Life with Helen Johnson

We’ve lived in our lovely family home for one year and I’m finally starting to implement changes/make habits that make my home life so much easier. Our first year living in our home we didn’t do too much to the house, this was mainly due to work commitments and my health not being at it’s best. Thankfully 2026 is a new year and we have so many exciting plans for our home.

A Garden Makeover: Creating a Space to Grow Vegetables at Home

We love our garden but is certainly is quite a project! It is not a small space and there are many plants that need attention and care. We are not natural gardeners, but we both love being out in nature. One project that I have for 2026 is to make our garden a space for growing delicious vegetables. We do have a greenhouse, so we are going to utilize that space to grow tomatoes, green beans, herbs, peppers and lots of other tasty veg. Our reason for wanting to focus on growing vegetables it to save money, as we currently have organic local vegetables delivered to our home. Plus to save time going grocery shopping.

Turning Our Spare Bedroom Into a Spacious, Multi-Purpose Room

The previous owners added built in wardrobes into one of the bedrooms, but in doing this they made a medium sized bedroom feel quite small. At present we can fit a double bed in the room for guests and we also dry our laundry in that room, but apart from that there isn’t much space for anything else. We hope that one day this could be a room for one or two children, or a bedroom for Andy and I if our children needed a bigger bedroom to share. We hope later this year to remove the built in wardrobes, plaster and paint and re-carpet the bedroom. We will most likely use this room as an office and guest bedroom until our home is filled with children, which hopefully will be soon.

Repainting Every Room: A Whole House Makeover

When we moved into the property we loved that all the walls were a cream colour, especially as there are a lot of windows – the place looks so bright even on a dull day. However when you look close you can see scruff marks, dirt and grime on the walls, so they do need a clean and a new coat of paint. We will either use a similar colour paint or go slightly brighter. I would love to go white, but we’re aware with future children running around this could result in dirty walls very quickly. We are going to tackle one room at a time for two main reasons – time and finances! I’m hoping by the end of 2026 all our interior walls will have a fresh coat of paint.

Organizing Our Storage: Garage and Attic Declutter

Our garage and attic have become our dump zones in the house. When we moved in a year ago we unboxed everything we needed, and everything that we didn’t use often was kept in the attic or garage. We’re hoping to organise both of these spaces in the next few months as were going to get extra loft insulation this year, and so the attic needs to be emptied. I’m hoping that everything we don’t use we can either give away or sell, and the items we want to keep we can either find a home for, or place back into storage. By the end of 2026 I’m hoping we will only have a few boxes in the attic.

The hardest thing for Andy and I is finding time to complete all these projects. Some of the bigger projects like the spare bedroom we will probably pay for a contractor, as it would take us ages to complete that job, as we do not have the experience. I do find the thought of our to do quite overwhelming, but there are a few things we’re doing to help us manage it all.

#1 – pay for professionals when required, as we need to understand our limitations and know when our time is worth focused somewhere else.

#2 – break the projects down into bitesize chunks – we can not paint the whole house in one weekend, we can’t re-do our whole garden in one afternoon. We are reminding ourselves that these projects could take months to complete, and that it’s okay. It’s focusing on one room at a time, one project at a time and knowing there’s no deadline.

#3 – not expecting perfection – Andy and I are not painters, we are not gardeners and we aren’t the best at DIY. However it’s an area I want to grow in as I learn what it means to be a homemaker and look after my home. This may mean that the paint work isn’t perfect and if it requires us re-painting it again in a few years time then so be it. We can’t learn if we don’t make mistakes.

#4 – carving out weekends/evenings to work on the home projects – if we don’t schedule it in our calendar then it won’t get done. I think that’s why nothing major has been done in the last year. Andy and I are professionals at filling our weekends up with fun trips away or seeing family, and that is not a bad thing. But we need to be mindful that we do have a home to look after. I’m going to do my best to schedule time to work on our home this year, and it can actually be fun too!

If you want to watch our home tour and the bathroom renovation we had done in 2025 then watch the video below! I will be posting all the reno projects on my YouTube channel so please subscribe to see further updates.