When I moved into my apartment, I planned to have all the redecorating finished within a year, but life got in the way; the first year arrived and my bedroom was still as it was the day I moved.

Maddy and Dom’s impending visit provided the motivation that I’d been lacking, so a couple of weeks ago I emptied the wardrobe and moved the furniture into the spare room. I’d have to get on with it now; the spare bed was all but invisible under a heap of clothes and drawers containing more clothes and I could hardly move in there for the extra furniture.

I covered my bed with dust sheets and stripped the horrible, old lady, vinyl wallpaper, then knocked in the dozens of Rawl plugs and plasterboard fixings and filled the holes with polyfilla.

The lining paper went up easily, once it had had time to dry, I painted the walls and ceiling white and headed to the DIY shop with the throw Alex made me.

They didn’t have the shade of pink paint I was looking for and the price to have a sufficiently big tin mixed made my eyes water, so I got a small tin of a deeper shade, which I mixed with some white – perfect!

I painted the wall behind the bed pink, cleaned up and put back my clothes, shoes and furniture. It was a treat to have a choice of what to wear, ie not just whatever was on the top of the heap.

I found a pair of table lamps in a local shop, to replace the work lamp I’ve been using for the last 16 months.

Now I just need Kieran to help me put up the lampshade and hang some pictures.

In the meantime, I’m making a patchwork quilt for the spare room. I’d painted the room all white, thinking the quilt would be colour enough; but laying out the quilt pieces on the bed, it became apparent that the wall behind the bed needed some colour.

There are plenty of colours to choose from and I had some green left over from the living room, so mixed it up with some blue tint and a bit of white, to get a lovely turquoise shade. I think the room looks much better now.

It’ll be even better once I finish the quilt, but that could be a few months yet.