Tuesday 23 October 2012

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.



Wednesday 3 October 2012

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!).


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