LANSDOWNE REVISITED

In it for the long haul…

Let there be light… And no plaster dust.

Posted on February 12, 2014 by ladylansdowne

And on the hundredth day (approximately, give or take a dozen) there was light. Yes, the electricians have left the building, woo hoooo! I am not missing the mess they created, or the odd things that were happening before completion of the new circuits, like switches controlling lights in other rooms, or the epic failure of the new remote control bedroom lights to work… Oh, except when any of the neighbours locked their cars or we turned over the tv, then the lights came on full beam! Pleased with our bedroom wall lights, a step closer to the coveted hotel-feel, though currently not the standard of hotel room one would actually choose to occupy.

It’s also great to have proper lighting in the kitchen (though we’re about 10 bulbs short – Who knew it was so difficult to get a bulb these days?!) and at last get rid of the old electrics clinging onto beams meaning we can fully open the room now.

The lights outside look good too, it’s great to be able to light the courtyard at last.

The clutter you see in the foreground is what 7 (yes 7) Economy Heaters look like once they’ve been opened up, stripped of their refractory bricks and strewn into the yard. That was a fun afternoon.

Also this week our poor little house got stitched together, but on the plus side, it shouldn’t crack anymore. I thought I’d be putting up photos of this process, but the guys got through the work so quickly and efficiently, there was actually nothing to see. I seriously need to find out what vacuum cleaner they have…not a trace of plaster dust! The electricians could learn a lot from these dudes! This is the hallway with the addition of the Helifix bars.

The bars are fitted neatly between the bricks then covered over again.

These will solve our higgeldy-piggeldy bricks. We’ve had the same process on the gable end of the house as it was bowing outward. There’s hardly a trace of the work which is great as the brickwork is so intricate I was worried it would be spoiled. Most exciting news of the week is that my radio’s extreme-makeover is complete… Ta-da!

Where did January go?

Posted on February 2, 2014 by ladylansdowne

This week has mainly been about the rewire, and it’s been a little grim! I’d failed to anticipate quite how messy it would be… There’s been MORE plaster chipped off, holes appearing here, there and everywhere, random power cuts and as the Economy 7 system has now been decommissioned, plummeting temperatures. Other than that it’s been ok though. Oh except when the oven blew up. And when the cat pulled down the lounge curtains. And when the cat pulled down the shower curtain.

We’ve not seen too much of the sparkies (check me out, with my builders lingo!) as we’ve been mega busy at work, communication has been mainly through scrawls on walls, so while I aspire to Cole & Son wallpapers, in actual fact most of the house now looks like this…

Or this, complete with Dottie drawing, she’s obviously made an impression, god knows what she’s been up to…

My job this morning has been sorting out the endless boxes of switches and sockets and labelling them to make sure they go to their correct homes.

The electricians seem to be doing a good job (according to Ronnie, I don’t have a scooby-do!) however tomorrow I’ll be asking them what the @?!% they have done to my stool to break it and why they think it’s acceptable to leave the remnants of their McDonalds lunch strewn throughout the house. Stand by your beds! Tomorrow will also see the start of the structural work to sure up the old cracks and stop the bowing of the side wall. I’m told it basically involves giant staples and glue – Simple, right?!

In other news, the local green grocers expressed approval of our new front door while I was buying apples today, the letter box they noted, was in keeping with the period of the house – phew! Our kitchen is now ordered, and due for delivery in three short weeks, which is ace, as I’ve had about enough of this…there’s nowhere to put the apples!

After we’d had a coffee and some Dime cake to recover from the shock of spending so much, we had a mooch around the store and wandered into ‘bargain corner’ and you know what? We actually found a bargain! As Ikea are changing over kitchen systems, there was a bunch of ex-display bits and bobs and we picked up the microwave we wanted up for half price, which we quickly scuttled off with.

As I turned my nose up at Ikea handles, I really need to get my act together on hardwear sourcing, but now I have a kitchen panel I think I’ve changed my mind which handles I want, decisions decisions.

