I have mopped, dusted and vacuumed downstairs and Milly has been sorting and dusting her room. We had started tidying her room on Monday with the intention to break it down into small chunks through the week.
We had the unexpected company of the lovely Amy yesterday. She was unwell and off school and L had an important meeting.
As we were at home for the day we were more than happy to look after her:-)
I made my bed so she could lay on top under a throw. Milly woke briefly as she got settled but fell asleep again so Amy read and rested too:-) I kept checking in on her and eventually woke Milly so I could make them something to eat. They had a quiet, peaceful day together.
When Amy left we went up to start on the sorting but Milly had a headache and said she would rather do it tomorrow - even though it meant she would probably have to do it on her own as my Mum and Dad were visiting.
The reason Milly is sleeping in our room is down to the visit of the spiders when El was staying last month! We set up the blow up bed in our room thinking she would stay with us a while and then - as has happened in the past - go back into her own room. She loves her room but the spider episode had terrified her and she chose to stay in our room.
She woke one morning - having been in our room about a week or so - and said how lovely it was to wake in our room, it was so calming and bright and made her feel awake as soon as she opened her eyes
Milly's room is dark purple - designed by her a couple of years ago. She absolutely loves her room and enjoyed the process of putting her design together, it really suited her at that time - dark and gothic.
For quite some time she has been keen on vintage fashion and design - her tastes are changing.
She asked if we could repaint her room.
She said that having white walls would also make it much easier for her to see any spiders on them - which was a major problem with the dark purple - although she wanted to be in her room and chose to sleep there - she was lying awake at night with a torch scared about spiders :-(
It is no small task to cover the dark paint on walls and furniture though!
I said we should talk to Alan about it as he would be the one doing the hard work. Being the wonderful person he is he hardly batted an eyelid and said yes, if we could find a way to afford it and if he was able to get time off work to get it done in one go rather than it taking up many weekends to do.
So a lighter, brighter bedroom is on the cards - hence the sorting and decluttering!
Our plans are to de-clutter and sort things out this week and then next week we are away. On our return the furniture will get painted and then the following week Alan is taking time off whilst we visit El for three days so he can paint the walls.
Off white walls and a cream colour on the furniture ( this has been a compromise by Milly as she would have preferred a duck egg blue. We have to think about the future colour changes she might want though and the amount of work/money it takes to re - do them each time )
A vintage throw ( pinks and duck egg ) and wallpaper from Next is our starting point and now that I have a better idea of the look she has in mind I will source things to complete the look on a budget. I will also try to think of a way we can get some of the duck egg colour onto the furniture that will make Milly happy but still make it easy to re - paint if the colour scheme changes in the future :-)