Souvenir

 The level of the garden at the back of our house had sometime ago, been made higher, to enable Audrey (in her later years) to tend her garden without having to bend down. When we moved in, there were lots and lots of daffodils out in bloom, nodding their yellow heads welcomingly, in the April sunshine. Audrey's Brother had planted all the bulbs (as a gift) before winter had set in, so she would have a "nice show come spring time," so Margaret said.

It was such a pity that Audrey never got to see them.

Though I did, every day - until they too, died. I so appreciated their glowing abundance.

I found these pieces of blue and white when I first dug our garden, a few years back now. There were quite a few more pieces, but I have only kept these two (the rest are back in the garden soil). I put them outside on the kitchen windowsill for a while, yet that now have come to rest on the wooden shelf unit in the bedroom. I wonder if they were pieces from Audrey and Albert's old china plates?

I especially like the larger shard as it has a beautiful wing painted on the back of either some kind of creature or Angel type figure.

The Inherited Sewing Basket

There is actually quite a lot of furniture in this room, some of which offers really good storage; from the practicalities of the plan chest, to the chrome locker, to a white – reasonably new – cabinet (or should that be side-board? quite an old-fashioned name).  Hidden in here is an eclectic mix of ‘stuff’ – including my inherited sewing basket; I have decided to show this item purely because you were asking questions regarding its appearance in a previous post. So here is my quite unlovely sewing basket, inherited from D’s mother after she died, because none of his three sisters wanted it. As you can see, it is not quite as orderly as yours!! But despite the tattered, unstuck braiding, and the broken handle, the contents were what attracted me most. A little bit of family history in a box. 

A - I wasn't sure whether or not I should be waiting for the crochet (blue) part of your post - so apologies for slipping this in...P

Kimono + Crochet (Blue)

So, after entering the bedroom looking round to the left hand side now, following the wall we have something that I enjoy looking at a lot - a hand painted silk kimono, hung on a bamboo pole on the wall. I don't wear it, as I like to admire it this way instead. You may also recognise the wooden shelf unit (from the studio in an earlier post) which is much more suited to being up here in the bedroom - I think it also takes on quite an eastern appearance being in close proximity with the kimono! There are quite a few different items on the shelves now that weren't there before - wondering if I should do a few close-ups if there's anything you'd like to see a little better?

Ok, here are a few close up pics from the shelves:

50's belt buckle

'Cures' Key, Japanese Tin, Luke's Plate

'B' ring, Taiwanese Shell

Recipe & Red Riding Hood Books, Strange Rabbit Ornament

Small Metal Box, Portrait Postcard

Plasters Tin, Wind-up Bird, Ginko Postacrd

Crochet (some of the Blue ones are my favourites)

In the ottoman below the shelf are lots of crochet doilies which I have acquired from a few different places - an amazing charity shop in Denmark had some lovely ones, and over here ... well, I've bought them from various ladies at craft stall and charity shops, and been crocheted some especially too. Some are made by hands that are no longer here.
They are testament to a believed lost craft, but with a recent resurgence of 'the handmade', there are many new crochet blankets and doilies in the shops again, if you look carefully.

(I laid the doilies on the washing basket near the bedroom window to take this photo, as it was a little too dark for the colours to shine, over the other side of the room, on the ottoman today)

Bedroom Secrets

So after walking back along the upstairs hallway from the Typewriter Room, this door on the left leads into the bedroom. The door has been re-hung (as have a few others in the house) to open inwards, but the other way round i.e. opening left to right (with the handle on the left), instead of right to left (with the handle on the right). I believe the doors were hung right to left orginally, so that there would be a few seconds from when you opened the door, before you set eyes upon who was inside the room. This was to protect one's (Victorian) modesty, and allowed the person within the room a moment to adjust themselves/make themselves presentable for their visitor. Where as if you open the door left to right, you see inside the room immediately.
I just found it quite a cumbersome way to enter a room, and the arc of the door opening took up unnecessary space within the room so decided to re-hang the door, so that it would open against a wall, rather than into the room.

This door as you can see, needs to be stripped down and re-painted. Like a few other doors in this house, it had pieces of hardboard tacked on both sides completely covering the original panelled door underneath. What a find!

Musical chairs (and sofas).

The final room downstairs (apart from a small cloakroom) is what we refer to simply as the front room (or according to your recent list, the sitting room, living room or lounge). This space has good proportions, which makes it flexible and easy to reposition the furniture, which I do quite often. During the process of this tour the room has actually undergone a quick makeover. The photos show three different views of the room – each with a before and after photograph. 

The stripped floorboards and gas fire were inherited from the previous occupants, and the only thing we changed in here was to remove some fitted cupboards to the left of the chimney breast – this was so we could accommodate the plan chest (although in the latest re-organisation this has moved). I have owned the plan chest for about 25 years, I love it, and it’s very practical, but accommodating it can be quite challenging.

I miss the fact that I don’t have a mantle piece, so instead the hearth has become a display space. The wooden decoy duck was a present from some Dutch friends. This arrangement isn’t fixed and things get either added or removed sporadically. 

Secret Secretaire(s)

Well I think this area is the last I'll show you in this room before we move back down the upstairs hallway again. We're looking at the alcove on the left side of the room. The chest of drawers are G-Plan (and one of a matching pair - the other one is situated in the right alcove of this room).

Lots of art books and exhibition catalogues, plus some tools, materials and equipment from my previous life as a painter. The jars contain raw pigments, which are intense and so beautifully vibrant in their elementary state. I used to make all my own oil paint.

 The top drawer has a secret, in that it actually hinges down to form a writing desk and holds compartments for stationery and documents etc. Groovy.

A Cupboard of Two Halves. Flowers

A slight detour now… one of the doors from the hallway leads into the under stairs cupboard. This is only the second house we have owned with such a space, and I must admit it is quite generous. It is also further evidence of how the house layout has been tweaked. The door entering the cupboard seems to be a later addition, as once inside you can see that part of the wall is just plasterboard and there is another doorway which was the original entrance to a much smaller cupboard space. (sorry about the quality of the images, it is quite difficult to take photos in such a limited area). The original space is seen on the left of the image above.

The previous owners used the newer addition (seen above) as an office and had a computer and chair in here! We use it to store everything from a bike, typewriter (of course), printer, wine, paint, tools, wellies, ironing pile and much, much more! It is also home to the ironing board – which recently survived an 8 hour spell of the iron being left on accidently – I can certainly vouch for its fire-proofness!

I tend to iron in the kitchen, and the process itself is quite ritualistic – I always start with the easy items such as pillowcases, napkins and hankies, then progress to clothing, always leaving awkward items such as shirts until last. I never iron sheets or duvet covers. (but sadly I do iron tea towels). D only wears t-shirts, and sees ironing as totally unnecessary. His mother however was an obsessive ironer – she usually did it late at night whilst watching television – she had one on those ironing boards with a seat attached! it would not be unusual for her to still be ironing well after midnight, (they were a family of six). She ironed everything – including underwear and socks!

For me, ironing is done on an ad-hoc basis, I’ll sometimes iron just one item that I want to wear; or if the pile starts to teeter I will usually do something about it; (occasionally I arrive home to find that my Mum has popped in and decided to tackle the ironing pile for me – fantastic!).