Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day.. Neither the house you want to make a home... If the house feels right. With your Head and your heart, location. Then if it's the house for you it will work.. Move in and adjust each day... Yes you can put your Mark on the house, yes it will be your HOME... But live with it for at least a short while.. Don't be hasty to paint.. See where the sunshine..shines...See where it makes dull on a dark day...So you Can add a mirror maybe to reflect the daylight.. Don't make the pennies stretch any further than they are.. Remember that sadly the bills have to come first..!!!.... Improvise pieces to fit and...if you have to save for the right item....Then save..!!! it will be more practical in the end , rather than buying for the sake of it and having to buy another a few months down the line... Don't fill every room with furniture.... My biggest mistake... Use a piece like a sideboard and think practically the uses.... Is it big enough.. One more draw or cupboard would have better than two smaller ones...don't be afraid to add old stuff that we all now reuse..paint it ...add your own art work... It's a long journey.. To find the destination of all your dreams... And when you feel you have achieved what you have done...then sit back and enjoy all your hard work. And live in your HOME... Enjoy. Relax.. And above all have fun...

Lights which automatically turn on when I enter a room (especially in the kitchen and in the hallway from the bedroom to the bathroom) and lights inside my wardrobes (especially inside the one in the bedroom: I often get up earlier than my hubby, and it may be still dark outside, and I don't want to wake him up while I'm looking for my stockings).

The shortest time we lived in a house was 18 months - the neighbour turned out to have serious psychological problems, he took against me within weeks, pushing notes through letterbox saying I was a female she devil and deserved to burn in hell etc, etc. and quoting bible stuff. I had not even seen or spoken to him at that point, just held perfectly normal conversations with his partner. Then it was pounding on our adjoining walls at night, digging up the plumbing pipes behind our houses (he didn't want polluted excrement through the pipes?!) going out to his work leaving the Magic flute playing at full blast (echoes an episode of Morse?) until we had to call the police. The culmination was a throwing bricks at our french windows standing in our garden, apparently attempting to stone me (something biblical again?). We couldn't sell the house to anyone but a landlord who "took it off our hands" at a price below what we paid for it. I felt guilty as he continued to harass various renters afterwards, but eventually they moved out, not before breaking the legs of the last occupant next door. The police were very politically correct throughout and of course I felt immensely sorry for his condition, but have to wonder about care in the community as opposed to the days when people with serious psychiatric problems were locked up for their own good and the good of others. What do people think on that score??

There should be no such thing as waste. Everything is part of a cycle, which should not be broken. And we ARE part of the planet - which gives us our life and can easily take our life away! Even if you have children, it is possible to minimise the need to recycle. Think about value, quality and ethics rather than quantity. Start by not buying things that are not required to keep you alive and healthy; especially things that are not 'life-supporting' or that alienate you from the natural world. Think carefully and plan; - don't be feather - blown along by the mindless wind of the western world... Such a policy saves you money, or will help reduce your need to work (or exploit the planet by being part of this dangerous, unsustainable game called 'economic growth, no matter the cost'). Of course, being a vegan or vegetarian will really help, as will preparing and eating real food - rather than buying expensive 'rubbish' food from supermarkets or take-aways. You will have better nutrition, and it will save you time and money! Of course the by-products of the food you have eaten are an essential part of the ecological cycle and should not be incinerated or flushed away; they should be aerobically composted and returned to recreate soil fertility. If you can, try growing your own food organically. Then enjoy the extra taste, vitamin and mineral content! Paper or cardboard can be composted, as can vegetable trimmings. We cannot and should not attempt to evade the responsibility we all have to close the cycle. I have a neighbour (the same age as me) who cannot fit her fortnightly rubbish into her weelie-bin, yet I need not put out my bin for a whole year (and then it mainly contains types of plastic packaging that cannot be taken to the recycling centre). If you set out to live lightly on the planet by using recycled items or by trying to buy only good quality essential items (and mend them when they go wrong), there is less need to discard and waste the energy and resources invested in our purchases. As far as clothing (assuming you cannot make your own) is concerned, buying good quality, then not getting it needlessly dirty (by wearing an apron or overall) and of course not washing your clothes to death - are sensible policies which save water, energy and waste. Drink water, rather than be ripped off by buying rubbish in a can or bottle. Plain water is much better for your internal organs and keeping you healthy than complicated concoctions. Maybe filter the water and/or boil off the chlorine using your kettle first. If you want to avoid the hormones/antibiotics etc in tap water, then find an uncontaminated source. Most of the tap water we pay for is wasted - (it just ends up down the drain having not even done anything useful) - because we do not have spray nozzles or sensor taps. In our 1970's autonomous dwelling I fitted foot controls (used on trains) to the taps and you only pressed when you needed a flow. We also used mist-spray nozzles. And you do not need to wet your toothbrush as you have saliva in your mouth, - just rinse it after use! A well-designed waterless toilet (sadly its not easy to find out how to build one, as all the books give completely rubbish information) will cut your toilet water use to zero, other than for washing your hands. Collect water from your roof and use it in the garden and for other tasks, (we filtered it and used it for drinking in our 1970's house - tests by the water authority showed it was as clean as well water). By moving gradually in such a direction, we can change the world towards what is valuable for a sustainable life on this very special, tiny jewel of a planet. Even small steps are positive and valuable.