The coldness of winter has got you by your short tails and you're mooching around trying to decide what to do with yourself. You're snowbound and the only thing that you can think to do is sit in front of the fire, drink your steaming hot mug of chocolate and stare broodingly out of the window. The only problem with that is, you've already done that and you've have had your fill of fires, hot chocolate and brooding.

Now you're just about ready to do something different, so, you turn to the only comfort you have and switch on the TV. You're instantly enthralled as you come across one of those many shows about how you can do up your home. You find yourself flooded with decorating ideas, both interior decor and exterior decor ideas.

So, you finally find yourself entranced by something that you would have dismissed earlier and jump out of your seat to get a pen and notebook to note down all those great ideas. Before long, you've run out of room in your notebook and have to leave your comfortable chair to go get another one.

Before you get back to your chair, you've made a detour around your house and have seen many of the things that you've spent a lifetime trying to avoid - the cracks in the bedroom wall, the faint spot of mildew in the bathroom, the paint chipping off many of the walls.

The list is very long and could easily fill several notepads. Therefore, you sit down, and alongside your notes on various decorating ideas on interior design and general redecorating, you studiously take down all the little things that need repairing, replacing or refitting.

The list naturally spans more than even your second notebook can hold but you decide to stop there, because it's giving you writer's cramp, besides you already have all the pertinent facts to hand, so now you set about sorting them out into directions that you can easily carry out.

And that is not an easy job, when your decorating ideas, interior designs and room-by-room list of snags and flaws is all mixed up in one messy pile. So, you turn to the tried and true, ancient solution of sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by your notes in an attempt at finding some logical order for you to follow later.

When you eventually reach that sublime state of order, you lay back with a tired but happy smile on your face. The knowledge that you'll now have enough decorating ideas and interior design plans and less time on your hands during those long hard months of winter, sends a gush of contentment flowing through you. There's nothing like a job well done and the knowledge that come springtime, your home will look nothing like its shabby former self.