Cue more nights on Ebay… I’ve also been (secretly) buying kitchen accessories from Etsy and have packed off my beloved Roberts radio for a much-needed extreme makeover.

Windows, Wires & Webbing…

Posted on January 19, 2014 by ladylansdowne

The old (ish) windows at the back of the house are now gone, I thought I’d be quite sad, as aesthetically they were ok, but in terms of energy efficiency and security were rock bottom. We chose Georgian style replacements, though we’ve no idea what would have been there originally.

I’m really quite pleased with the results. Much lighter than I was expecting and due to a few little suggestions from the fitters, they open really easily, the deep bay in the kitchen had been impossible to reach previously. We also had the old breakfast room door replaced. Our neighbours told us when they moved in they had the original door there, which was a stunning stained glass piece. We however, had a horrid, rotting, wooden door. We decided to replace it with skinny French doors, the fitters warned us against this as they were worried about seeing more frame than glass, but they actually look really good. They will work really well as we wanted to be able to leave the doors open onto the courtyard in Summer, but a regular door would have opened onto the library window. I’m not very fond of the Georgian detail in the top pane, I’d assumed it would be clear. Lesson learned… Spec EVERYTHING!

I did take the time to do a full design for the front door, as I wasn’t confident the guys had grasped quite what I wanted, seems this paid off as we’ve got pretty much what we asked for, with the added advantage of a handle, which I left off plan!

The neighbours popped round to say they love it, hopefully our house won’t be the ugly duckling of the street for too much longer!

Also this week the rewire has begun, there are floorboards and holes all over the place, and every floor, wall and ceiling is strewn with wires like gigantic grey spaghetti.

The cat seems to think she is living in some sort of feline theme park, her current party trick is burrowing down from the craft room floor and emerging in the top pantry cupboard, I’ve given up worrying what she gets up to, as there’s little we can do to prevent it!

Every evening we’ve been marking out switch and socket positions, it feels luxurious to be able to have everything exactly where we want it. Also great to get back from work and see there’s been progress in our absence as there are now plenty of people on site. We’ve marked out the kitchen too, though I got told off by Ronnie for drawing on the cupboards as apparently text would have sufficed and my pictures are neither professional or necessary… They make me snigger though.

We’ve met a couple a few houses down who have a similar level of work to do as us. We actually viewed their (beautiful) house before we bought this ours, at the time we were scared off by the amount of work required, though a year or so later we jumped in with both feet into a similar wreck! It’s going to be good to potter down and see what they are up to, and I’m sure they will be pottering to ours too.

Finally for this week, a quick update on my upholstery project, aka ‘The Damn Chair’. There was a class locally yesterday, so I had a few hours off renovation, at least of the bricks and mortar variety. I’ll post more about this project at some point as it’s a long, long story, but here he is at close of play yesterday:

After several years and more money than I dare think about, it’s very nearly there!

Kitchen planning, light souring, oh, and window distractions…

Posted on January 18, 2014 by ladylansdowne

Last weekend was mainly kitchen planning. Before we set off to Ikea though, the third of our potential window restorers came round to measure up for a quote. The first two guys have still not got back to us after a month…grrr! This gentleman was a knowledgeable sort and has a method to fit double glazed panels within the existing frames, which incredibly after 120 years are in good condition. This is great news as it means that we’ll be preserving more of the original windows, and will save some money as we’d expected to need replacement windows. We’ll be increasing energy efficiency from level 8, down to 1.9, which is apparently quite good. Modern UPVC replacements would bring it down to an excellent level, but there has to be balance in all things. The window man also pointed out the top opening windows in our bedroom, we’d assumed these were fixed as they are downstairs, but once we got up to look they do indeed (or at least should) open. I was excited (genuinely, actually, excited) to see that we also still had the original ‘Monkey Tail’ window stays:

There are two upstairs which are too high to be seen, so we’ll replace them with repros, polish them up, and pop them onto the bay window in the lounge for all to see. I couldn’t resist ten minutes with Nitromors and wire wool.

