Her Own Space

Elizabeth Tamara Katherina Mary-Jane Jakobson, a beautiful brown eyed young woman, who had a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, the most beautiful blonde curls you could imagine, and a brilliantly contagious laugh, was moving into her first ever home, a home that was completely and solely hers; the days of sharing the bathroom with three younger sisters, having to fight over food at the dinner table with her three younger sister, her older brother, her parents and her grandparents on her fathers’ side and her grandmother on her mothers’ side, and having to put herself and her priorities last were over. She was her own woman now, with her own space and freedom to follow her own path.

As she drove her car packed full of her clothes, shoes and smaller possessions, behind the two large hauling trucks she had hired to move into her new home, she sang along to the playlist she had made and began planning which rooms she would decorate first. Getting closer and closer to her own home, she sang louder and smiled wider, knowing that she had full control over everything in her space now; no one telling her where things can go, what colours she can have and what things can and cannot go up. Elizabeth had dreamt of this chapter of her life since she was a young girl, being the second oldest sibling, she knew she would never have space to herself again until she was a grown up. After a long, three-and-a-half-hour drive from her parents’ home, Elizabeth finally reached her own, with its traditional red brick exterior, dark grey slate roofing and a brilliant royal red front door, with gold trim around the windows of it. Her front porch was covered by a small roof which was the same as the main roof, with small lights illuminating the front door, the front door to her future.

The women who drove Elizabeth’s things to her new home got out of their truck cabs and began opening the back of their trucks when Elizabeth reversed her car into the driveway of her new home, she turned off the ignition and stepped out of her car, holding a large set of keys. She flipped slowly through them until she found the correct one, it was gold with a red sleeve over the round part of it, accompanied with a little black label which read “148” on it, the key to her new home. She walked up the three little steps to get up onto her porch, crossed the porch and pushed the key into the doorhandle, turning it excitedly and leaned down on the handle, releasing it and allowing the door to swing open to her own home.

Elizabeth, Jessie and Kaitlyn, the women who drove the trucks, began emptying and placing the furniture into its corresponding room, it took the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening, Elizabeth thanked the women with an extra £50 tip each, on top of their fees, a dinner and some beers to take home with them, she waved them off at 10pm with a huge smile. When she saw that the women had gone, she closed the door in front of her, switched off the front lights and pulled the curtain that was already over the door shut; Elizabeth let out a huge sign of relief and joy and walked into her kitchen, flicking on the switch for the oven and putting it to temperature, she got out a frozen pizza and shoved it in the oven. While it cooked, she kicked off her shoes, pulled out her slippers from her backpack and pulled them on as she slumped onto the couch, exhausted from the long and busy day.

In the morning after her first night in her own home, Elizabeth began sorting her things, emptying the boxes, suitcases and bags of her belongings and placing them where she desired, starting with her bedroom and the living room. It took just over three weeks to get her house perfected, or as perfect as she could. She spent days painting the walls, creating murals on ceilings, putting up wallpaper and creating gallery walls of her own and collected artworks from friends, family and famous artists; she had put up her shelving units, wall décor and tapestries, along with bookshelves filled with hundreds upon thousands of books, photos and canvases of her friends and family, the memories that they had created captured in a single moment. There was just one thing missing, right over her headboard of her bed. She had tried many of her larger pieces of décor, but none had quite fit the aesthetic, or feel that she was envisioning. Nothing quite hit the perfect mark, and she would have nothing less than perfect in her home, nothing less than perfect for her.

Elizabeth had to begin her new job at the beginning of the new academic year, so she only had the remaining three weeks of the summer holidays to find the perfect object to fill the space above the bed headboard. Looking through Pinterest boards for bedroom designs, interior design social media accounts, websites and brochures from stores, fairs and shows, but nothing jumped out as Elizabeth enough for the space. She went to garden centres and homeware stores, even through supermarket home sections, but still nothing was right; she did buy things for other rooms and areas of the house, the garden and even for her fence, wall and driveway. She brought outdoor lighting, a birdbath and a small water feature, several strings of fairy lights with stars, moons and firefly shaped bulbs to go through the bushes lining the back garden and a beautiful sundial to place in the centre of the garden, perfectly positioned to correctly tell the time, no matter where the sun was.

