Armed with a bristled brush, a can of paint and a baby sling, Kirstie Waterston took on what lots of parents would be too scared to: a full house renovation with a sleeping tot.

‘Freddie wasn’t a good sleeper,’ she explains, reminiscing on when her first baby was born in 2020. ‘But that made him a great napper. 

‘He only slept on me for over a year, but it was for a solid two-hour window a day. So anything I could do to renovate the house with him in a sling while he slept, I would.’

In the golden window, Kirstie painted the cabinets in her utility room and worked on in newborn Freddie’s nursery, including painting and wallpapering.

After a few months, she stepped the renovation up a notch, plastering over a spiky RTEC ceiling.

‘Obviously, there’s risky jobs I would avoid doing – no power tools, no sanding and nothing dusty or toxic. But the lower-effort, quieter tasks which allowed my baby to sleep on me while I did them worked for me.’

There was another blessing in disguise on Kirstie’s mat leave.

‘Freddie never crawled, so once he got a bit bigger I could plonk him down playing, and I could chat and sing to him while getting jobs done,’ she tells Metro.

This gave Kirstie more flexibility and she could move onto more strenuous tasks. 

‘I bought a vintage farmhouse table from Facebook marketplace for the kitchen. It took literally months and months to strip the grey paint on it, it was gruelling  – but as well as saving the money I prefer things that have a story.’

When Freddie was 14 months, Kirstie became pregnant with her second son Magnus.

‘I wallpapered the kitchen – I couldn’t just take nine months out of the renovation. Also, I didn’t know what he would be like as a newborn, so I tried to do as much as possible at that time. That felt like a bit of a time crunch.

When her second son was born, Kirstie decided to up the stakes again. 

‘I did the playroom, laid the old brick parquet flooring, stuck up paneling on the walls. As long as there’s nothing dangerous, there’s no reason kids can’t be around.’

By this point the renovation wasn’t just a physical necessity for Kirstie – it was also a mental one.

‘I needed the renovation to keep me going,’ she explains, noting how both of her children were born in lockdown. 

‘Every day felt the same for such a long time. We went out for our hour-long walk. We’d watch the daily updates on TV, but being on maternity leave I didn’t have work or a routine. 

‘The house really helped me have a focus. The sleep deprivation of having two who hardly slept at night probably had an impact on my mental health, but the project kept my mind busy.

‘And I made so much progress on maternity leave – probably more than I’ve made since going back to work.’  

When she started the project, Kirstie was no stranger to renovating. 

‘I’ve always adored DIY – I went to art school, and I saw my parents renovating our house when I was younger. I loved helping them,’ Kirtsie remembers.

‘My dad’s really hands on – he can fix everything. Both of my parents have such creative minds, and growing up in that environment definitely rubbed off on me.’

This is perhaps why she started the mammoth renovation when she was in her third trimester – something most people would run a mile from. 

‘We got the keys when I was six months pregnant [with Freddie]. I was 34 weeks pregnant tiling the downstairs toilet, and touching up walls.

‘The day before I had my eldest I was plastering my wardrobes,’ she adds.

Now her sons are five and seven, and the project has come full-circle. She says the house is an ‘ongoing project’, and she gets her boys to help as she once did.

‘They like to make paint choices – I’ll give them a few options I could live with, and then they narrow it down. 

‘My youngest loves helping with woodwork tools from school. It’s good for children to see how they can be involved and exercise a creative way of thinking. 

‘Before YouTube, people learned how to do things by watching other people. In the ‘60s and ‘70s everyone was more practical – they knew how to fix bikes and change fuses.

‘I think children of this generation – even my generation – don’t really have that. So I’m encouraging them to learn, pick up a paintbrush and get involved. 

‘I hope one day my sons will think back to me renovating, in the same way I was inspired by my own parents to do it myself.’

Kirstie says that balancing motherhood and a renovation hasn’t always been easy.

‘I breastfed both of them, I was very responsive in that they wanted to be held a lot of the time – they were velcro babies, and ultimately their needs come first. 

‘So I accepted that projects couldn’t stick to a real schedule. My timeframe for the playroom was basically my whole mat leave, and I didn’t look back on a week comparing progress to the last.’

The mum-of-two says her experience was that there was much more she could do while looking after her babies than even she expected. 

‘I understand it’s not easy for everyone – I was lucky to feel well enough to renovate while I was pregnant and post-partum, and I don’t want anyone to compare themselves to me. 

‘If I had to give advice to others, I’d say renovating on mat leave with young ones is about being realistic. 

‘I thought I’d have quite an aesthetic playroom – that I’d never have loads of plastic toys lying around – but it’s a plastic toy bomb site. 

‘You have to adapt your expectations for a home with children, you have to be flexible and open to change – in terms of your schedule and the space itself.

‘Don’t put pressure on yourself, as it looks different for everyone.’ 


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