Welcome back, and Happy New Year!  I hope you had a lovely break (I did; more on that in a newsy post to follow…).

Filled with a Marie Kondo-esque desire to declutter and simplify, we set about tackling our loft this weekend.  The loft is a cavernous, dimly lit space that extends the full length of the house; a CS Lewis-like room with a myriad of eaves and nooks and crannies, now piled to the brim with 111,862 things that we might want one day but not today, all in sporadically labelled boxes and piles.  Sometimes the boxes are clearly labelled …but with entirely misleading information; from a box marked ‘ski gear’ we pulled a full Father Christmas costume, complete with spectacles and boots.  ’Easter Baskets: Misc’ is just as likely to contain a pile of old tax returns.

One of the biggest jobs to tackle in the loft was the challenge that I have saved almost every item from Harry’s childhood to date, resulting in a tide of toys, clothes, books, small furniture and so on.  Time to act!

In a local thrift shop this weekend we found this gorgeous old steamer trunk, below.  Shabby inside, it is structurally completely sound and from an era where trunks were routinely tossed around and built to last.  At £20, it was a bargain, so we dragged it home (Ok; I supervised; my husband dragged )

I gave Harry the task of choosing what paper we should use to recover the inside – I opted for sheets of giftwrap, thinking wallpaper would be a little thick, and fabric too complicated for my elementary technique.  In the meantime, I peeled away all of the loose bits of paper, tapped down any spiky nail ends and generally gave the trunk a good wipe down.  I didn’t bother to steam away all of the paper; just ensured the loose bits were gone.

Harry chose a gorgeous, vibrant circles-based paper for the inside which I’d sourced from here; I keep a little supply of flat giftwrap sheets for all kinds of projects.  The eagle-eyed might remember I also used it on this project!  That evening, I measured and cut and used watered-down white glue to paste the sheets and strips of paper into place.  When you first do this it will look dreadful; the paper is a little wrinkled and bubbled and will appear damp in patches.  My advice?  Go to bed at this point.  Then when you come down in the morning it will have dried and will look like this…

We love the end result – Harry uttered a satisfying ‘WOW, mum!’ when he saw it – and next weekend have decided we will go through the loft together and curate a small collection of precious treasures to go into his trunk, from babyhood through to now.  A couple of outfits, school books, best artwork, favourite toys and books, now outgrown but ready for another generation.  The task, as always, will be what to leave out.

Have a wonderful week, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing!