Home

We have been living in our house for over a year and it continues to be a source of considerable annoyance to me.

It turns out that I do not have impeccable taste and an eye for what would work in my home. Nor do I have a moment to address the vast array of continuing irritations that is my home.

I plan to go through them one by one in the hope that they will provide a catalogue of things to do, if we ever have any spare money, time or taste. And also, that it might make me feel a bit better. Anyone observing that the length of this list is such that I could have repainted the bathroom in the time it took to write it will be taken out and shot.

General

I grew up in a big house. This has given me delusions of grandeur. It did not prepare me very well for living in a small house with one main room downstairs and one bathroom for five people, three of whom “can’t wait”.

Outside

Our house is an end of terrace, disproportionate, 1930s number. The previous owners decided that there is nothing nicer than pink pebbledash. It’s a particularly nasty shade of salmon pink. The front door which cost €1,100 (emergency replacement when tenants were in residence and the previous door was broken down with an axe) is utterly vile. It is varnished a nasty shade between brown and orange, has cheap brass work and a fan light which features glass with bumps. I shudder.

All of the original front sash windows have been replaced by nasty double glazing which, unkindest cut, is so badly fitted that there is actually a gap between wall and window in the Princess’s room where the wind whistles in.

The back of the house features a small ugly extension (the kitchen and the bathroom) and green window frames (sash windows still there, hurrah) which are not a good match with the pink paint. Moreover the extension has no foundations. And when we moved in, the builders took one look at the roof and assured us it wouldn’t last a winter.

Read more...