In renovating my home, I found myself {ad-affiliate}

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Identity is everything, authenticity is everything and learning about who you are can come from so many places, I did not expect to find myself whilst renovating my home but that's exactly what happened.

Flashback to February 2019, I'd had a fully assembled wooden arbour in my Amazon basket for over 12 months and finally, I managed to buy it through a lot of hard work and some affiliate marketing, I only wanted a fully assembled one because DIY and building furniture in 2983 parts, it's just not my strong point.  I can visualise creatively (and I'm bloody good at that) but spacially and logically, my brain does not excel at.  Over the next few weeks, I furiously worked on my garden every day, every bit of money I earned went into building this vision for my dream garden that I had in my head, finally at the beginning of May it was complete.

I spent the rest of the spring and summer spending as much time outdoors as I possibly could and I found it improved my mental health to the best it had been for years,  I had BBQ's, I sat in the evenings amongst the twinkly lights with the chiminea lit and the tiki torches burning. I finally had a garden I didn't want to run away from.

Fast forward to November and I randomly came across a guy who transformed kitchens by wrapping them in vinyl and though I didn't have the money at the time, he was so kind that once I did have it, I went straight back to him and booked him in, there was absolutely no going back, especially as the mural had also been ordered and my friend Steve had been booked for a day to help me put it up, the transformation was instant although for a while there, it actually looked worse as the bright colours of the new colour scheme clashed badly with the old, grubby flooring and I knew I had no way of replacing them until some income in and in the winter as a wedding photographer, well it's not the easiest.  

Whilst I was waiting for the income to replace the flooring I started painting the hall and the design there happened organically, I realised there was enough room for a small sofa and off I went to look for bargains in the Wayfair sale and found a pink sofa, I initially wanted ochre to match the retro yellow and cosy grey walls but my knowledge of colours from many years as a photographer told me I'd be safe with a fuchsia colour and lo and behold, it looks fantastic.

Finally, just a couple of days ago, the flooring went down and I realised that in completing the whole of the ground floor I'd finally found myself.  No one would question who lives in my house but me because it's got all of my personality stamped all over it.

I'm so happy with all that I've done, I've realised that I am to finding bargains on Amazon what Mrs Hinch is to eBay and I'm okay with that, it's perfect for someone who doesn't go out very often, click a button and a man turns up with your order the next day.

In finishing the hall, the stairs to the first floor, the kitchen and the garden I've given myself the confidence to go on further through the house and you can bet every wedding or portrait session I shoot this year will help me to complete the work and then, well, my grand plans include teaching makers the art of using a smartphone to create visually engaging images to use in their business and also a course to help future wedding photographers learn the business of weddings.  The weather may be dark and gloomy right now but this Saturday is my first wedding of the year and I can't wait to get back out there because I know I'm building my dreams with each and every assignment I take on this year.