I’m continually amazed by the amount of sheer hard work that went into Victorian properties. I love my work as a designer, I constantly look to add detail to everything I do, but we live in an age where the actual product manufacture is often the quickest part of the process, these window stays will have been hand forged by one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of filthy-faced metalsmiths working within a stones-throw of the house, and they are as good today as the day he made them. Perhaps those forgotten skills are why our windows have lasted over a century…I do so love the Black Country.

Ironic after that little rant, that our kitchen comes courtesy of Ikea, I have my ideals of a locally handmade masterpiece, but also, god damn it, a budget. I did spend a long period of my childhood in Sweden, which has to count for something! To avoid being total Ikea-whores, we’re planning to mix their Lindingo units with more bespoke detailing, and a couple of vintage pieces we’ve accumulated, apparently the cool kids call this an ‘Ikea Hack’. After hooooours on their planning tool we’ve arrived at something like this:

This is looking from the back door through towards the hallway, exposed brick far right, used to be the breakfast room. The gap is where the wine fridge sits, it’s so complicated to ‘import’ appliances on the kitchen planner that you actually need a glass of wine to cope! This is the vague look I’m going for in the kitchen, which looking at Interiors trends is the same as everyone else this season, oh well.

The units are Lindingo grey, with solid wood work top. I’ve sourced handles separately, as well as some amazing brackets inspired by Ironbridge, a local landmark. Ikea don’t make a decent corner cabinet so I’m on the hunt for a Victorian unit I can paint to match. We are also going to have a big blackboard from The Timber Shack. Appliances were all bought in the January sales, and are currently piled up in the breakfast room. There are another couple of pieces that I’m excited about putting into the kitchen, both from local pubs, in a round-a-bout way…

And finally, stop press, I’ve saved some money! I’m the type that looks at ‘splurge or save’ magazine comparisons and inevitably chooses the splurge, so was actually quite smug when I found this Dunelm light for a third of the price of the Garden Trading produce I’d been intending to buy, that said, It’s not arrived yet, so could still end in tears when I see it.

New Year Update…

Posted on January 5, 2014 by ladylansdowne

Gosh, where did the last few weeks go?!

Christmas is now but a distant memory, the nativity folk are packed up snug and warm in their little tin until next year, and the tree is stripped of his twinkling lights. We had a lovely break with family and friends, and didn’t do much on the house…Instead we ate biscuits, watched films and chilled out…and very nice it was too!

But, before I put Christmas to bed, I wanted to post another of my latest finds, these retro Santas. Centre back and his wonderfully camp mate on the left are cool, they can stay, the other pair are being evicted though, look at their evil little faces!

On the subject of finding things, I found a £20 note on my doorstep this morning, then this afternoon I was poking around pondering the fate of my filing cabinets in the craft room when I found a book of 100 First Class stamps jammed underneath, bit of a result as they are worth around £50, and the cabinet only cost £30 from Ebay – Lucky me!

Progress on the house is ticking along, new windows are due to be fitted in the back of the house in the next couple of weeks, along with a new front door. Bit sad as the 80’s wooden windows are pretty, but the heat loss through them is ridiculous. We are lucky to have the original front door, though it’s in need of a little TLC.

We’ve been talking lots about the pros and cons of restoring original features, left to my own devices I’d be living in a museum, Ronnie in contrast, would choose a space-pod type abode, our compromise is to ensure we keep as many features as possible, even adding a couple, but to make sure we live in the 21st century, with all the comforts that brings. As much as we love the original door, it’s draughty and not very secure. The previous owners had added a horrid glass secondary door, we’ve decided to follow their lead, updating with modern door that will show the feature door behind and improve our thermal qualities and kerb appeal!

This is how i hope we’ll end up looking once door and glass are in place, along with our new slate sign and light.

I bought an antique letterbox to be used in the new door, which I hope will dull a little of it’s new-door-on-the-block sparkle, I guess this is exactly the type of compromise that works for us.

Through our letterbox this week, we received a parcel of original deeds for our property.

It is incredible to see how the house has changed hands, and names through it’s history – It’s been given several names over the years including Lansdowne and more recently Cheericote, there’s a lot of research to do to see what secrets I can uncover…

Almost there with the wallpaper! Boom! There’s only a tiny piece above the stairs to be done, which we’ll need some sort of magic beanstalk to reach.

