Here's to a happy and enjoyable Easter holiday!
By coincidence, it's exactly twenty-eight years to the day that we moved to the current 'Turrets', and the reminiscences of that day will naturally surface amid a moderate sea of suitable tinctures!
Back then, the place was in a very sorry state, having been built in the early fifties, when materials weren't easily available, and most designs had been kept to a fair minimum of style to accommodate the limited supply of timber etc.
The place hadn't even been decorated since that date so there was thirty-five years of original battleship grey paint in some rooms, hideous pink in the sitting room, and the kitchen was the same colour as the pic above! There were home-made friezes everywhere too, and all the ceilings were coated with distemper, which needed to be washed off completely before being emulsioned...
But it was a labour of love - still is really - and I still have some shelves to put up...
So I wish everyone here a pleasant and happy holiday, and also ask you to join me and Mrs Scroblene in a glass or three of Prosecco!
4 comments:
Ah, there you are. Couldn't get through last time as there was some pencil thingy in the way.
When I bought my first house in the early 1970s, all I could afford was a Victorian 2 up/2 down terrace in one of the Medway towns. It cost under 20,000 pounds (no pound sign on this keyboard!)and was in dire need of some renovation, so a mate and I set about completely refurbishing it.
We installed completely new light and power wiring for the 2 upstairs bedrooms, the front sitting room and the interior central room (plus a super fully equipped workshop for me in the basement). As we progressed we levelled all the old creaking wooden floor boards, squared off all the walls and redecorated throughout. It was great fun and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves doing it. In one of the upstairs bedrooms as we peeled off the old wallpaper we counted seven different layers which over the years had been simply pasted over the one underneath!
The only room we did not touch was the kitchen as that was OK and had been "modernised" by a previous owner. One evening I began mounting a kitchen cupboard on the wall. The top had been secured by the usual drill and rawlplug method and as I started to drill for one of the lower screw holes the kitchen lights came on!! I withdrew the drill and the lights went off again. Put it back and they came on again. That indicated to me that whoever had previously wired up the kitchen had had no idea what they were doing. I tapped out a bit of the plaster and sure enough there was the wire going diagonally across the wall. My drill had gone in between the two wires and made the connection and activated the lighting circuit. I sold it about 6 years later for something like 3 times what I had paid for it. Your older viewers will recall those bleak days of Harold Wilson and 15+% interest rates for mortgages.
My mater lived alone in a council flat from 1964 until she died in 1998. I recall having to redecorate it - especially repainting the wooden window frames, about 6 times over those years. Labour of love and all that!
Happy Easter to you too !
It's been four years since we moved to this abode. Shocking how it flies. But what on earth was I worried about ? It's been one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Happy Easter!
Rather late but cheers!
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