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Friday, May 03, 2013

What do you get if you cross The Wicker Man with Ronnie Corbett..?


That's Toby preparing for a weekend of house-clearance, decluttering and down-sizing. Yes, the good thing about Amelie being four-and-a-half is that she can't read my blog, and has no idea I'm about to chuck out all her stuff.

Since Amelie's room became Amelie & Toby's room, we've been under increasing pressure to create a bit of space, and with Toby now at an age where he's acquiring numerous toys of his own, we've reached the point where drastic action is required. Storage space is at a premium, so I've gone into debt and ordered a new wardrobe for the kids' bedroom, but to fit it in there, we first have to get rid of the armchair I bought three years ago.

The sofas have always lived in the living room, but the matching chair has been in the corner of the bedroom since we moved in, where it's been used for bedtime stories, late night cuddles, and the occasional bit of bouncing. Amelie loves it, but it takes up far too much space, and now that she stays up later than Toby, she rarely gets a story there anyway. So frankly it has to go.

Unfortunately, even if we wanted to give it to a good home, we couldn't get it out of the flat in one piece unless we knocked down a few walls and widened the front door. So my parents popped over yesterday with a power saw, and my Dad and I set about turning it into firewood. It took about an hour. Half of which was spent trying to work out how to get the cover off. We didn't notice the zips at the side.

The upshot of it all is that the armchair is now a footnote in history, and we have a space in the corner of the room. Which I'll soon be filling with bin bags of Amelie's toys. My parents have taken her back to St Leonards for two days to spare her feelings, so I have less than forty-eight hours to clear her room of clutter without scarring her for life.

Fortunately I have a master plan. I'm going to distract her from the heartbreaking lack of toys by giving her a new (and much smaller) chair. And that chair is the one above. It might look like the the breastfeeding chair I bought for Lisa when Toby was three days old, but that's because I haven't finished it yet. Let's face it, I haven't even started it.

I have, however, saved all the bits of foam, fabric, cushions and covers from the old armchair, and I'm combining them with a lot of unfounded optimism. So by the time Amelie returns on Sunday, I'll have transformed that small wicker seat into a luxurious state-of-the-art piece of furniture. I have no experience, knowledge or skills in upholstery, and I struggle to sew on a button, but let's face it, how hard can it be..?

1 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

Quite hard, I should think, but we know how enterprising you can be!