My Home Renovation Project
It was love at second sight, you see at the first look, I wasn’t sure it was big enough and the parking was on the main road but by the time I had got back to my Grans I was smitten. We arranged a viewing and the following day we, Mr N in tow went to view it, my Grandparents came for the second viewing naturally.
As we met the brother and sister selling our home for their dearly departed mother Betty, God rest her soul, we instantly fell in love with the place and talking to the two of them learning about their treasured memories of growing up here and life Betty and her husband had just made us love the place even more.
Sure the interior wasn’t really to our taste but I could cope with it for the time being as I feel the endearing charm of a happy family life here before us and that just exudes from each room and unusual piece of furniture left behind. I find it rather endearing the fifties charm about the place and as a vintage loving gal especially all things forties and fifties so the place just gripped me by the heart strings.
So memories and sentiments aside our home harbours a lilac bathroom suite, that you can hardly move your arms to brush your teeth in. you see when our house was built back in the 1800’s, bath were tin and sat in the kitchen by the fire, basins were a bowl and jug upon a dresser and lavatories lived outside. So when our dear departed Betty and her husband brought a bathroom indoors and into the modern era a minute bathroom was added upstairs along the hall from our master-bed and it was taken of the second bedroom least I might add our second bedroom is a rather obscure L-shaped unusable space really even a single bed doesn’t fit into it properly. So needless to say it is my mission to remodel the 2nd floor to create a more usable space.
Amongst the rather strange setup of the second floor in her later years her son brought the kitchen onto the first floor into the smaller room next to the lounge. You see it once lived on the ground floor where the back garden opened onto the garden out back. Where lives an old fashioned cast iron range (that we have now had restored to its former glory.) But as Betty got older her son didn’t want her to have to jaunt up and down the steep steps to the cellar kitchen so he made her one in what were the dining room and the cellar become redundant and used for storage.
This added characteristic drew me to the place as it was just another bonus feature that wasn’t listed in the estate agents description and I fully intend to move my kitchen back down there and use the range to bake bread and to keep my family warm in the winter. I believe it will be a particularly welcome feature come Christmas time, when I expected my family to gather at our place for gingerbread men and egg nog, mulled wine with fresh cinnamon and poached pears with the obligatory feasts and roasts in the cold winter evenings during the festive period. I have visions of my Great Granny sat in a rocking chair that we have procured from a wonderful thrift store, my nieces, nephews and cousins playing on the rug and the rest of family dotted about the kitchen chatting happily and feasting on the good food I have so pleasantly enjoyed creating and crafting alongside my Grandfather playing his Violin to accompany festive carols on cd and bunting and paper chains the little ones helped me to make. Ooooh I can’t wait, I love Christmas and it seems to love me. Besides the kitchen and the bathroom/bedrooms there is also the loft which thankfully already houses a proper staircase and usable room, a living room with seventies featurettes and gardens, hallways, stairwells and landings to keep me busy and you with the entertainment that is Mr N and Me doing D.I.Y.
Here I will bring you along our journey of self-building/renovation of Rose Cottage.
TTFN,
-MrsNx
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