Design Dilemmas
Episode 28: Multi purpose double desking, investment art for teens and blank canvas gardens. Plus lighting up dark kitchens and planning through spaces.
This week heralded our return from Portugal and a return to my desk, plus a return to school for my youngest, Leo, who has now commenced his final GCSE year. I have spent a lot of time reiterating to him the importance of this year. He’s my third child to go through secondary school and I have lost count of the amount of times that I have said the words ‘you get ONE chance to get it right’, so much so that my kids have parroted it back to me, meme like, on multiple occasions when they want to wind me up. This time next year, we will be uniform free with no school shoe issues or losing of ties and I admit, I am quite looking forward to it after what will then be 19 - NINETEEN - years of kids education.
Leos current main focus is that now he has hit Year 11, he gets to leave the premises for lunch. Previously, he has always had a packed lunch (or as they call it in the North, a pack up) instead of the school meals. There’s a reason for this and it’s due to my elder son, Max. When Max started secondary school, he was desperate to have school lunches. He had always veered towards a diet of entirely beige food so I was heartened that he wanted to try new things. That was, unfortunately, until I went online six months in to check what he was eating on the school system which logged all food purchases, and discovered that he was eating three traybakes a day and nothing else. Brownies, millionaires shortbread, flapjacks, bakewell tarts. You name it, Max was buying it daily. Anyway, I banned him from school lunches post this event as he wasn’t to be trusted, and gave him a packed lunch, a routine that continued when Leo started school. However, Leo left the school premises to buy his lunch on Thursday before happily coming home and announcing that he had dined on cheesy chips and scraps (the oily crispy bits in the bottom of the fryer). God help me.
Okay, back to your quandaries and this week, we’re discussing multi tasking double desks (yes, this is a thing) plus good investment art if you are decorating a teen room. Gardens that are only grass and how to plan them, plus how to make through rooms cohesive and lighting up a dark kitchen. You can READ ON by becoming a paid subscriber which means that not only do you receive four free posts a month but also a minimum of four EXTRA posts a month (including this weekly post) plus Chat threads so you can join our blossoming community and exclusive discount codes which are just for you. Plus, you’ll also be able to access my archive to read ALL of my past posts (including recipes and travel write ups) for the price of one Starbucks a month. I would thoroughly recommend it!