Closing the door on no.42 & no.18

Whilst I believe there is a superstition that says when visiting a house you should always leave by the same door that you entered, it seems more appropriate as we prepare to close our respective doors that we exit via the back door. And here is mine – complete with redundant cat flap – and tiny tin bird, which is beginning to rust. The previous owners had added a very small extension onto the kitchen to house a small utility area, and the back door forms part of that build; I think that is why the walls have been painted – to disguise the use of new bricks.
I hope you have enjoyed looking around. This joint experience of sharing our homes has been an interesting one. It has made me consider and question the objects that I own and the use and function of each room. It has also made me appreciate things that I previously took for granted and to accept that old houses will never be damp free!! Thank you for visiting.

The 'back door' from this house has changed location a few times: firstly through an extension consisting of a small skylit corridor (back door at the end) with a wet room leading off it. (Albert developed emphysema, so he began to live on the ground floor when the stairs got too much to cope with). Again when S built a workshop going from the outside wall and back door into the garden. Lastly, with this 'new' back door seen above, which used to be the far wall and window from the kitchen, when our tour began. Now it is a new exit and view to our tiny but green rear garden. Sharing our stories, secrets and discoveries throughout the tour has been a rich and rewarding experience for ourselves and the Open House Hosts, whose participation in this project we greatly appreciate. If you have joined in at some point of the tour we hope you have enjoyed what you have found. 

Morris, William - "These old buildings do not belong to us only, they belong to our forefathers and they will belong to our descendants unless we play them false. They are not in any sense our own property to do with as we like with them. We are only trustees for those that come after us."

Extravagance

I guess that a garden could be called an extravagance, but the extravagance that I wanted to mention is the thing that I like to do when I'm looking at/around my garden. 

Eat liquorice.

Actually I will eat liquorice mostly anywhere, but it's extremely nice (and satisfying) doing it whilst taking time to look at the little piece of nature beyond my back door.

This is the view from my back door. I took this a couple of weeks ago, and the wallflowers are looking (and smelling) even better now. We also have the beginnings of a veranda happening. A roof structure is up with a corrugated see-thru plastic roof, and plans for the decking are being sorted. It keeps raining though, which is a bit of a bind, but good for the plants, anyway.

Like chocolate, just any type of liquorice just doesn't cut it. For me, having tried quite a few different brands, RJ's is my favourite. Pricey, but worth it.

Whilst planting out my sweet peas the other weekend, I found yet another piece of blue and white in the soil.
This plot has given me such pleasure in all that is has, and continues to reveal since S & I moved in: and it's a joy to share its secrets with you.

Derek

In the back bedroom (or guest room) on the wall is a printer’s case. A friend, who has since sadly died, gave this to D and I many years ago. He was one of those people who had led an interesting and varied life; following an apprenticeship as the Printer's Devil(which, according to his autobiography[!]is an historic term for a printer's apprentice), he went to Australia  on the £10 passage. Here he found work as a journalist and met the Beatles at a party (well, all except Lennon). On his return he worked at the V&A as an attendant, followed by work as a housemaster at a boarding school for children with chronic asthma  - where he ran a printing press in the converted gym.  In later life he bought a van and set up a mobile printing works – designing and setting small letterpress jobs and printing them in the back of his van… but of course this was all before I knew him. He stayed with us on various occasions (often sleeping in his camper van outside!) and during one of his visits produced the wooden case and with it, our names in wood type, as a thank you. It was a lovely gift, but why didn't I discover more… what other wonders did he have squirreled away? Were these oddments of wood type – or part of a full set that he split? Part of me feels guilty that the case and type have become a wall decoration – but it is what he intended.  

Table Setting

I hardly ever have cream teas, but I love the idea of taking time out to have 'tea'and a cordial chat in the afternoon. No doubt it is re-living nostalgic memories of childhood, when we used to stop off for this tea-time treat on the way back from an excursion whilst on holiday. So although it was only once or twice a year (never to be had at home), the performative nature of the cream tea intrigued me, and I really liked the way it was served, so that I had the choice of whether to put the jam or the cream on first, myself (always the cream)! 
My Mother's Grandmother hailed from Devonshire (never 'Devon').

Granny’s blanket

Ok, I'm in the small third bedroom now – and as we have already discussed the merits of crochet, I thought I would share my blanket with you; made by Granny many years ago, it has several holes (which, if I were able to crochet I would probably be able to mend) the culprit was our old cat who loved to sleep on it, but would regularly pummel it with his claws. I hate to admit this but I have never dared wash it – although maybe I should rectify this situation? 

Kitchen (utensil)

Ok P, carrying on from the bottom of the stairs, we go along the back part of the hall way, past the recent (but as yet, not painted) addition of 'the under stairs cupboard' to arrive at the entrance to the kitchen. As you can see in the second photo (one with my slippered feet) there used to be a door here at some stage, which was removed. We are not going to put one back.

