A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Sheena Wilkinson

I've written on here before about the shift from living alone (for 24 years) to living with a husband, step child and two dogs, and the impact that has had on my writing from a purely practical point of view.

view from the desk (if I turn round)

When I first moved into this house, the only place for me to work was the dining room. I wrote  at the  table, and when we needed something bigger than the kitchen table to eat at --  if we had more than two people for dinner -- I could magically twitch my nose, shove all my writing paraphernalia into a cupboard, whip out a tablecloth and -- ta-da! -- the room became a dining room again. 

the old set up

It worked for a while. I was proud of my ability to compromise. It made sense to have a dual-purpose room. It was, spoilt, first-world and middle-class of me to complain that I didn't really have my own writing space. We wouldn't be staying here forever, and I looked forward to moving into a house where I could prioritise a room of my own once again. I would be happy with a tiny box, just so long as it didn't have to be anything BUT a study. And we don't entertain much, so the occasions when I had to transform the room back into a dining room were infrequent. 

too many chairs but nowhere to sit!

And yet. The room never felt right. The table was too big and invariably ended up in a mess, which I hated because I like order. There was an armchair but I never sat in it because the room was so dominated by the table that it never felt like somewhere to relax. And when we did use it as a dining room I felt that all my shoved-into-a-cupboard writing was judging me. As for that move -- well, it's still on the horizon, but we know now that, for various reasons, we are here for the duration.

It was time to transform this dual-purpose room. Out with the table -- it became the kitchen table, and the kitchen table found a new home. One of the sofas was moved into the room-formerly-known-as-the-dining-room. Most excitingly, for the first time in my life, I bought a brand-new, very lovely, solid oak desk. 

my lovely new desk

I now have a proper room of my own. It felt selfish, in a way, to claim this whole space, which is much bigger than I need, but in fact, rendering the room single-purpose has actually made it more flexible. I now have a comfy place to sit and read. When my husband is watching the racing on TV I have somewhere to go that isn't the kitchen. I can entertain my friends here, or knit and listen to podcasts, or simply read. 

somewhere to sit and read 

Has it improved my writing? Well, only time will tell, but it certainly hasn't hurt it. 

tiny bookcase -- £15 in a charity shop