LANSDOWNE REVISITED

In it for the long haul…

About ladylansdowne

A designer of stuff, lover of history, travel and shoes. In that order.

Up On The Roof…

Posted on June 22, 2014 by ladylansdowne

This weeks project has been getting the chimneys operational. The builder has been busy taking down the old chimneys and putting them back straight. Indoors, we had the chimney sweep come round and we busied away clearing the lounge fireplace…
I’d hoped when we bought the house we’d find an amazing fireplace behind the boards blocking it off, it turned out to be empty, but the Library Fireplace made up for the disappointment. When we cleared the bricks blocking up the fireplace we found numerous pieces of tile that I assume would once of been part of the fireplace, it has a black printed design and is hand coloured (not very well to be honest!) but I love the deep pink and purple in the flowers, and the shades match perfectly the colours in the stained glass windows, those Victorians certainly weren’t afraid of a bit of colour…anyway, back to the job in hand… I knew the task wasn’t going to be as easy as anticipated when this sizeable delivery appeared on our driveway…

Once unwrapped, a chimney liner apparently looks like this, who knew?

This is the gas version, the solid fuel version is slightly smoother. These ten meter lengths were around £300 each, someone is making some serious profit margin on this stuff. So now we just had to get them down the chimney, simple hey? Firstly we dropped ropes down, which Ronnie weighted with the vintage kitchen weight I bought a few weeks ago, this was not it’s intended purpose! That said, it was the perfect tool for the job. Once we had the rope down, it was time to get the liners up to the roof via the scaffolding, straightening them out as they went…

Now the plan was essentially to tie the liner to the rope on the roof, one of us to feed it down the chimney and the other, to tug like hell from below, I chose my role wisely.

As the fitting instructions recommended, Ronnie wrapped tubes of insulation around the liner as it was fed down the chimney, (improves the draw of smoke apparently) but every time I pulled the rope below, the liner was getting lodged in the crook of the chimney, we tried about 20 times during the course of an exhausting few hours and eventually decided to get a nose cone from the local stove supplier, we had read this would make the process easier. Brettle Lane Stoves were out of cones, but the guy very kindly gave us some invaluable advice, firstly, hammer the end of the liner into a cone form which will be easier to guide, and secondly, put the insulation down after the liner. We did just that and the liner came down perfectly, along with a random brick, some tin foil and a boat-load of soot!

The second one came down sweet as nut, we’re now feeling quite the flue-lining experts, and very pleased to have saved around £1500 by doing this ourselves. Need to start researching fires next!

The Great Brick Hunt…

Posted on June 21, 2014 by ladylansdowne

I didn’t do my usual weekend blog last week, as…well, we didn’t do any work! Saturday was a road trip to Stoke to pick up the chimney pot we bought on Ebay the previous week, on the way we stopped at five, yes five, reclamation yards. I couldn’t believe there were so many in such a small area while Googling, and felt sure at least one or two would be goners, but no, I can confirm, all open for business. I wondered if the industrial downturn contributed to the area becoming a bit of a reclamation hotbed, it saddened me to see all the disused potteries, once home to master craftsmen whose wares were transported all over the world, but now unloved, left to decay…much like the glass cones in our home town.I regret not buying these glazed bricks from the first yard, they would have been a nice feature in the garden somewhere, but alas, I stayed focused on my mission…Find bricks for chimney rebuild!

The other three yards failed to inspire and we got bored of looking at bricks and decided the builder could put the dodgy ones out of view. I almost had my fill of looking at antiques, but then we arrived at Les Oakes, they don’t have a website, but you’ll find them on Facebook.

This is a gem of a place, a little like reclamation-Narnia. The collection is housed in several surreal barns, built fairly recently but bejewelled with stunning period windows, plaques, pediments…and anything else of interest the builders could lay their hands on. Their stock includes an amazing collection of, well, everything really! A lot of it is in the dark, and dusty, but that’s how it should be, there’s an air of special things lurking there. We left with a chair, awestruck.

The chair is intended to be one of our dining chairs, it may or may not make it into the final line up, but we’ll certainly be back at Les Oakes yard, frequently to pick up some of their fabulous furniture. Last stop, we collected the pot. Back at the ranch, some flowers have managed to raise their heads above the dreaded weeds. I love these poppies…

And I’m pretty damn smug about this rambling rose, how very British summertime! It’s laden with beautifully scented buds and is magical in the evening with the fairy lights twinkling away.