On into the kitchen, a galley type space, with units along one side and the sink, cooker and washing machine on the other. After renovating the kitchen (over our first Christmas holiday in this house), we knocked through
the back wall last summer to put a door (instead of a window) at the end of the kitchen. This necessitated changing the location of the sink, and therefore the plumbing and radiator position. So finishing and redecoration of this space is now being saved as a job for this summer.

On the stainless steel work surface is a spoon rest. It was found in a charity shop for 75p. It looked kind of familiar. It turned out that my Mum had one exactly the same. She doesn't know what happened to it. Maybe it got lost when they moved house?

Alternative bathroom cabinet

Outside the bathroom hang a row of gym bags on a set of old hooks (these were found on a roadside somewhere in Greece, and bought home as hand luggage, not your average holiday souvenir). The gym bags are my bathroom cabinet – the bathroom itself is small with limited free wall space – so the bags, which are themed – hold various bits and pieces; for example spare shampoo, conditioners and soaps in one – all things medicinal in another – etc. Is the medicine/bathroom cabinet endangered I wonder?

In the time it takes to go up and down the stairs ...

(which ok, admittedly has been quite a while) the base of the stairs has changed quite a bit! The paper has been scraped off the walls to reveal the original decoration underneath (plus quite a few new patching jobs to do) and the position of the newel post has changed to be two steps up from the bottom of the staircase. The re-site of the post has now changed how the stairs can be navigated (can step up from the side), and has also widened the hallway - as you may notice from the pic - the two bottom stairs are removable which 'well whaddya know' know, when they are taken away - it makes it possible to steer a vinatge vespa scooter all the way through our terraced house and ot into the workshop beyond!

Sign of the times

A relatively new acquisition is the sign on the stairway. Purchased purely for its typographic quality – I have since learned that it is from the Great Western Railway – identifiable by its colour apparently. I also like the sentiment of the message – firm yet polite! 

It's a good size piece too - 4 feet across, so it is easily accommodated on the quite large expanse of stairwell wall.

A glance back over my shoulder ...

I just HAD to sneak these in! (I thought it would be ok to look back over my shoulder at the upstairs landing as I was going back down the stairs). The week before last we stripped the wallpaper(layers and layers!)off the walls from landing and down the stairs - and all of these fragments were found after peeling off the last whole layer. It was the very first wallpaper to be hung here - isn't it an amazing pattern!? You can see how bright the blue colour was in the detail pic (which also shows a very fetching crack going upwards from the corner of the bedroom door).

We were so excited about finding the first piece - we did some super speed-stripping and had the rest of this wall done in half an hour  phew!

(The rest of the stairs took much longer - covered in anaglypta, varnish, lining paper, emulsion, gloss paint, plaster, and layers and layers of paper.)

Landing wall - the first layer - found just like this, as if someone had got fed up with stripping it off and just left...

First layer showing details of nature themed and art deco wall papers. Second and third layers respectively.

Bright blue printed detail (and BIG crack)

Nature themed details ... layered over the top

Art Deco paper added at a later date to nature themed wallpaper.

Have been saving this rather gummy fragment of wall paper to add on to this post - found it the other week, when we had got down the stairs and were carrying on stripping the hallway.

We also managed to take down the brackets and pedestals (not shown) from beneath the arch in the hallway, and to our surprise, underneath layers of a distemper-like gunge, there was some details of acanthus leaves and flower. This had all been covered up to make a smooth shape instead - we liked the detail, so S cast some new ones, so we'll always have spares!

The banister. Feel

Ok – I think it is about time to start making our way upstairs. Satisfyingly smooth – I love the feel of the banister and cannot help put run my hands along it every time I walk down the stairs or across the landing. It is one of the few original features that remain in the house – and is by no means grand, however I like the way that it doubles back on itself along the galleried landing (that sounds grander than it actually is too). Whilst the spindles are painted the top rail is the original wood – probably stripped back by the previous owners. In winter the landing banister is used to hang wet washing on, it’s particularly good for duvet covers as there is plenty of room for them to hang into the stairwell.

Cabinet of curiosities #2 inside

One last post from this room – and it is back to the cabinet, which contains my mother’s baby book (it’s blue taffeta, so I’m not sure if my grandparents were hoping for a boy). I can’t remember how I came to have this object, however it is (naturally) in the original box. Due to its small size it fits nicely onto the glass shelf in a standing position.

Inside my grandfather has completed each page to give a running commentary of my mother’s early years, from her first word – Teddy – to first journey by bus at 11 days old. There is also the original cutting from the local newspaper announcing her birth. Albert, my grandfather was an avid diary writer, so I imagine that he would enjoy the task of dutifully completing all the relevant information. 

My own baby book has been completed but with less rigour by my Mum, it doesn’t seem to have been a priority and after a few entries, my early years remain a mystery!