For the last few months, I’ve been watching various YouTube channels that follow quite creative and inspiring people to share stories about objects around their home.

I’m not a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination. However, on the one hand, I don’t like clutter and on the other hand, I also like a house to be like a home.

Filled with different objects that remind me of people and adventures in my life – my home, my story.

I’ve always loved houses to feel that little bit “lived in” because I feel as if I can breathe in them. New homes with sleek granite, glass, steel or laid out with technology leave me cold. I don’t identify with a house that is stripped away to its bare basic materials because to me, it has no soul.

If you’re not expressing a little bit of yourself in your space, what have you got a home for?

Where can you truly be yourself if you feel that you’re a visitor to your space and not designing the space so that it creates some emotion for you and your visitors?

I’ve often written about exploring creativity here in my blog with Bringing the Outside In and Loving the Crafty Side of my Network and recently watching these people share their stories of the objects they have in their homes and the stories behind them made me realise that there’s a lot in my house that I don’t want to get rid of because there’s a story behind them.

To other people it looks like clutter.

The books stacked in no particular order

The pot plants scattered in different odd and unco-ordinated pots

The crochet blankets and throws

The hand made embroidered table cloths

The photos and paintings on the wall

The plates and crockery that come from different sets over the years

Colours and textures all mixed up; no particular semblance of order or themes

I look around the house and it seems to be an odd and eclectic collection of our lives – all relating to our interests, hobbies and passions over the years.

Try as I might to create some consistency, invariably the only way I can do this is not to throw stuff around but to move it about and hope for that smug and comfortable feeling.

Here’s some things I loved and adored

Karl Lagerfeld’s bookshelves stunned me. So much so, I went off and tried to recreate them myself with my own books…

https://twitter.com/ActivateLearn/status/1468113572853018624

I loved the feel of Amanda Brooks home in the Cotswalds with the books, the fireplace, the wood beams on the ceilings and the upholstery.

I loved the plants hanging from this designer’s kitchen so got some cuttings from my mother’s garden to recreate the falling plant (but unsure how I’d have it hanging from the roof)….

One of the things that we’ll be doing in 2022 is to landscape the entire back garden because at the moment, it’s a bit too much for me to look after. I like to spend my time outside enjoying the sunshine but when the trees are overgrown, the plants have gone wild, the lawn is knee high, the weeds have spread, it’s more of a headache for me. Besides, one day spent in the garden cleaning up means having to rest for two days afterwards!

As such we decided to landscape it all and opt for a low and minimal garden based on a Mediterranean style. I don’t mind pottering about with plants but I prefer container gardening than gardening directly in the ground. So my intention is to have more containers and create spaces that remind me of a wild Mediterranean garden that has lots of hardy plants in pots – think of olive trees, lavender, sage, poppies, grape vines on the pergola and geraniums.

I’ve started the seedling process with the geraniums a few weeks back. We removed our old driveway and before that happened, I made sure I got cuttings from the plants there so that I can repot them into our new back yard.

I can see myself in later years, spending more time out in the garden and making my outdoor spaces that make me feel comfortable outside as much as inside the house…