Living rooms, sideboards and hiding the mess

I’ve talked recently about us having been redecorating our living room, and how it isn’t a very big space. One thing I’ve learnt in the past four years living in this house, with five people {plus pets and a mountain of stuff} is that good storage is vital. Our main living space not only functions as the place we eat our meals and relax at  the end of the day on the sofa, but also the hub of daily life – we work in there, we play games, paint, colour, create….  a good portion of our days are spent in there. Previously, we had an old bureau and a couple of shelf units for storage – full of paper, colouring books, pens, home school stuff, crafty books, etc… frankly it was a mess. For one, the mish-mash of units, different heights, widths, colours just looked messy, and having open storage means no hiding the mess!

With a fresh coat of paint on the walls in the living room, I was feeling the urge to finally get around to sorting out the furniture situation. While Papa had promised to make me something, realistically that wasn’t going to happen now. And I’m just a little bit of an impatient lady ;) When I get my mind set on an idea, I want to do it right this very second. Thankfully The Range with their great selection of living room furniture came to my rescue. I picked out this sideboard after lots of deliberation. It was the perfect size, it took the space of the furtniture that was under the window in the dining room before, had three drawers for ‘little bits’ and, most importantly, doors! Meaning I could put all our stuff in, shut the doors and not have to look at the mess…. though right now, it’s nice and organised, having just been filled carefully by Mama. Ask me what it’s like in a week, when three little girls have been using it, and I’m sure it will be an entirely different story!

I have fond memories of watching my Dad put together flat pack furniture from when I was little, so when it arrived I was pretty excited to get making it. With {a little} help from Papa, two hours from start to finish and we had ourselves a new sideboard. It was pretty straightforward to make, no pieces missing and the instructions were easy to follow. It’s a good quality, sturdy sideboard that will hopefully hide our rubbish for many years!

Written in association with The Range