Goodbye to all that...

Goodbye to all  that...

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Definitely not the nicest bedroom in London

Right, I think we've all had enough of the garden. Very nice and everything - but finished. Boorrrring, as my son would say. On to the next big project. I have been extremely coy about the master bedroom in the WH, mainly because

a) it's hideous
b) see above
c) we lived in it for eight months and it's definitely the worse for wear (although I freecycled our old fridge freezer recently so it no longer has quite the same Rising Damp ambience. I used to expect Rigsby to emerge from the wardrobe looking for Miss Jones..)

The biggest problem is the huge jagged crack in the ceiling, which looks as if the whole thing might crash down on our heads one night. Other problems include:

Damp stains and peeling by the windows
Rattling, single glazed, rotten windows ( they'll be staying unless my husband gets promoted to king of the world or something - have you seen the price of new wooden sash windows?!!!)
One tiny radiator in exactly the place you might put some bookshelves rather than under the windows where it might warm the place up to a fraction above freezing
Hideous avocado ensuite washroom
Our books ( sorry kaybar!) have spilled over into this room too and there is absolutely nowhere to put them..
Dominated by the huge leather bed we bought for our much bigger loft room in our old house
Repository for unsightly furniture from student days not remotely usable elsewhere in the house ( rather a lot of wicker...)
Needs rewiring - and still has very strange mixture of pendant and wall lights that were there when we moved in

Good points:

It's big ( about 15 by 18 not including the ensuite)
It has a natural ensuite with window ( our v quirky houses had them in 1900 - very avant-garde)
There is a wall of really well organised and not completely monstrous (though not Living Etc modern) wardrobes.)
My husband likes the Oliver Bonas bedside lamps ( there is one at the end of our road and he is a frequent visitor..)

I feel slightly Marie Antoinette ish complaining about all this as it is all perfectly functional. But walking through the door after the rest of the house is a real blast from the past and quite depressing. We recently had a weekend away in Goring on Thames ( belated birthday treat). We stayed in a gastro pub with rooms called the Miller of Mansfield, which I highly recommend. Our room ( mumber 8) was pink and rather groovy - even my husband liked it, so I am hoping I can persuade him to bring forward the bedroom renovation and let me have something marginally more feminine than he usually permits.

We have what is probably the classic gender divide in our household. If I buy a Cath Kidston tea towel (although actually I prefer Millie Mac at the moment) I am accused of drowning the house in chintz, and my daughter's spotty blinds are about as far as I've been allowed to go on more permanent features.

Believe it or not we have painted the walls since we moved in (see phase one). It's F&B Old White, which we used to cover up the ghostly imprint of the former owner's bedhead in exactly the same place. As ours was a probate sale it felt a bit too much like stepping into her shoes...! I would like to do something with some of the 1950s and 60s copies of Vogue she left behind though - none of them are worth anything as she was a real fashionista and just archived the pages from each issue that she wanted to keep. Not a complete edition amongst them - shame. Am thinking of getting a couple of the covers framed - some of them are truly fabulous.







You can just see the crack in this picture, which was taken this evening; believe me it's huge and scary.







































That avocado basin. My mum bought me the gilt mirror for £4 from the charity shop at the end of our road ( there's an amazing array of shops down there!) and I am thinking of using it as the basis for the new scheme. Much to my husband's dismay...

2 comments:

Peta said...

...and the fun continues!

Look forward to following the transformation!

:)

Anonymous said...

I was expecting a monstrosity of a room and its actually not bad!! Your hubby is right about the lamps they are very nice indeed :-) good luck!!
Lesley