Author Archives: trish

Words of wisdom?

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When I got the house, every possible wall was papered – even above the tiles in the bathroom!  I’ve still got some to remove in the dining room (including the ceiling) but the rest of it has now gone – see my previous post about it plus I’ve done the bathroom since then.

Some of the wallpaper was certainly decades old and part of me kept thinking that there might be something marvellous written underneath some of it, some words of wisdom or maybe just an “I woz ‘ere” and a date. Something. Anything.

But for metres and metres of wallpaper I was disappointed.  Then I found it, half way up the stairs, one solitary profanity.

profanity

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon as applied to range doors

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The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is when you hear or learn something new and then it suddenly feels you like see / hear it everywhere. Do you ever get that? I’m usually left wondering whether it is just a massive coincidence or if I was terribly ignorant beforehand.

As mentioned in my That’s grate post, before having my grate made, I did a little bit of googling around to see if any one manufactured a Yorkist replacement grate but was unable to find anything. I did find a ‘wanted’ post from 2011 where someone was looking for a grate and a door.  I sent a message to ask if they ever found a grate in case they had a supplier, the poster emailed me and said yes, but it wasn’t actually the grate that she had been missing but the fret part, she was still looking for a door however.  We had a few emails back and forth and she corrected my assumption that she had a Yorkist range like mine, hers was similar but actually a different make.

The following week I’m dropping off the old grate in Laxey and decide to pop into the antique shop – they also have an overflow ‘warehouse’ across the street and just as I was leaving I noticed a door on the floor, partly obscured by a piece of wood, in the vicinity of a pile of slates with a sticker on them saying “not for sale – property of landlord”.  I moved the wood  out of the way and took the following photo:

Old range door

I sent it to my new correspondent just on a whim really – thinking ‘what are the odds that a door should literally appear at my feet days after someone told me they need one’, bearing in mind this is just a door, there’s was no evidence of a range to go with it and the chimney sweep told me the only similar range he was aware of is in Cregneash museum.  She replied to my email and said it might work and asked for the contact details of the antique shop – I sent her a link to their facebook page and she told me she’d been in touch and it sounded positive but she was waiting for more measurements and hadn’t dared to ask a price yet. I pointed out that the postage would probably be the prohibitive part.  Anyway, I just got an email from her, the shop arranged the postage and the door (with a slight adjustment for one of the hinges) fits!  Seriously – what are the odds?  Her wanted post had been published over 3 years ago!

Oh and when I went to collect my grate from the blacksmith – what do I see?  Yep, another range door – that one wasn’t for sale though, I asked him about it and he said it was for his barbecue!  I swear I’ve never seen a stray range door before and in the space of two weeks I have a conversation with someone who needs one and then see two lying around.  The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon in action?  Because if it’s not that, I must be magic 🙂

A secondhand bed

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Does the thought of a secondhand bed gross you out?  It was actually described as “Victorian” (although I have my doubts), if so, third or fourth hand might be more accurate.

Well, yesterday I bought this “secondhand” bed from an auction (photo from the catalogue)  It’s only a small double (4ft wide instead of 4ft 6in wide) but mattresses that size are far more common / affordable that I would have thought.  The head and footboards are oak and it has a sprung metal frame.

bed

My aunt and uncle have given me four single beds from their London flat which are currently in storage, so buying more beds was really not on my agenda. Bidding started at £10 – there were no takers, so dropped to start at £2 – I tentatively raised my hand, someone bid £3, I bid £4 – they pulled out. Yep, I won it for £4 (plus 40p commission). I hadn’t really even looked at it before the auction so in the break I had to dash over to check it could be dismantled!  It could and I made a furtive phone call “Dad, please could you put the roof rack on your car? I’ll explain when I get home”.  Where I’m going to put it in the house is more tricky though, it will actually fit pretty well in the small bedroom (which is too small for a full double) but I wasn’t really planning on putting a bed in there (I was thinking craftroom / library / study), hmm… one to sleep on I think (sorry).

I didn’t get the cushions on top of the bed in the photo though – they were won by a guy who looked like Neptune.