I’ll leave you with a couple of views from atop the scaffolding, our wobbly roof, and even wobblier chimney, a little more about these next time.

Rain Stops Play…

Posted on June 10, 2014 by ladylansdowne

What a week! It’s been a non-stop but fun few days. Starting on Thursday evening I took a cookery glass learning to make Dosa at the Loaf Community Bakery & Cookery School. It was great fun and I feel pretty confident I’ll be able to make the five dishes which we learned at home… One day. There was also the opportunity to purchase some of their ridiculously good bread, the sourdough is amazing and I’ll be on another class soon to learn how to make that!
Friday evening was tidy up and prep night. Boo. But we had the Dosas for dinner. Yay!
Saturday morning was set to see the arrival of Dennis the plasterer and the scaffold guys, the rain and wind were so bad the scaffold got pushed back until Sunday. One out of three ain’t bad, and Dennis got the lounge finished and rough coated the hall. It’s good to see the back of those holes! Ronnie filled holes in the kitchen ceiling. My dad painted the cloakroom. I peeled paint off the library ceilng rose, it needs a little more attention, but it’s difficult to know when to stop given that we’ll eventually be admiring it from eight feet below, rather than eight inches below, atop the ladder. The difference is quite dramatic, who’d have thought such detail lay below the gloop?

I also peeled paint off the stools we bought at the flea market, then waxed the seats (I may have used a tiny bit off wood dye to give the new wood a little, erm, heritage!) I’m really pleased with the results, a nice little bargain!

The scaffold guys arrived on Sunday morning and spent the whole day erecting the scaffold up to the chimneys. These pictures show it from the side and front elevations.

I planned to climb up to have a good look around, but was only brave enough to go onto the first staging. Ronnie clambered up and descended looking a worried man, not because of the dizzy heights, but because of the state of the roof. There are holes and dodgy slates everywhere. The ridge tiles are all in place, so that’s one positive.

The builder is due to start tomorrow rebuilding both chimneys. He’ll be taking them down, cleaning off the bricks and rebuilding, hopefully straighter! Once that’s done we have to climb up the scaffolding and drop down chimney liners, and ‘pop’ this crowning glory (yet another Ebay purchase) on the top, eek!

What a Difference a Day Makes…

Posted on May 31, 2014 by ladylansdowne

Yesterday started bright and early as Dennis the plasterer was arriving at 8am, so our usual Saturday morning lie in followed by lazy breakfast was sacrificed…boo! The day went in a bit of a whirlwind, and I didn’t take any ‘before’ photos, but here, in a nutshell, is what we did:

1. We DPC’d the garden. Doesn’t everyone?. We pulled out all the pesky weeds (for the third time) and then covered the ground in a layer of DPC, which will stay down until Christmas (probably longer truth be told, I intend to be sitting snuggled by a wood burner by then!) blocking out light should (we are assured) will kill the weeds once and for all and leave us with lovely healthy soil.

2. I nailed fairy lights along the top of the garden wall, I got told off as apparently this was not a priority. Whatever. Dennis sided with me, that I should do it if it made me happy. We like Dennis.

3. We harvested our first Lansdowne produce: 4 dinky potatoes (and 2 quite big ones, which it took me several hours to work out were the seeds.) We ate them before I had chance to take a photo.

4. We visited an African themed garden centre, Akamba, they had some great animal sculptures made from recycled metal and incredible exotic palms. A slightly surreal oasis, Akamba has a great restaurant where we enjoyed delicious a Caribbean lunch in the sun – bliss. Akamba (and the weather) bought back memories of holidays, and gave us a good dose of garden inspiration, we need an exotic hut in our lives for starters!

4.I spent a couple of hours trying to strip stools we purchased last week. It may take a ‘couple’ more to get them looking ship shape.

5. I finally built the Abbeville bench I purchased a few weeks back from The Great Little Trading Co which sits between the garden and cloakroom doors, couldn’t fit better had it been made to measure! Needs painting and a cushion making, but that’s waaaay down the list. It’s really going to transform a dead space into useful storage.

