In my mind I am still an irresponsible young thing. Sadly, in reality I am an irresponsible middle aged woman, and this is what the rest of the world sees. Sunday was my 50th birthday and Baz says that the house in Quillan was my birthday present (!). It really is the most brilliant timing, purely accidental, to have completed just a week or so ahead of this milestone birthday
The IT people were messing with my computer at work on Friday and there was nothing useful I could do. Some people might book a relaxing birthday facial or manicure, something to make them look great and feel confident for such a grown-up celebration. I went on ebay and found myself a birthday present, this 1930s sunburst cupboard, which I couldn’t resist and which will have a new (and hopefully, exhausting) life as a cocktail cabinet in our snug
A few bottles of Hendricks would look well in this
So, is this a mid-life crisis? When I buy things that are older than I am – things that need restoration and repair, the equivalent of reconstructive surgery – am I trying to reassure myself that their age (and therefore mine) doesn’t matter and that it is still worth moisturising and dressing up? Of course not. I have liked pretty much the same old things since I was a toddler and I’m just indulging myself. And yes, it cost less than a facial!
All 3 of us camping together in one room was the practical solution as none of us knew what to expect from a night in such a large and totally empty old house. Even the slightest noises we made echoed, so we assumed that we would all get fairly spooked during the night. In fact, we were surprised that there was no creaking and no strange sounds at all overnight, other than on Sunday night when some drunken neighbour played his music until 3 am and occasionally added heartfelt vocals
the Jewel Room – chaos
The house definitely has a sunny disposition. Because of this, even the enormous spiders didn’t freak us out. I tried to sweep our bedroom using the broom which was in the hallway, but my heart wasn’t really in it so Baz took over. As he swept the handle snapped off and we saw that it was riddled with woodworm….
Note to self – get a plastic broom
We slung a line over the stairs for our wet clothes and towels from the swimming pool. Luxury it wasn’t, but there was nowhere else clean enough to put anything, so we felt it was excusable
the courtyard was converted into a slum
On Saturday we all pitched in and scrubbed the floor of a smaller bedroom and we moved our stuff into there on Sunday so that we could start removing the filthy artificial silk fabric off the walls of the Jewel Room. This took us to a whole new level of grime, as we were engulfed in filth. I was gagging, desperately trying not to vomit. Some of the electrics have been positioned over the fabric so we could only do some of the walls, but clearly there is more wallpaper than plaster underneath. We have found patterns from the 50s and the 30s so far, and it is something of a miracle that the chimney breast had not caught fire at any time, because the entire thing appears to be charred and brittle throughout.
Yes – she’s wearing pants as a maskLumps of plaster fell off, but the jazzy papers remain
In other news, the cellar is flooded. Baz and I ventured down the worn stone steps on Saturday morning to trace where the strong ‘damp’ smell was coming from and Voila! – several feet of standing water. It doesn’t seem to be effluent and it can’t have been flooded too long because someone has been in there to replace joists below the ground floor within the last few years.
Now this might all sound a bit doom and gloom, but it’s really not. This was an initial fact-finding mission and were will re-group and return to face up to the problems. The important thing is that Baz and C have now seen the house – and they love it. It’s summer now so they didn’t care about the lack of home comforts or the inches of dust everywhere, just the sun and the atmosphere in the town. And they know, as I do, that this house has a beautiful bone structure – despite the inevitable osteoporosis
This week I bought two 1930s club chairs on ebay. We picked them up locally from an upholsterer who had them as a project but is moving house so just wanted them gone quickly. I was traumatised when he told me he had thrown the matching 3-seater sofa into a skip lorry. He was a lovely guy and I felt bad that I only paid 99p. On another day even in this (disgusting) state they could have made him £100.00. But it wasn’t another day, it was a Wednesday. They were only ever going to appeal to an optimist or a masochist (I am not a masochist). They appear to have been re-covered by a professional in the late 60s, but I think it has been done out of necessity rather than love. The current fabric is pink, semi-shiny and hideous, and I recognised it instantly from furniture in my relatives’ houses when I was a child. Surely no-one would have just ‘had to have’ that fabric?!
The springs look fine to me – but what do I know? I have started removing all the tacks and staples during my lunchtime so that I can try to template the fabric and chuck out the horsehair. Ambitious, I know, but I have bought some leather and I hope to be able to completely re-stuff and replace everything, using just the wooden frames and the existing springs. The bottom line is that they cost me 99p for the 2, so I am allowed to make errors as I learn. And as Baz said, if we find a quid down the back of one of them, we’ll be in profit!
Poshbird with Passion 