It’s always wonderful to find interior treasure but even better when it’s in your house and you didn’t even know it was there!
The sole room amidst the chaos of our renovation to be anywhere near ready is the one which will eventually be our guest bedroom. It was stripped back to brick months ago and re-plastered using insulated boards, plus had the ceiling re-skimmed and lots of insulation packed into the loft void all ready for us to move into it but we’ve only just got round to doing so… just in time as the temperature outside hits December levels! Up to Saturday it had no electrics, no curtains up at the rickety old windows, no carpet and the only household loo sitting forlornly amidst un-boarded stud work waiting for an en-suite shower room to be formed. We just haven’t got round to making it liveable as there’s been so much else to do but our hands were forced this week as the lads are about to start knocking the main house apart, including the bedroom we’ve slept in for the last eight years.
Mr M formed some temporary OSB board around the window (due to be replaced next Spring as rotten) and we swapped the curtains from one room to another. He signed his handiwork as he did so, clearly knowing urban graffiti is hot for 2015 😉
Of course *someone* got totally in the way as we attempted to move…
An early start on Sunday saw us scrubbing the floors and packing up what’s left of our one-room-lives and moving everything, including carpet & underlay to save money, across the hallway. That’s it now, seriously, we’re down to one room, there’s no where else left to move to!
As you can see below on the left hand image, the fireplace couldn’t even be seen until a few months ago, it was totally hidden with by plaster, skirting board and carpet. When we removed the old plaster from the walls, there was the original hole in the wall which was then boarded around. As we cleaned the room this weekend, I realised, like an over excited magpie, that under the grime and blackness around the fireplace was a little bit of gold.
Hmmmm. I brushed and wiped. And smiled. And scrubbed, Cifed and rinsed all the blackness away, not easy task when you don’t have a kitchen sink and only have icy winter water let me tell you… and look what I found:
I don’t know whether the red border tiles are original, they seem an odd choice with the yellowy patterned ones, but someone had once decided it’d be a really great idea to paint the rest of them red to match. Well, red first, then orange, then varnish. Makes you wince doesn’t it. A joy to scrape off, my arms were killing me on Saturday night!
When I properly redesign the room, I might remove these red squares and probably edge the original ones with new or possibly reclaimed black ones. I debated trying to take them up but they’d get so damaged, decided that was a bad idea. Pretty aren’t they, now they’re all exposed again, even with the minor damage, which will be hidden when the fireplace goes in.
Now I just need to see if that beautiful cast iron fireplace I rescued the other week fits perfectly in this space. Let’s face it, even with gorgeous tiles it’s not the sexiest of rooms is it? P.S. The only household loo is behind that curtain, and we’re going to be sleeping in this room from here on in…. now you can see why we’re working so hard to get the rest of the renovation finished!!
