As usual in the Birchwood family household every minute counts and Sunday is no exception. Today we have gone to meet the bedroom furniture designer. It is amazing
the range of things on offer, I got a hydraulic clothes rail so that I no longer have to stretch on tip-toes to get at my clothes. The shoe-rack is designed so that you can pull it out like a drawer so no more blind searching underneath the clothes. Every inch is useful. The inside of the closet doors have hinged mirrors so that I can move the mirrors around. In general, things are looking up. At the moment it has only bare walls as you can see but tomorrow Monday it will be the time when the kitchen furniture will be fitted in, and also the bathroom furniture and shower too. It really is very exciting to see it at this stage, where its no longer plans and dreams but the real thing.
After so much bureaucracy with the council of what nail was allowed and which one wasn't and after intensive renovation from top to bottom of this historical and listed home, the project is finally coming to be completed! in what I estimate would be another two months. Considering it was two years ago when we first started its really wonderful to come to see it at this final stage.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
.jpg)
20 comments:
Glad it's progressing well, Maria. I didn't understand the shoe rack business but anyway, it sounds like it's all going fine.
Oh I see.. most shoe racks are stationary but this one pulls out like a drawer does and you can see the shoes. It would be ideal for my aunt Norma who has more shoes than Imelda Marcos.
The house is certainly looking very nice, Maria.
I like fireplaces, looking at the bricks at the back, I sort of imagine going up the chimney. I feel the same way about old wells.
Little chimney boys come to a bad end or perhaps..you are Santa in disguise! I forgot to photograph the other fireplace in the dinning room and this one, I plan to make it very cozy with one of those electric fires that simulate real flames as it is too laborious and dusty to have the real thing, you know.. cleaning the ashes, although I could, if I wanted to, as the chimney stack was re-done but I have to be practical and I certainly do not wish to have the soot and the ashes.
No, you certainly don't want all the mess of the coal and the coal scuttle etc etc. I remember when we had all that, and although I don't remember the place being dirty (except for the cellar where the coal was stored) it must have left traces of dust etc. I'm not sure whether coal fires are even legal now - there are smokeless zones in a lot of places.
Yes, its still legal to have smoke coming out of the chimney so I suppose if the oil gets scarce, I could still use that. Did you know that the oil is rationed here? We were not allowed to top our oil they could only put in 3/4 of the tank.
The fireplace you see here in the photo was concealed by a false wall that had a horrible 1930's fireplace, as we knocked it down, we found a secret door, as we opened the secret door, we found a hide which is that little room you can see next to the original fireplace.
I love that kind of thing - secret chambers and so on. I suppose houses are a bit like railways - whatever changes are made, something of the old always survives. There are lots of underground stations which have been rebuilt, but normally, somewhere, a bit of the old station is left, whether it's an old platform or a pillar or something.
Very true Robert, the same goes with old houses too. There were a lot of interesting articles found in the attic of the house, which I will probably donate to our local museum including a metal advert for a local dance dated 1953. Luckily nothing of real value was found in the ground because that would have delayed the remodeling for another year. I would have liked it if they had found a pot of gold coins in the chimney though as that was were people stored their cash. Robert, I think you would enjoy watching the Harry Potter films as the last ones are filmed in old railway stations or undergrounds stations.
Hi Maria
Only today I was watching a programme, and it had a section about an old house with a squint! A squint apparently was a door in the wainscot, which when opened gave access to the back of a painting hanging on the wall. The master of the house would squint between the painting and the wall and this gave him a view of the front door. When the butler opened the door to a caller, if the master didn't like the look of him, he would tell the butler that he was not at home.
Yes I like old stations, sidings, and so on. I believe that film and TV companies often used the Aldwych underground, because it was closed and so they could film there without the public getting in the way. During the war the government housed articles from the British museum in the tunnel.
Oh! I thought that the art objects were kept in an unused tube building extention line that went through Holborn and Alwych remained open during the war and was used as a shelter.
