House upheaval

Nearly degutted kitchen

Last week was traumatic. Not only did I have operations on both eyes because of retinal tears, but the builders arrived to gut our kitchen in preparation for our new one.
This meant moving contents of kitchen cupboards into... somewhere else. So now we ask, "where did we put them?" "I was looking for a bit of mustard..." "Do you know where I can find a tea towel?" "Where are the sprinkly things?" (aka spices).
Poor husband was traumatised by this chaos. He'd planned to bake a cake on the Friday before his train Risex exhibition, but with two builders, two plumbers and an electrician wandering about the kitchen, noise from drills or saws, old plaster and paint falling off the ceiling, no cupboards, water or electricity sometimes going off, dust sheets or dust over everything, and where are the scales? Er? no! No cake this year.
I hope the Risex visitors aren't traumatised by lack of cake.

Some contents of some cupboards

Wisteria

This year our wisteria has bloomed more than it ever has before, more than several years together, and it smells gorgeous too.  It's not good blooming in comparison to most wisteria plants but it's good this year.  It's not a happy plant in that conservatory; it would be better exposed to the elements again, and goodness knows how it get enough water because though it leaks in there, it's not like there's ever a deluge of rain water.  However, since we have a well in the garden and a well in the house, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an underground stream from which this wisteria can feed.
Apparently, Victorians used to plant a wisteria next to a new house - I wonder why. I suppose this wisteria was planted circa 1902 when the sitting room was added to the older part of the house.

Garden room

Isn't this room gorgeous?  Look at the door that allows you out onto the patio, the light reflecting off the tiled floor, the hops shading the room.  We've just had the decorators in, taken out the green fitted carpet and one of the nine huge windows.  We've turned that window into doors, and replaced the carpet with these parquet tiles under which there's wired heating, so the room is now warmer in winter, but cooler in summer.  I use it as a study - you can see my desks - but it now feels like a garden room - a transition between house and garden.  It's lovely.

Children gone

Since both the youngest have now gone on a more permanent basis than before, the house feels a bit empty and large. Before, I could expect one or both of them back at university vacations because they got thrown out of their accommodation, which is a particular problem at Oxford. But now both of them have signed long term leases.

Weird.

But then, I've known grown children come home before, like my brother. One year married daughter with husband and two children came here for six months. I liked that because I got to know them well, and I could take the toddler out to story time in the library and toddler groups.

Husband has had a good idea for curtaining off part of the house to keep the heat in the part we use. I'd show you a photo but have lost my battery charger.

Wish list for a room

I have a large sitting room in which I'd love to have:

• Rich royal Roman purple velvet curtains thermal lined with matching tiebacks and cushions
• Silvery white paint work, including dado rail
• Pale yellow walls, papered or painted
• Parquet floor at least in the sun-lounge if not the sitting room too
• Under-floor heating
• Hot air heating
  
• Rich large rug on floor
• Roller blinds outside of all windows.

What have I got? Off-pink and green with a beige sofa that matches the 1930s beige tiled fireplace and a concrete floor covered with dirty green fitted carpet.

My study corner of this sitting room, summer-sun-hot freezing-cold-in-winter, has nine large windows with no curtains.

• In winter, it's freezing.
• In summer, it's too hot to work.

Double glazing is fine, but doesn't stop the draughts through poorly fitted windows. There's even a joint in a non opening window where the rain comes in when the wind blows against it.

I've painted one transom with emerald-green glass paint to stop the early morning spring sun dazzling. I've tried painting other transoms with green-house paint to reduce the heat but that looks horrid. On wooden poles I've hung tin-foil sheets that reflect the sun back very effectively. They also allow me to see outside in the daylight but not others to see in. However, they're not very robust, so they crumple, stick to condensation and tear. I need to get new ones, like some I saw on a door in France in 2006 and I've seen in Sicily. I also need them to be obviously reversible so that they reflect in in the winter and out in the summer.

One of the best solutions to the summer heat is growing hops outside the window. Husband has trained them along a wire at transom height, so in summer there's a thick green mass of leaves shading the room, but in winter they've died down again, and let in the light.

Now I've splashed out on new curtains, cherry red in chenille. I guess chenille is the poor man's velvet. They're lined, but not thermally lined. They're okay because they'll do the job so I'll be warmer, though I don't know what they'll do to help keep the sun out in summer, when I need cool and light to work by.

Emptying house

Daughter left this afternoon, back to university. We'll see her in November. The Austrian girls have gone. Son is still here another few days.

Ceiling fell in

The roof fell in. We go away for a few days leaving a visitor in the house and our roof falls in. My mother always used to complain about my father, who wouldn't wake up when the children cried "He wouldn't wake up if the roof fell in", she used to complain. And then one night the roof did fall in. Well, it wasn't the roof; like our house it was the ceiling fell down, all over the set breakfast table. The plaster fell and my father heard and went to investigate while my mother slept.

Our hall ceiling fell down. We knew there was a crack in the plaster, but it would have to fall when we were away. I hadn't warned our visitor, who was naturally a bit upset. Our wonderful son-in-law came and cleared up and found a prop to keep the remaining plaster in place. The floor and my beautiful new expensive stair carpet are dusty. The glass shade on the Perseus lamp is broken, the banister a bit scratched, but not my grandmother's hall stand, because I'd left some spare carpet on it.

We've called in a plasterer.

When did our house get built?

Followed husband round Swanbourne with the archeology society. Discovered that houses in the 17th century got built with a lobby front door. This means that the chimney was right behind the draft-preventing lobby round the front door, and divided the house into two parts, one larger - the main room, and a smaller, perhaps not heated room.

Our house's front door was originally directly onto the street and we had two rooms with one side smaller than the other. So although it's listed as a Victorian house there's evidence that it's older.

The walk round Swanbourne was interesting and the autumn weather was lovely.

Heath Robinson

Heath Robinson eat your heart out!

We (daughter and me) being fed up with the rain dripping in through the conservatory badly designed roof have decided to take the task in hand. Waiting for architects and builders and planning permission from a tyrannical conservation officer meant damaged wood furniture, puddles of water on the play mat and slippy tiles.

So we've rigged up this Heath Robinson-like covering contraption over the parts that let in the most water most often. It's a £3 tarpaulin from B&Q, weighted down with water bottles.