Dear Coffee, I Love You Again - 5 Minute Coffee Corner Creation

Like many, I have a love affair with coffee.  I am not, however,  one of these people who can’t live without it or a can’t-function-until-its-drunk gal.  What I love is the ritual of sitting down to drink a coffee.  I love smelling the coffee beans, cradling a warm cup and relaxing for the 10 minutes or so while you slowly sip at that perfect brew.

However,  my life became a whole lot busier last November with the addition of Master C to the household and relaxing is not always on the cards.  If I do get to fire up the coffee machine and make a cup, it is often drunk lukewarm or in a rush to satisfy a hungry infant.   I just wasn’t loving my cup of coffee anymore and I was missing the relationship we once shared.  So, yesterday I decided it was ‘Reclaim the Coffee Break’ Day in the Crooked household!

And so the plan was devised……

1. Change coffee break to mid-morning during Master C’s nap time
2. Distract Master O  while I sip coffee
3. Set up the perfect place to enjoy the coffee break

Steps 1 and 2 were easy but step 3 was going to need work and time was scarce.  I had always wanted a coffee nook in my house.  A place where I could go, specifically designed for my coffee drinking pleasure.  Mood lit, comfy chairs, nice china, cloche covered morsels, engrossing reading material, maybe a view and no annoyance.  Keep dreaming Jade!  But maybe I could have just a fragment of this?  With no place  inside to devote to my selfishness  I looked outside.

There  is a no other place where Master O is more entertained than in the front yard.  It was the logical place for my coffee spot and as I had already set up a table and chair set under our front porch, all the area needed was a makeover.  This is what the area looked like pre-reclaim….

Pretty bland and ordinary I know.  But the area has a nice, green outlook and is a relaxing space with a trickling water feature.

So with this spot in mind I went ‘shopping’ about my house for items that could redecorate here.  I am all for recycling.  I love to change things up at my place so items are constantly being rotated from room to room or into storage.  It means that house is decorated in a similar style and I am not spending up big when the redecoration mood takes me.

To brighten and comfy up the black suite I used two red and white cushions that once lived in the spare room.  To add more splashes of red I used one of my felt placemats as a runner on the table.  A small  black flexi tub that once stored toys would be perfect for magazines or books.  Outside there already lived a few pot plants and lanterns which could be rehoused here to help frame and green up the space.  Finally, I had a small black pot in which once sat a lovely plant that I skillfully killed and with a quick trip to Masters it was filled with a $2 potted colour.

So in five minutes, with a little fluffing and moving of pots and only $2 my new coffee spot  looked like this:

So with just a few small changes, the place is now a lot more inviting.  With my favourite coffee cup and a plate of biscuits, I can sit in my front yard and enjoy my coffee.  I can happily watch Master O at play, flip through the latest catalogues and magazines and enjoy the outdoors.  It just goes to show that you don’t need Donald Trump’s budget or a whole weekend to improve a little corner of your world.

About these ads