I didn't know about these old houses with a squint, very interesting. Our secret compartment in the house, some say it was a priest hide, during the English Civil War.
Yes Maria, I think it was used as a shelter. Holborn was one stop away. There was actually another station too, called British Museum. That one was replaced by the Central Line platforms at Holborn. At one time, British Museum station was said to be haunted by the ghost of an ancient Egyptian, and a newspaper offered a prize to anyone brave enough to spend the night there.
You might have a priest hole, yes. I guess the priests only nipped in there if troops came to check the house. The rest of the time they'd be in the rest of the house.
A bit scary! I will let you know if I see the ghost of a priest coming out of the priest hide during the night as its there where our bedroom will be. Actually, I was being quite open mentally in the event the archeologists found something of real interest on the ground. I thought if that happened..then I could have a glass floor so that people could come and see what they found and perhaps charge 50p at the entrance of my house for charity. There are so many charities I would like to help every month but so far, I can only do Oxfam and Medicines Sans Frontiers it would be so nice to contribute to the Great Ormond St or the lions in Africa or for the treatment of injured donkeys or journalists in distress, Amnesty International or the latest cancer cure, or Greenpeace. My wish list is endless.
Maria, you've done it now. You will be haunted by wailing in the night, and on investigating the cause, you will see the white spectral figure of a priest collecting for poverty-stricken ghostly vicars.
Garlic will do the trick. Wait a minute.. isn't that for vampires?
The house has a nice happy feeling inside it. Its cozy and warm, even when the heating its not switched on. I think we will be very, very happy there Robert. They organize so many fun events all year round. During the summer they had a fair with different stalls. There was one lady that made wonderful hand-made soaps. I bought her mint soap which gives you a pep in the mornings, there was another stall with bonsai trees, another with Persian rugs and so on, all of the stalls were quite different and original. They also have a cinema-day for the residents and sometimes musical recitals in the evenings. Its full of life. Some ladies grow their own vegetables in an alotment, so I'm quite eager to get advice how to grow enormous tomatoes!
It sounds smashing, a really alive kind of village. You forgot to mention the bookstall - there has to be one of those.
And a fish and chip shop.
Yeap, there is a fish & chip shop across the road as well as a convenient small super-market, a flower shop and around the corner from there, there's the library, next to it, an iron-mongers shop and opposite to that, a museum, also four restaurants not counting the hotel at the foot of the castle, plus the four pubs. Hey, we got it all Robert, not to mention the outstanding natural beauty as we are above a natural hill, we can see a wonderful panoramic views. It is a dream come true.
That's great Maria, but I hope it's not TOO perfect. When a village is perfect it means only one thing - Inspector Barnaby will shortly be arriving on a case!
Or.. maybe Miss Marple come to that. Nah. For the feites I will cheat when they ask me to bake a cake I will get one freshly made locally. The only snag will be when they gush:
'Oh how delicious, how did you make this? what does it have in it Maria ? Err.. well, I just threw a few things in it, you know as you do and improvised a little bit, you know. If it has arsenic in it then I will have to tell inspector Barnaby who really baked the cake. Mc Carthur park is melting in the rain, and I don't know the recipe of the cake, Oh nooo!
Hi Maria
Yes, the cake isn't a problem. I think if there are any amateur archery competitions on the village green, that's when things start to get hairy.
Nice holiday pics.
Thank you Robert! tomorrow I will write about this holiday but today its the really special date when the builders formally handed us the keys
of our home. Its so wonderful and we are both so excited that we took our friends Jean & Barry to see it and they thought it was fantastic, we are over the moon and I'm so happy, that I need to have some chamomile tea to help me sleep tonight. The house is a dream come true, I couldn't hope for a lovelier place in the whole wide world to live. Don't forget to watch the BBC tomorrow morning Peter and I will be on the Heir Hunter's Show and it was Hector's turn yesterday and that one, is now available on the BBC i-player on the computer. Hector looked sooo handsome and presented himself very well too. There are so many good and exciting things happening to us, that its one great exciting happening after another one. Life is good.
Post a Comment