When we want to update our home and do something really exciting with the interior design, it can be pretty daunting once the excitement of the ideas phase has passed.  Not everyone is very good at getting the ideas down in logical form on paper to be able to move on to the next stage.  Sometimes we are unable to move on – having got bogged down in sentimentality and not wanting to get rid of things we’ve kept over the years.  I have a chum like that – she and her husband built their villa a few kilometres up towards some mountains in a fabulous spot in the med.  They bought the land forty years ago and gradually built their glorious home over several years – taking their five weeks of annual leave in one go each summer and decamping out there.  Now years later my pal won’t change anything about the kitchen because her hubby designed and built it all, down to the last minute detail.  This is very touching but is desperately holding her back from moving on with life and getting her place spruced up a bit.   The old fashioned cabinets in the kitchen need new doors and can of paint.  However the kitchen is nowhere near as old fashioned as the ensuite bathroom in her master bedroom – talk about fittings from the ark.  There are floral motifs on some of the tiles and twee little handles on the cabinets.  It looks dreadfully dated and everything needs a facelift.  If only we could get her past the ‘Oh but Mick built all this’ syndrome!