As she continued to search and continued to fail to find the perfect décor for her bedroom, Elizabeth had to begin preparing for starting her new job; as a teacher at the new primary school which will be opening this year, The Gillian James Primary School, Day-care and Nursery, where she would be in charge of the Tiny Tots room, for the one- to two-year-olds. She began finding fun activities to do with the children, to encourage their learning, social skills and overall development the best way that her and her team possibly could. She hosted an icebreaking and getting to know evening with the three other members of her team, who would be working alongside her at the beginning of their children’s educational lives, followed by a planning evening a few days later, where the went over ideas that Elizabeth had come up with, with Elaine, Henrietta and Lukas adding ideas, comments and changes to activities, classroom decoration and event days.

Elizabeth offered her colleagues and newfound friends’ food and drinks as their planning came to an end and they moved onto normal conversation, she showed them around her home, pointing out different design styles, influences and memories associated with different trinkets around her home. When she finally led them to see how she had laid out her bedroom, she pointed out the gap above her bed, explaining how she had been looking since she finished the rest of the house, for the perfect piece to finish off her home. Lukas suggested a place that I hadn’t heard or seen before, Krinian Textiles and Décor shop, it was a small family-owned shop, located only in the town over from mine, thirty minutes away. He showed her a few photos from their social media accounts and Elizabeth liked what she saw, so decided to go the following day to see if she could find the perfect something for her room. They finished the night by watching a comedy show online and then Elizabeth waved each of her friends off as they were picked up be partners, siblings and roommates.

The morning of Elizabeth visiting Krinian, she woke up fairly early despite how late she went to sleep, she got washed, dressed and packed up her wallet into her handbag before locking up her windows and doors, opening her driveway gate and pulling out of her driveway, she closed her gate, locking the padlock on the front of it. She put on her favourite playlist, the same one she had played on the trip from her family home to her own, and drove towards the next town, following her satnav through backroads and countryside, rather than highways and main roads, as that was what Elizabeth enjoyed the most. It took longer than what Lukas had said, but only because Elizabeth took the scenic route rather than the quickest; but when she arrived, she was not disappointed, the photos on the social media pages did not do their work justice. The pieces that the shop had were amazing, Elizabeth had already chosen several before she had even entered the shop and when she did, the disbelief at what was on offer grew even stronger.

Elizabeth wandered through the store, looking at everything that they had to offer when she saw something that made her stop in her tracks, it was a tapestry work, filled with subtle hues of purple and grey shades, perfectly paired with green leaf patterns running around the edge of the tapestry piece. This was it, the final piece that would complete her vision, complete the decoration of her home. She continued staring, for what felt like hours, looking and finding new details within the material, when the owner of the shop approached to talk with her, telling her all about the designer, creator and maker of the tapestry, what each process consisted of and how long it took to make each part, and then the total amount of time to create the piece of art that had captured Elizabeth’s heart. Learning each new detail about it and its creator’s history, Elizabeth fell deeper and deeper in love with the artwork; she bought it, along with the several other items that matched her aesthetic and the rest of her décor, plus a few extra things that the store owner had shown her after explaining the significance of the tapestry. Over £2500 and four hours later, Elizabeth was back on the road, headed home with her amazing finds, smiling and singing to her playlist.

Arriving home, she opened her gate, backed onto her driveway and closed the gate, then headed up the stairs and opened the door ready to bring in her artwork, ornaments and decoration from the boot of her car. Bringing in her items she knew that the space in her life would now be filled, both of her bedroom wall, and of her personal life. She would be her own person for the first time in her life, for the rest of her life and nothing and no one would change or take that away from her.