Most rooms are now a bit stagnant, as we wait for the rewire to start in a week or so. There’s lots to be done, but I have started to have a think about how each room will look. I’m a great believer in having an object you love as a starting point, to build a design scheme around. My ‘object’ for the lounge is this canvas, from one of our holiday images.

Love the striking yellow, black and white and think it will help to blend our eclectic collections of ‘stuff’ vintage (mine) modern (his) and oriental pieces (ours) from our travels. This is the room as it was when we moved in:

And I’d like it to look a little more like this, but nicer, obvs. I’d normally be quite shy of bright colours, but every room in the house has been vivid yellow at one stage of its history, which is somewhat reassuring.

Finally, I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on the Ikea website planning the kitchen (then photoshopping potential Ebay purchases over the top). To be continued…

A mixed bag…

Posted on December 15, 2013 by ladylansdowne

Where did the week go? We’ve both been off work, and had grand intentions of all that we were going to achieve. A Christmas tree, a birthday, a ‘spot check’ visit from parents and more trades people than I could count coming in to quote, slowed us up a little. We have got some things done though, all totally unrelated and in no particular order:

1. We (he) took the kitchen ceiling down, what started as an ‘investigative hole’ revealed there was no insulation in the 1980’s extension, eek. At least that explains why it’s so damn cold in there! For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, the kitchen, bathroom and lobby ceilings then got taken down. Apparently to make way for insulation, electrician and gas man, due in late January and March, I’d rather have have waited and had a ceiling for Christmas given the choice!

2. I put up my favourite snowflake garland, it needs extending for the super sized fireplace.

3. We said a sad goodbye to Flash Gordon, fact is, it was him, or a radiator, super powers alone can’t keep you warm. Most of it came off in full pieces, so we’ll put him somewhere else one of these days.

4. We stripped the main bedroom. Actually, I mean ‘I’ stripped the bedroom, all by myself AND the steamer didn’t blow up even once!

I found another epic wall covering, above the picture rail languished this teapot-on-shelf number!

It had been hung upside down, of all the papers you could get away with hanging wrongly, this is not the one! (But please don’t haunt me past occupant, I’m sure it was cool at the time). There’s now only the last bedroom and the hallway and then the stripping is done – boom!

5. We found this printed Lino under several layers of carpet in the guest bedroom…

There was a newspaper underneath from 1929, so I’m presuming the Lino is around that era… The pixelated camo could easily be on the high street today, though maybe not as a floor covering… I can confirm nothing of major interest occurred on 8th October 1929 in Birmingham, on the sports page West Bromich Albion managed to beat Aston Villa 6/1, had that have happened this weekend, their manager might still have a job!

6. The house plants came home, they have been in the expert care of my aunt and uncle during our moves. We also bought back a couple of Belfast sinks I’d squirreld, we inherited two more when we moved in and STILL have two more to come… There is such a thing as too much of a good thing! The garden plants are staying until March, giving us a little time to clear some clutter from the patio area.

7. And finally, in other news, we have reason to believe Dottie cat has got a sideline as a Christmas Card model… So that’s where she’s been disappearing to since the cat flap was installed!

Pre-Christmas Skiving Weekend…

Posted on December 9, 2013 by ladylansdowne

There was no post this weekend, we went away to Shropshire to stay somewhere with heating… What a treat! We stayed in a little cottage in the grounds of Hennell Hall, we stayed in ‘Butler’s a Quarters’ which had the most incredibly comfy bed, a log burner and a hot tub overlooking the lake, perfect!

The lovely warm cottage has made me feel even colder at home, especially when the gas people called to say we’re looking at installation in late March, as they need to close the road to run gas to the house… We’ll be popular then! While exploring we did a little vintiquing, it would have been rude not to, we purchased these little lovelies…

This candle holder, which stands about 3.5 foot tall, and this lovely linen fabric, £4 each, can’t say fairer than that. Dottie was not impressed, but I was.

