Memento: Things Go Better with Coke ... And Your Mates..

I've loved this (now old and a bit battered) photograph all my life.
What a bunch!

Ladies

The door to the downstairs cloakroom was originally the back door to the garden, the previous owners added a small extension to the rear of the house and altered the layout. I like the attempt by someone to make this door fit the existing frame; expertly done I’m sure you’ll agree? Despite the sign the cloakroom is not necessarily for ladies only…

Chinoiserie

Well here's the Chinese tin in it's new home. The lid of the tin gets a little stuck, so it's not that easy to open and close, which had a bearing of what I would intend to keep inside it. I thought I'd get a little fed up if it held something that I needed to use on a regular basis.
So therefore I decided, as I have started to accumulate some bookmarks (currently homeless), to store them in the tin, with the lid open. I think it makes quite a good shiny backdrop and shows them up well. The bookmark with the tassel fits in very well, doesn't it?
I can also see it much better, as it's moved down a shelf, so the colours show up even better now - thanks for setting me off on a small re-homing task, P!

Five Doors. Four Handles

Leading from the office is the hallway; the layout is not the conventional one associated with many Victorian terraced houses. This house and adjoining terrace was built as accommodation for the City Barracks. My house (or so I’m told) belonged to the Surgeon – with the adjoining smaller cottages occupied by the Regimental band. 

The hallway is pretty featureless, I suppose as a military property, decorative detail was not an important consideration; it is impossible to know what the original layout may have been, as I suspect walls have been removed and things remodelled over the years. As well as the staircase there are five doorways in total, so this is the only space in the house that is devoid of furniture.

We replaced quite a few of the door handles, although the door leading to the office has never been completed. This composite image shows the imprints of the past door furniture.

Wooden? (Well I hope I have at least some positive attributes!)

As we are finally in the room off the hallway, (and clear of the wonky door, which you can just see on the left of the 1st. picture) I wanted to draw a parallel to your small shelf, by showing you my shelf, which sits above where I sit whilst working on the computer. The 3rd. picture down shows the shelf unit (handmade by S) in the original context for which it was made, my MA Show. It housed a collection of postcards, a book mark, and a commemorative 'Artist-In-Residence' plate. Along with all of the other pieces of furniture, I ended up bringing it home, but unlike most of the other items, I kept it. It now houses a collection of disparate (mostly) printed ephemera, and a few strange little objects here and there. Items I have acquired from book fairs, exhibitions and events or been given by friends and family. Anything you find interesting that you'd like me to tell you about?

Desktops

Although there hasn’t been much evidence of it so far, I do actually use this room to work in (well here and the kitchen table). For this purpose there is two desks, the wooden one is an old school teacher’s desk (complete with brass inkwell) – a gift from my father. The legs were painted some time ago, as the wood was a bit orange. The sewing machine is a permanent fixture (it used to be kept in a cupboard but I got fed up with taking it in and out, so this works well). The other desk is a glass top on trestle legs from Habitat – it houses the imac and typewriter. At one point there was just a single chair, but again I got fed-up with moving it to whichever desk I was using, so I bought another one to match.

Several other typewriters sit next to the desk, and the shelving holds a mix of both books, equipment and materials.

  

Wonky

Well here's the, not so level, door frame that I was talking about in a previous post. Our house was built in 1877, and there was some subsidence many many years ago, partly I think, due to the fact that most of the houses around the area were very close the mines that peppered the East of Bristol (at that time).