Well I have been glued to the Olympics in HD. You can see every wrinkle in the presenters faces and every bead of sweat, marvellous! As for ’stro-mo’ in the gymnastics, it’s a revelation.
Going back to normal telly after watching something in HD looks weird, kind of fuzzy. Then you realise that is normal. God knows what watching non-HD TV is like in the US (NTSC opposed to our PAL transmissions). Blur-o-rama I guess.
Well the flat is coming along at a cracking pace. We’ve appointed a carpenter and he is coming around tonight for a final meaure-up of our sashes. Task one for him is restoring and refurbishing the ginormous windows so they are sound and toasty come wintertime. Only half of one sash needs replacing due to it being rotten so all good there. The same week as he comes round the electrician arrives to rewire and hang our lovely lights.
The shutter man from ‘Shuttely Fabulous’ was indeed fabulous and we have appointed him to make our shutters. We should have them sometime at the end of September. I shall kind of miss having to wear a hat indoors as it is so bright but it will make using a laptop so much easier, no squinting here madam.
We have asked for a design like this:
We were walking around Seven Dials in Brighton when I spotted the perfect set of Victorian shutters so I wiped out my cameraphone. Pictures by me and good drawings by M have made it very easy communicating what we want to various tradesmen.
We got all the quotes back for our built in furniture and have decided to scale back on it. One, it’s expensive getting built in furniture made by it’s very nature and two it is going to be very hard to get it to match the existing lovely panelling, architrave and skirting. M and I discussed it at length and decided that the last thing we wanted was a pastiche of the original style that was neither one thing nor the other. After all who has heard of an Victorian TV cupboard? The bespoke furniture we are still commisioning is what I grandly refer to as “the library”. Or what our carpenter refers to as “bookshelves on the mezzanine”.
We’ve been stalking items on eBay and measuring to the last millimetre all the spaces we have to fill. One warbrobe had perfect aged wood but was an inch (why do all furniture sellers put the measurements in inches for heavens sake?) too wide. One chest had lovely tuned legs but was bright orange. You get the picture. However, we’ve been dilligent and canny. For less than the price of our bespoke TV cupboard was going to cost we’ve bought: a desk, a wardrobe, a very sweet chest of drawers and a dresser base (with exactly the same pattern as our panelling funnily enough) for the TV and associated tech. Today I also won a lovely skinny armoire (which matches the wardrobe) for our coats and hanging clothes.
Soon we can get rid of the last piece of IKEA furniture and get our clothes off the floor. Hurrah! I am going to have so much fun changing handles, painting and lining the little treasures. Lining. It’s an underated pleasure lining paper. I ordered some on sale over the internets and it arrived over the weekend. Sweetly smelling and beautifully patterned. I was worried that some of my second hand purchases might niff of mothballs or attics so I now have the perfect counter to that:
It’s gorgeous and smells of vanilla and pears.
Over the weekend we partook of our new membership of the City Car Club - of which I cannot say enough good things about - to go to Kent*. We went to very posh Tunbridge Wells to look at painted kitchens and Tenterden to look at old salvaged radiators. Very very exciting. We ended up buying some linen sheets too but that is another matter.
The radiators were all gorgeous and I wanted them all. We ordered two for our bedroom as they are going to be “on show” the most. They will be right in front of the original features we like the best (the panelling and the fireplaces) so we didn’t want some modern ones taking anything ‘away’ from them.
One of the ones we bought was a chubby one. Has a radiator ever been so lovely?
They also had a truck load of ones that had just been ripped out of an office in Whitehall. Why do people throw such lovely things away?
In other news I’ve had a bad neck for a week and I am getting cheesed off with it now.
*We also went to the dump to get rid of all the crap our vendors kindly left us - bits of wood and many half-full cans of paint. We’d of never managed it without a car.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
This is so interesting to read. I am doing very much the same thing and love the info on the scented drawer liners. I’ve been slowly and painfully restoring our 1890 Victorian house, which had all the original features (bar a few doors) ripped out. I replaced the PVC windows with the wooden sashes and have been on the hunt for shutters for ages. I would be interested to hear how your shutters turn out. Are they costing very much, if you don’t mind me asking?!
I am a big fan on the second hand furniture and have found some lovely bit that are completely unique. Always room for more though. I wish you the bes of luck in finding everything for yours.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Thank you Homebuilder! Our place is around 1860s and has all the faults and foibles of an old home but we love it after our unornamented 1960s place.
Some of my friends don’t understand why we want second hand furniture - urgh smelly, someone else has used it etc. - but it is the way to go if you want to be green and not have a home like everyone else (a “cooker cutter” home as our American friends would call them). Just needs a bit of elbow grease and some time looking for the perfect fit.
I shall keep you posted on the shutters! Yes shutters are expensive (after getting three carpenters quotes and two specialist companies) but worth it we feel for our big old windows.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Yes, I agree. Shutters will definitely be worth it. I look forward to hearing about them and seeing a pic. I definitely agree about the second-hand furniture. So much more character as well. I will look up those drawer liners as well as those look like just what I need! Thanks for the tips.