I have always been a person who has a hundred things on the go. I seem to wear many hats and every time I try and and give one of them up, my heart just won't let me and I start a new to do list! 

I see nothing but opportunity at the moment. Every new connection I make seems to lead to another and whilst life is still as busy as it's ever been, I can feel a seismic shift in finding a source of constant and stability to anchor us down. And that is our home.

We spent over a year searching for our beloved "forever house", somewhere with potential to outlast our boy's time at home, somewhere to enjoy when they fly the nest. A project. And although it's going to be a long journey, every little mark we make on this 300 year old former dairy farm house, makes it feel more and more like home. We have barely touched upstairs, bar me pulling off a piece of the ceiling by accident in the bathroom (This did not improve it!) and decorating the boys' attic room. Our priority was always to get a family space to eat and live in warm for the Winter, and now we can see the garden coming back to life, the trees are filling up with blossom and sunny days flood the house with a warm golden light. 

We want to be at home. To potter at weekends and even though our calendar has more weekends away, family celebrations and lovely day trips with friends on it than quiet weekends in Somerset, it makes those all the more important. Lazy Saturday mornings to cherish, the bed full of boys taking us through their latest card board creation, that has to stay by my bedside table, not making the bed until the afternoon, leaving the playroom floor littered with Lego, because the boys are going to play with it again later. No rush to tidy up. 

Over the past couple of weeks it has felt as though I've been away more than I've been at home, Rich has taken on the lion's share of school runs, bath times and bed time stories and I've had an overnight bag permanently packed ready for the next adventure. I left on Monday morning this week, watching 3 males waving me off, to head for London.

I was speaking to a lovely group of students at the Judith Blacklock Flower School in the afternoon, taking photos for Judith's book and magazine and brainstorming lots of ideas to work on together in the future! I left Knightsbridge at gone 7pm and literally lugged an enormous suitcase full of props back to Hatton Cross where my lovely taxi (aka my Mummy) was waiting to take me back to her house, feed me and force me to bed! 

I was up early again on Tuesday to head back into central London for The Brand Stylist's Colour for Creatives Workshop (That deserves at least one post of it's own!). I left Brixton station feeling like my head was going to burst, I was spinning with ideas and felt a million miles away from our little patch of the countryside. It's a balance being a working mother, investing time into your own business and sacrificing the pre school trip to the farm, an assembly or those precious seconds when every single day at pick up, Sammy's eyes light up and he runs into my arms. 

As I was on the train Rich text me, "Just come home." 

We are used to spending (almost) 24 hours a day together. We work together, sit at opposite ends of the dining table, bounce ideas off each other, so it feels alien to be apart overnight. 

I always feel such a sense of relief to be home, to hear the crunch of the new gravel under the tyres, to see the westies faces through the gate, their tails wagging so fast they might just fall off. And this time I came home to a Mama's Assembly. A nine page performance complete with a winking portrait and completely off his own bat, an appreciation that I "woke rily hard" for them. 

I love that we are creating a home for them, somewhere which I hope will have that same feeling of relief when they are grown up boys. To be back home. 

And when Hive got in touch with me about their new #cominghome campaign it felt like the most natural thing to share with you. This beautiful video captures the essence of what we are building for the boys. Such sentiment and warmth. See for yourself.

Hive are also offering a very lucky reader the chance to win a coming home experience like no other! Do you deserve a real treat? Do you know someone else who might? Head over to their Facebook page and leave a comment about what #cominghome means to you. The prize is worth £1500!!!!!

What makes coming back to your home special? Share it over on the Hive Facebook page and be in with a chance of winning. Good luck!

In collaboration with Hive, the UK's no. 1 connected thermostat giving you control over your heating and hot water system on the go with a beautifully designed app.  Full terms and conditions of the competition can be found here.

We were very lucky in our last house to have a kitchen that we could eat in and a dining room that we used as a playroom for the boys. A playroom is like a dream space! Somewhere to hide a multitude of plastic sins, a space the children can call their own and a room to be less precious with.

That's how I see it anyway! It's a room to play in.

When we started searching for this house, a playroom was high on my wish list. The boys are close in age and play with the same toys so a shared space for their growing collection of toys and games was a top priority. They have Spring and Summer birthdays and we like parties (Did you see last years?!) which means they always have sack fulls of presents from friends and family as well as the Christmas haul! 

