need those few extra pieces of wood for the window surround, a door sill, and something for the centre of the ceiling. Then once those are painted, I can get the carpet down. A lucky find on Saturday morning in a car park- boxes and boxes of used but good condition carpet tiles in the rubbish at the back of the carpet shop. I so want to get them down, then I can get the desk up.
And I can’t get the last few bits and pieces of the building work done!
I can’t even start on the sewing for the cushions and blind because that involves standing, too, measuring up and cutting out, even though the sewing part will be sitting.
Well, I can get lots of reading done, which is a good thing. I could even read my rejected Christmas story and start making notes for the re-write. I’m strangely reluctant to do so, probably because I don’t want to have to see all the ways that my story is crap. And I don’rt want to get full of ideas then not be able to write because I’m back at work, or working on the shed. I’m obsessed with getting the shed finished. It’s like my subconscious has made a deal with itself- no more writing until the shed is done.
I wonder how I can convince it to unmake that deal?