There’s not too much we can do on the house at the moment, we just have people coming in and out quoting on major works. Lots of tea and tape measures. We came home this morning and decided to go tree shopping. I was a little over enthusiastic with the height of our ceilings, after spending the last few years in a cottage, the ceilings here feel as high as the sky… Evidently not quite, the hole in the ceiling plaster allowed it to squeeeeze in, just. One of my relatives told me my Great Uncle used to say ‘If you are going to have one, have a big ‘un’, so Uncle Peter, this ones for you!

Finally for the day, I’ve put one of my favourite Lansdowne finds on the mantle… The Nativity collection we found in a cake tin in the attic…

We seem to be a donkey or two short, and some of the animals are of questionable scale, but I think it rocks!

Groundhog Weekend…

Posted on November 30, 2013 by ladylansdowne

This weekend, is much the same as last…Same crappy chores, just in a different room. We decamped from the library, back to the lounge, then back to library armed with our current weapons of choice – steamers and scrapers. Here is how it used to look, before we swung in with our wrecking ball.

Predictably, the plaster came off with the paper. Great. Oh, and the picture rail fell too. On the plus side, between layer 2 and 3 of ceiling paper, was a fab shade of yellow, oddly the exact shade I picked for my Blog highlight colour last week, I seem to have subconsciously branded the project, and appointed dirty yellow the corporate shade.

Oh well, at least Dottie had a nice day, spot the cat!

Slow News Week…

Posted on November 24, 2013 by ladylansdowne

Feels like there been little progress this week, at least aesthetically anyway. We’ve been busy getting in quotes for re-wire (under budget, whoop!), arranging for gas to be fitted and for roof to be patched. Seems winter arrived this week and the reality of spending it in a house with no heating is starting to set in, we’re committed now so just need to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with it… It’s still going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better!

I’ve also spent far too long figuring out how to make this bloody blog look nice… I’m getting there!

We spent yesterday stripping wallpaper from the lounge, a thankless task as there were several dull layers of painted paper, I’ve quite enjoyed stripping back layers of history in the other rooms, in this one though just orange and lilac paint. We did see however that the coving used to be black…hmm. The chimney breast was the last place to strip, the plaster came off with the paper, as did a little of the coving, but I think I can repair it. A chunk of plaster from the bedroom chimney place above also came down in sympathy. Roll on decorating phase.

Today we needed to remove the rest of the paper from the ceiling and race to pull down the rough section above the window before it falls on our heads or squashes the cat.

Later that day…

So only a little bit of the ceiling came down, which was a bonus. We blew up yet another wallpaper stripper (averaging one per room currently) and I tore a hole in my amazing pink boiler suit…sad times.

The room feels bigger and brighter already, homework for the week is to do the last bit of paper scraping in there, and hopefully attack the ceiling rose (eek) in readiness to do it all again next weekend in the library, oh the joys!

Today’s Progress…

Posted on November 16, 2013 by ladylansdowne

Full steam ahead with another weekend of work. First up we went to the post office to collect the all important SDS drill, to replace the one that blew up in the week. After 20 mins of waiting, I was told I couldn’t have the parcel without my passport, so off I went home, then joined the back of the queue. We then realised the parcel wasn’t the drill, but the seat covers Ronnie had forgotten he’d ordered… We arrived home to find a card through the door saying we’d missed the delivery of the drill while we were out, grrrr!

We then popped off to our local door and window reclamation shop in Lye, on the lookout for a new kitchen door and a stained glass panel to go in the little cubby hole seat.

We didn’t buy either today, though there are some beautiful items… We really need a good measure up first. We had another couple of random finds in the garden including an old Bovil pot and a Sommerset souvenir.

You’ll be glad to know we eventually got the drill, so we now have an exposed brick wall in the kitchen, woo hoo! We also set about the second bedroom fireplace, it was a bit sad as it’s probably been in residence for a good 80 years, but was a bit knackered, and (I whisper) a little bit ugly.

A bit of hammering and our little deco fireplace was a thing of the past.

My new obsession is now fireplace sourcing….

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