6. THE PLASTERING STARTED!!! I’m so upset I didn’t take any pictures yesterday morning when the walls were mainly brick, but here is how it looked at the end of day one, and today, end of day two.

Finally for this week, a few people have asked where we found our garden bench, it was The Barn At Studley, where you’ll find some beautiful home and garden wares, we’ll be back there for more garden features, once those weeds are dealt with!

Mid-Week Vintiquing…

Posted on May 27, 2014 by ladylansdowne

Did I say yesterday I wasn’t buying anymore furniture for a while? Me? Really? Well I have a small admission to make, I bearly made it 24 hours before we found this lovely Head Teachers chair…

We picked this up from a fab couple with an amazing Victorian lodge, they trade some amazing stuff on Ebay and I suspect this won’t be our only purchase from them. Infact it certainly won’t be, as I bought this chapel chair while I was there…

Even Dottie looked a bit shocked!

Bank Holiday Vintiquing…

Posted on May 26, 2014 by ladylansdowne

Vintiquing, apparently, is the new cool word for ‘antiquing’ when the objects in question are, shall we say, more retro than Renaissance. We seem to be vintiquing at some point most weekends, this (extended) weekend has been no exception, but at least we’ve managed to get a couple of things from our shopping list, and maybe one or two that weren’t…

Our first purchase was this vase, for a bargain 50p…

Followed by these gardening books, I doubt I’ll ever read them, but they look good, such beautiful colours. Again 50p!

Next was this French school chair which will be one of our six dining chairs, one down, five more to find. There’s quite a lot of these about, but this one is a bit sturdier looking than most, love it.

We also found some industrial stools for the kitchen, the jury is still out on these, I want to get the black paint off the metal and the horrid gloopy lacquer off the wood…I’m quietly confident, that somewhere under there, lurks some perfect stools. And if not, we got them at a great price, so I can always Ebay them.

And finally, we got this… A 1920’s gramophone cupboard. This wasn’t exactly what we set out to find today, but when do these things ever go to plan? It needs work, but has massive potential, I’d love to turn it into some sort of iPod cupboard.

Who knows what will become of it, but at £10, I couldn’t say no!

Extreme Weather Warning…

Posted on May 25, 2014 by ladylansdowne

In contrast to last weeks glorious sun, this week has been rain, rain and yet more rain. Worse still, there’s been a blizzard in the kitchen, not actual snow you understand, but off-cuts of foam insulation floating down from the ceiling, sticking to every-single-surface possible on their journey. The insulation will though, really help on our energy efficiency and is quite a big tick on our to do list.

The plumbers will need access to the beams to run the central heating pipes through, but once that’s done, we can have our ceiling back, won’t that be a luxury! While Ronnie was beavering away in the kitchen, I set about trying to smarten up the corbels in the hallway. Whilst ridding the hall of the last traces of wallpaper last week, I noticed the steam seemed to be affecting the paint on the plaster corbels, this, was a complete bonus as the steam technique I’d read about failed miserably on the ceiling roses. This picture shows how the steam melted the paint and allowed me to peel back decades of paint.

The left hand corbel has suffered a few knocks over the years, but they are both in quite good condition all things considered.

This before and after shows how much crisper the corbels are now, especially noticeable on the top frieze and the ‘grapes’ – hurrah!
In other news, we have confirmed a plasterer, who will start bright and early next Saturday, (and as he’s someone Ronnie has worked with, I think he’ll actually arrive!) first up will be the lounge, so we’ve moved most of the furniture out to the library, which now resembles a bring & buy sale. The chimney rebuilding quotes are in, the first was 80% over budget, the second? 30% under budget, go figure! However, after a bit of a deal we’ve done on separate scaffolding, we should be able to get this job priced right down. Last but not least, we’ve put a bucket in the attic under a hole in the roof, so hopefully that’s the last of blizzards in the kitchen and rain on the landing for a while!

The sun has got his hat on…

Posted on May 18, 2014 by ladylansdowne

The sun has been out this weekend, and so have we, we may, therefore be slightly behind schedule. Oh well! We went on a drive into the countryside to see what we might find, and this is what we found…

This little Victorian cupboard, he needs a bit of a make-over but will be useful.

These potential kitchen floor tiles, not the anticipated slate, but they have scope, samples ordered so we’ll review when they arrive.