We "viewed" the house online a number of times before we actually drove by and tried to use the floor plan to see which rooms could have dual purpose, which rooms would work for a home office space and whether the house would work for now and have potential for the future.

Then when we came to view it in the flesh after a chance drive by (Sounds like a shooting!) we realised the conservatory would make a perfect play space. We have grand plans one day in the distant future, of knocking through the kitchen and conservatory, and making one larger family kitchen which would benefit from the gorgeous views across the garden. The conservatory feels like an add on, which of course it is, but set against the 300 year old beautiful stone and crooked window frames, it feels out of place. 

It is however the most perfectly light room, even on a wet day and with a little tlc we are hoping to transform it. 

We have never been huge fans of conservatories they always seem freezing in the Winter and stifling in the Summer, but they are brilliant additional space. They make the house feel bigger and with a few handy hints can be put to best use.

I recommend:

1. Keeping your toys in baskets or boxes. A conservatory roof allows the lovely sunshine to shine through, which over time will discolour and fade all your furniture, toys and pictures. I have my eye on this rather lovely fun unit from Homebase, which would help keep the toys hidden from those sun rays!
2. Putting down carpet or use big rugs. Hard floors seem more practical but they make a conservatory feel so chilly on a Winter morning (Unless yours is heated obviously.)
3. Using as much wall space as possible to leave room for playing! Bolt shelving systems or bookcases to the external wall, especially if your house is made up of stone work. Our external walls which make up the internal walls in the conservatory are very bumpy, so furniture doesn't sit flush to the walls well. Tall bookcases could easily topple over and that's the last thing you want with little ones.
4. Making digital scan copies of any pictures or children's artwork you may frame or hang up. They will fade quickly.
5. Giving it a good airing. Open a window on a daily basis to let some fresh air flow. It's tempting in the colder months to keep them airtight to keep heat in but you can end up with that slightly musky smell, due to the room heating up and down each day.

I love the boys using a pair of vintage school desks as their writing and drawing table but as they face a wall they are not so sociable for snack teas. You can find them on eBay if you are after a similar set or if you fancy a modern design take this Saplings desk set is lovely.

I'd really like to get them a table and chairs set that they could eat on, for days when we don't sit together as a family at the dining table. The boys love a picnic tea so I am on the hunt for a smaller table and chairs, that perhaps I could paint?

I am addicted to the Annie Sloan chalk paint and desperately want to paint the internal woodwork in the conservatory to lose the dark brown and freshen it up. Old Ochre is my current favourite. Have you used it? Isn't it amazing?!

So check back in and see our progress. I'm currently slap happy with the chalk paint in the kitchen! You can see my other inspiration for the playroom over on my Pinterest board so have a peek...

Follow Capture by Lucy's board Spaces and products for children on Pinterest.

In collaboration with Homebase and their great range of children's furniture

I am a big fan of Katy's blog. And her Instagram feed and her general love of life.

And I am a HUGE fan of the #stylingtheseasons community hosted by Katy and Charlotte of Lotts and Lots which celebrates the joy of styling a surface in your home. So although I am a month late starting a new year, I am here!

So I thought I'd take you on a mini tour of some of my favourite corners. When you are renovating a house (as I am learning) it takes time, lots of time. And so it's so important to recognise the small areas that you have made your mark on.

We are slowly working our way around the house. We have two rooms downstairs that feel like ours and the boys' room which we've finally finished, but that's it. Everywhere else has patterned wallpaper, holes from old pictures, wonky windows, well those we love so they will stay, and decor from the previous owners.

So here are the nice bits, the pretty bits, my favourite bits.

The light changes all around the house. There are endless corners and ledges and I love to just potter around rearranging the bulb pots and snapping a few photos.

February is filled with fires and signs of the house we fell in love with.

The garden, which was filled with colour when we moved in, is now brown and bare and I have loved picking up little pots of bulbs in the local florist's and watching the buds shoot up. We are planting flowers in the garden and choosing what to seed in the vegetable patch. 

Now I am not your green fingered gardener but I am keen to learn!

This weekend we have my brother home from America to celebrate Rich's birthday. We are off to the races on Saturday and are going to soak up time being together since last Summer. We are just missing our sister in law who teaches so had to stay home!

This is when I love the house the most. A house to really live in, to host in, to make memories in.

Now pop over to the Laura Ashley blog to see an inspirational post from the Styling the Seasons gang!