Blinded by the glossy white kitchen, I can’t see the hazard sign ahead

In her wildest dreams Charlotte Cripps couldn’t have imagined living in a shiny new pad, with Alex painting portraits in the kitchen

The extension is finished and is all high-spec and sparkling new. We’ve handed the keys back for Alex’s flat and made the move to mine. I feel like I’m on one of those home makeover shows as I walk around gasping with joy. Am I turning into a Stepford wife? I’m seriously excited by the glossy white kitchen cupboards and I only want new things in them.

I’m ruthlessly chucking out anything that doesn’t fit the minimalist interior. But I went too far. When Alex asked me where his vintage shabby chic table was, I had to bite my lip and admit I had dumped it on the Portobello road market. It was too old; I’ve become ageist with the furniture.

It’s got to look Philippe Starck – although everything is from Halfords or IKEA. I threw all the old sheets away and got new towels. It’s like living in a hotel as Alex had done it up in neutral tones so it could be a good rental property. But this vision isn’t practical; you can’t have any surplus stuff living in a place like this. There is no storage space so I sneak the rest of my old furniture straight to my dad’s house – telling him it’s only temporary.

I swap his TV armchair for a green vintage throne-like chair that came from my great aunt with gold leaf on the wobbly legs. “Don’t you like it, dad? It’s worth a fortune, but it’s just the wrong look for my flat,” I tell him. He’s fed up really especially when I drop off an American-style pink fridge, but I tell him that it will be handy for all his beers and tonics for his G&Ts.

I was so house proud that I had become OCD with the cleaning. If Alex was eating, I would be hovering to clear his plate before he had even finished his last mouthful. In my wildest nightmares, I could never have imagined that a year later we would have Muggles, who would destroy the flat and garden.

Was I blinded by the glossy white kitchen? Was it all too good to be true? Things only got better. I’d heard Alex was a talented artist, but when he suddenly produced the first portrait of my friend’s dog, I was blown away. “Oh my god it is like a photograph,” I said to him.

Soon my dad became his muse; his handsome but worn face from old age gave Alex more to work with. He actually managed to get the essence of my dad in the picture which now stares down at me from my kitchen wall. I can almost feel him in the room which is good and bad. As I sip my morning tea, I can imagine I hear him asking me to add something to the dreaded never-ending shopping list.

Alex’s self-portrait hangs in the hallway and the kids pass it and say: “Hi dada how is it in the stars?” They always smile at him – it’s as if they know him even though they never met him. I never liked the portrait he did of me – he’d done me in a surreal Dali-like style. Is that how he saw me – deranged? Was I in a false sense of security?

We had made it back to mine – as a couple. I was trying for our child and Alex was a budding artist. I often had to pinch myself that it was really happening. He had set up an easel in the kitchen and was talking about portrait painting up as a career. He’s identified a gap in the market of rich dog owners in the area – and there are more than enough to make a killing.

Soon he made flyers with the portrait of Orlando – a striking looking spaniel – along with his mobile number on the front to get commissions. It was the face of his new business enterprise. He was charging £150 to get the ball rolling and the commissions kept coming. I was deployed to Chelsea and Kensington to put flyers up in pet shops, and to tell everybody I came into contact with about his talent.

How different it had been only a few months ago before we moved to mine. He had suffered a bad bout of depression and had started pacing the floor. He wasn’t his usual bubbly self; his spark had gone. He was really stressed out about work with three huge building and design jobs on the go – as well as my extension – and was swamped with admin. During the day he would be arguing with clients about money owed. I could hear him instructing men to come off jobs and clients begging him to return them.

There was a black cloud following him around. Had his core issues finally caught up with him? It’s a slippery slope: he’s isolated and not going to meetings. “What you don’t deal with deals with you,” I had been told in rehab. He stayed clean and sober often by the skin of his teeth – but was that enough?

I couldn’t get through to him. I dragged him to his GP and he was told he needed to sign off work sick and take a break.

“Not work,” said Alex, looking horrified. It was his greatest escape. In those dark times, I couldn’t find a solution to help him. But here he was painting and it was really making a big difference. Little did I know this was just the beginning of his struggles with depression and it would not be long before he would crash and burn.