Three steps forward, two steps back.

One of the most familiar aspects of DIY is that you think you are getting somewhere with a particular project and then you have to move onto something else when you are not completely finished. You then realise that the first project starts to lose ground and you have to stop and move back before you lose all the progress you made. This zig-zagging backwards and forwards can be quite dizzying sometimes. Maybe it is because I am such a Piscean, but I often feel like I am swimming round in circles and not progressing very far at all.

I know from experience that this stage will pass and that one day I will discover that I have actually completed a number of small jobs and am further along than I think. In the meantime it is just a case of living in the midst of the chaos, trying to keep all the balls in the air and believing that it will all be ok in the end.

Perhaps it would be easier if I wasn't constantly making small changes to the overall plans. But hey.. what are you going to do.. There are so many good ideas out there and I do want to remain flexible and open to the possibilities. I managed to find an episode of Grand Designs last night. It was a pretty massive, very old building that these people had undertaken to restore and renovate. It was taking a lot longer than they had planned because it was a self-build using as many natural materials and found and recycled objects as possible. It was also very eco and environmentally friendly. The guy kept discovering new possibilities and pretty much designing as he went. What they ended up with after about five years, (more than double what they had first planned) was an amazingly livable and workable dwelling where, despite being made of stone, each space seemed to melt into the next one in a really logical and vibrant way. There is a word which describes exactly the idea I am trying to convey. It is floating just out of reach of my consciousness and driving me a little crazy by its refusal to be grasped.. I guess that is pretty much indicative of the whole process at the moment.