Clean

We are finally living in our new home. Although it isn't truly functioning like a home quite yet. Every time we need to shower we take a taxi to the other side of town to the home of a relative. The driver invariably asks, 'So what have you planned for tonight then?'. 

 My mother wonders why she can't phone us on the land-line yet. Here is the socket, in a sealed room, waiting for a paint-sprayer to be fixed. 

 Under the sheets are boxes that contain my clothes - those that weren't packed some months ago for what we thought was going to be an eight day camping trip; some food, which I imagine will now be inedible; our calendar with all birthdays noted; a large modular bookcase and many small boxes of paperbacks. Every so often something is missed and we hopelessly note that it must be somewhere within the labyrinth.

 

 Slowly our shower room is taking shape. We spent so much time visualising how we wanted it to be. We shared so many pictures of bathrooms we loved down to the tiniest details such as the way the curtains had been hung; it seems like an old friend even before it has been completed. The room originally was a kitchen and in a truly horrifying state.

 Be glad you cannot smell this picture! One of the labourers who came in to help clear away the old kitchen units had to be excused, the room made him feel so ill. It isn't just the dirt, it is the sadness of the room that it needs to purified of. With clean walls, ceiling and floor, the two large windows will let the sunshine do the rest we hope.

So work has begun on the top two floors. This is the destructive stage where all the false walls and stud walls (those added later and only made of wood and plasterboard) get smashed up and removed. Our first layout plans included, on the top and first floors removing the walls between these long thin rooms at the front

and uniting them with their neighbours



to create lovely big rooms with four windows across. One nice big bedroom on the very top floor and one even bigger room on the first floor - completely open plan for the whole floor. But the architect took a look at this wall

and decided it was a load-bearing and masonry. We were quite surprised since it had sounded hollow and anyway why put such a huge window at the end of such a long and narrow room. What could this room have been used for? It was a mystery. Ah well, so we planned how lovely our oddly thin kitchen would look anyway.

Image from Norm architects

Image from Baixa House, Lisbon

We are easy-going folks. It will be great. Lovely, yes.

Today our friend who we have seen do this sort of thing again and again, who has years of hands-on experience and a lot of common sense, a man who we of course asked to manage the whole project for us, removes the false ceiling. He looks above the line of the false ceiling and sees there is nothing at all. He looks at our plans and looks at the huge empty space that he is going to have to 'make good' and gives us a call.

'Are you sure you really want this wall?'

Why did we think it would be masonry?

Effortlessness

1. Robert Kristiansen's Summer House, Norway

2. Bryan Minnich and Katie D'Angelo, Washington DC

3. Bryan Minnich and Katie D'Angelo, Washington DC

4. One of the bedsit kitchens in our new house

Today I was looking at a couple of 'Sneak Peak' homes on the inspiring designsponge.com blog. Although we need to start from scratch with our house - removing the false walls and ceilings in order to install unified heating, plumbing and electricity systems, it made me realise how what we have already could be easily become something cosy and of beauty.

The major charm of these kitchens is their effortlessness. They make the most of what is there already. With some paint, a clean up and a thoughtfully placed table and vase of flowers or arrangement of ceramics these rooms are warm and friendly.

Last week we bought a house.

Finally.

We have spent the past five years travelling, renting and even towing our home behind us around the cities and countryside of Europe. Our children are now fourteen and sixteen. They have had a rich few years of an ever-changing landscape in which to learn and play. Now we want them to have a few happy years in one place, creating memories in a happy home that they can retreat to in spirit and in real life.

The house isn't a home yet. It was divided up into six scarily-tiny-looking bedsits by the council at some sad point in its history, then we bought it. We bought it at an auction. It took five minutes.

No one wanted it.

It might have been the six sad flimsy little kitchens. It might have been those too-tiny shower rooms and the odd smell. Perhaps it was the oppressive false ceilings. But it was this outstanding staircase that made them actually gasp with horror as they stepped through the promising, relatively smart Georgian black door.

That red! Those black 'treds'. What is that linoleum stuff and where did every school/hospital buy it?! But wait. It is rather bright at least. And someone was inspired enough to put in a rather unimpressive but effective skylight.

But we knew it was in one of our favourite streets in one of our favourite cities. It was cheap so we had some money left over to tidy it up. The roof is in good order; the windows need some paint but are sound and even the cellar is essentially dry. How hard can this be? How could we resist having a go? How could we say no to the promise of these beautiful windows.

This blog might be an unveiling story of horror, one where you can barely peek through your fingers, but hopefully it will be an adventure story of the making of a home.