Severnside Mum - Natalia's Blog Story

​My blog (Severnside Mum) began in April this year when we moved into our new house. The house we’ve bought is 160 years old (with a new extension built in 2000) and so we knew we’d have lots of renovation work to do on it. The previous owners lived here for over 30 years and the décor isn’t to our taste, which was super exciting because it meant that we could tear it all down and do it the way that we like it. This didn’t faze us – quite the opposite, in fact! My husband is a dab hand at DIY and finds sanding, making things out of wood and jobs involving power tools relaxing after a day at work. For me, I love researching colours, fabrics and furniture to finish a room off but I, also, love the step-by-step approach to seeing a room transform that you get when you do it yourself. We did the same to our old house, just on a smaller, quicker scale.

I wanted a way to chronicle the work as we went along rather than taking lots of random pictures on our phones but not doing anything with them, apart from a before and after shot of each room, like we had done before. Because of the history of the house, I thought a blog would be the perfect way to chronicle the stages of change. So I began by writing about each step that we took as they occurred. We have started with our living room and, so far, my blog follows each improvement as it’s happened. From clearing the chimney of a huge bee infestation (I still shudder to think about what was lurking behind the 1990s gas fire!) to taking up the original floorboards and levelling them, it follows each step as we go.

BEFORE

AFTER

It was during this weekly process that I began to realise how much I like writing. I find it really therapeutic and it seems to allow me to clear my head; it’s a creative outlet after a day of activities, making food that ends up on the floor and nap schedules. Before I became a Mama, I was an English teacher for ten years so words and language have always been around me, I just hadn’t really taken the leap to start writing them myself. I found that, once I started, I had the bug. ​

A few months after starting the blog, I became a Mama Tribe UK Scout for Bristol, Bath and areas down to Taunton in the south west. I just love this role; it’s completely freelance and fits perfectly around being at home full time with my one year old. I’m now pregnant with baby number two, due in January, so the flexibility it gives me is just perfect. I’ve already met so many fabulous, similar-minded, driven women through this role and I think they have given me more confidence to branch out with my blog a bit. I’ve started to add in posts on parenting and lifestyle, alongside the house renovation posts, and have had some lovely, encouraging feedback about them. 

Writing about parenting is something that comes naturally to me at the moment, because I’m writing about personal experiences as they happen. Becoming a parent has been the biggest shift I’ve ever gone through and to write about it is hugely cathartic. It’s through other Mamas’ blog posts on similar subjects that I’ve managed to keep the ship afloat, I think, and if I can contribute to that conversation then I’m very proud to do so.
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​Moving forward, my aim is to try and teach myself a few new technological-type skills so that I can improve the layout, features and content of my blog. I want to continue tracking the house developments as we do them and just try to personalise my blog a bit more. I’m still only six months in and am really excited about how much there is to learn; I’d love you to have a butchers and let me know what you think. Now, if only there was more of that illusive little rascal for me to do all of these things in…… childfree time!

Natalia 
Severnside Mum