I have so many conversations with other play therapists about what I chose to put in my therapy room, how I created it and what was important to me. I thought I would finally create a post explaining all about it.

After 6 years of being a mobile play therapist, including testing out private practice in someone else's therapy room, I took the plunge to convert our garage. It was too small to fit a car in, and mainly stored my play therapy toolkit when I had to remove it from my car, along with the mountains of additional toolkit items I had acquired over the years and couldn't bare to part with.

From the number of different spaces I had occupied over the years, I found it quite easy to know what I wanted in my room: a waterproof floor, a large sink with hot and cold water, a toilet, space to lay out my toolkit including all my sand symbols, a storage space for additional art equipment, books, case files, and, eventually, access to the outdoors.

The harder part for me was to know whether any of this would be possible. I live in both a conservation area and a listed property, both of which could have put an end to this before it started. Everything I read online about developing buildings, having clients visiting my home and the change of use of the garage carried the caveat of "unless you are in a listed property or conservation area". Thankfully, I met an incredibly helpful person at the planning office who guided me through everything and approved the work I wanted to do. All that was left was to find someone to do that work - my building and DIY skills aren't up to scratch! However through family contacts, and very skilled people within my family, the work begin in June 2018.

Most of this ran smoothly, though took longer than I expected for various reasons, including the builders only visiting every few days rather than completing the work in a single block. Another was the importance of having a toilet in my room. Due to the way the properties are laid out, attaching a toilet to the main sewers would be very costly and involve permission to dig up the road outside, so I quickly started researching (and visiting...!) composting toilets. I came across "separating" composting toilets which, remarkably, don't smell at all, and so forked out considerably more than I was expecting to have a toilet in my space. The toilet company folded within a few months of mine arriving which worried me a little, but everything has been fine so far...

When it came to painting my room, I knew from my work within Early Years that I wanted a blank canvas - everything white - and that my toolkit would add the colour to the room. This was questioned a lot by members of my family, and with the walls and ceilings painted, and the empty furniture in place, I can see their concern. However, with my kit in place, I'm glad I stuck to that decision.

I officially held my first session in my room at the end of August 2018, and instantly loved it. It wasn't quite finished - I searched for a long time to find a sofa of very specific dimensions to fit my space - but it was good enough at that time. I have since added additional shelves and toolkit items (now that I am no longer travelling for work at all).

The second part of my vision was to take play therapy outside. I was keen to develop sensory areas, shelter building areas, access to nature, risk taking and space to play. I hired some landscape gardeners in the Autumn of 2018 to get this sorted, and thought that I had learnt from the building work which questions I needed answering at the outset so that things happened when I expected. Unfortunately, once the work had started, the cost rose unexpectedly, and the gardeners didn't really have the skills I was assured they had. We ended up leaving the work half finished for the winter, and my family slaved away over the Easter holidays in 2019 to get the work finished (whilst I helped and tried to hide the fact I was 8 weeks pregnant following grueling IVF treatment.)

The outside space is now flourishing though, and being used by some of my clients. I feel I need to dedicate a separate post to all the considerations for taking therapy outside - in some ways, it completely mirrors therapy inside, in other ways it's completely different with so many additional considerations. So look out for that second post once I find time to sit down and share it all!

If you want to see photos of the development of both my indoor and outdoor space, please visit this photo album on my facebook page.