Where we've been sleeping...

For the last few months I have been a little evasive about where exactly we've been sleeping during the massive building works on our house, but with only one night (hopefully!) left till we move back into the main house, I can now reveal a bit more...

The cabin we had installed back in March has actually been our temporary home. It's insulated and heated, but it doesn't meet building regulations for accommodation that can be slept in, which is why we had to not publicise our use of it.

Internally it measures 4.5 metres by 2.5 metres, which is just large enough to accommodate our bed, Theo's cotbed, a bedside table, chest of drawers, changing table and an Expedit bookcase which divides the room.

We whitewashed the walls ourselves before we moved in and Jim laid the laminate floor (Homebase's cheapest floor at £2.99 a metre!) I took theses photos in March when we first moved in so it looks very tidy, but over the months that bookcase has filled up with all manner of stuff.

As you can see everything fits very tightly and that's no accident. Jim drew it all out before we moved the stuff in! There's about 30cm between the end of our bed and the double doors, which makes it pretty tight coming in and out, but it's doable.

Temperature wise, we have had more trouble with the heat than the cold. In the spring it retained heat during the night quite well, but it has done the same in the summer and at 8 o'clock at night it can easily be 25c inside even with the windows open.

Although sharing a room with a toddler is not ideal, the bookcase has helped keep the spaces separate and I pinned a quilt on one side of it so that he couldn't see through (is there no end to the uses for quilts?) Theo has also been pretty good at quietly playing with his toys when he wakes up early on summer's mornings and we've been disturbed more by the sound of the billowing wrap round the scaffolding and the local wildlife than by him.

Keeping Theo in a cotbed for so long has not been what we would have done if we'd had a choice. His obsession with keeping cars in his bed has lead him to have several disturbed nights as he tossed and turned and bumped into them. He is also pretty tall for his age and so the cotbed is rather small. The move to a bigger single bed in a few weeks will definitely lead to a better nights sleep for all of us and quieter nights!

We will actually have pretty fond memories of the four and a half months we spent sleeping in this cabin, but we are ready to move on and I'm excited for its next role in our lives.

Once the beds are moved out this building will become my quilting room. A real physical embodiment of the Maybush Studio this blog is named after...