This plate, which I later realised I was drawn to as my Grandma had a matching jardiniere and this dinky kitchen weight, which I have no use for what so ever. We also had the nice man from the local wood reclamation shop come round to price up renovating our front door and fireplaces, we’ll be booking him in shortly.

Guys have also been round to quote on rebuilding the chimneys, I’m adamant that the front one should be rebuilt as it currently is, complete with brick patterns.

The back one (which makes me feel a little sick whenever I look at it) is easier. We had planned to leave these until we do the roof and loft conversion to save on scaffolding costs, but doing the chimneys now means we can drop liners down and take the library and lounge fireplaces to conclusion which will be super. Finally I’ve had a profitable week selling some old furniture on Ebay, creating some space and adding to my dining table fund! As much as we’d love to spend the rest of the afternoon lazing in the sun, we need to get hallway prepped for plasterers to quote. No rest for the renovater!

This weeks news…

Posted on May 10, 2014 by ladylansdowne

This week has been a mixed bag, most notably the electrician has been and finally connected the extractor and hob! Hurrah! The bad news is that it failed to occur to us that our pans wouldn’t work with an induction hob…fail!

We had intended to spend the afternoon getting the last teeny-tiny bits of wallpaper off in the hall in readiness for the plasterers to start, unfortunately about another ton of plaster came off, depressing…we thought we were past that stage. The silver lining was that we found the old servants bell system! “Ding Ding, might you come and clean the plaster up please?!”

We (I) have also sorted out the Kitchen fittings, so everything now has it’s place…

Ikea drawer fitting, the baking drawer.

Another Ikea fitting, cleaning drawer.

Ikea drawer fitting and genius lid rack, admittedly less useful now I’ve had to throw out all of the pans, minor hitch. The freshly painted pantry now holds most of our provisions, storage solutions include Ikea mini shelves, tin rack (Ebay, from USA), can holder (for essential Diet Coke storage) and lots and lots of coffee jars with blackboard labels (Ebay again, this time from China!). This is the how it was a couple of weeks ago…

And now…

Last but not least, we hung the back-of-door spice rack, simple yet useful.

We had a few hours skulking round some local rec yards, one had some garden pieces when we are ready for them, and reasonably priced floor tiles to replace the few lost ones in the hall.

We found this little fireplace, it’s on the ‘maybe’ list for the guest bedroom.

Next week should hopefully see the plasterer appointed and we may finally make a decision on floor tiles.

Weekend Black Hole

Posted on May 6, 2014 by ladylansdowne

We seem to have been busy all weekend, but not actually achieved very much… There’s been a few of those weekends recently.

In no particular order, here we go…

1. We removed the ramp going from the hall to the kitchen, I was uber pleased, as against all the odds, the tiles remained intact under the concrete, result!

The concrete is now out in the yard, if you look carefully you’ll see Dottie is evidently not the first cat to make a nuisance of itself in this house!

2. Tidied a tiny patch of the garden, about 0.5%, if that, but I popped in some flowers, and flowers ladies and gentlemen, make me happy. I’m very pleased with my azalea in its chimney pot.

3. Mum and Dad gave us this garden ‘to do’ blackboard, sniggering that we’ll need ‘considerably more writing space’ to list the tasks required to get the garden looking half decent, oh, how we laughed.

4.Picked some lily of the valley, I tried in vain to grow these at Ivy Cottage (my previous house) but here lots and lots have popped up, and they smell just incredible.

5. Excitedly Ebayed my old dining chairs…out with the old, in with the older.

We visited Peppermill Antiques yesterday and they have the most amazing dining tables…I usually spend hours, days, weeks searching for a piece of furniture before I find the one, but here I was spoiled for choice. They even had kitchen stools I liked, though no stock till July… Argh!

6. Ronnie finished off excavating the library fireplace. Looks amazing, I’m looking forward to curling up in front of a fire in there one of these days.

7. Received my lovely new string bowl from Maid Of Clay. Who knew I even needed a string bowl?! Adore.

8. Bought a stool for the lounge, onto the ever growing project pile for him. I’ve been after a footstool for a while, I bought this then found a much better one a few in the next antique shop. It had claws for feet! Boo.

Meanwhile, in the garden, Dottie found all of this quite exhausting…

About ladylansdowne

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