Well it’s been an age. Since the last blog post and since starting this whole thing. Vintage Cottage Style is here!
Here’s the Timeline:
- Purchase agreed just before Christmas 2020
- Sale completed in May 2021
- Several months of building works, including reinstating the inglenook in the living room, removing the chimney breast upstairs, total rewire and new plumbing.
- Moved in middle of September, even though the electrics and heating weren’t finished.
- Mid October – the last plumber left the building.
Phew!
But here’s how it’s looking now.
Although the inglenook is non functional, it makes all the difference to the living room. If nothing else it is big enough (6ft ‘6″ wide, 3ft deep and 4ft 6″ high) to hold all the spinning wheels when not in use. The beam is original, probably even older than the cottage, so a good 250 plus years. Don’t seem to be able to find a before picture though!
But here’s a ‘before’ of the parlour…
Which now looks like this. The fireplace was taken right back in time, it was all there hidden behind the modern nonsense. The plan was to inject warmth and colour to create a real vintage cottage style snug.
And in the kitchen – here ‘before’
It was totally gutted. The dark overbearing units all gone. And the gloomy galley feel banished…..
….in favour of white units, slate floor and oak worktops. And the sink moved to the back wall, using the whole width of the room to both widen and shorten the space. The unit on the right was made up from bits in the storeroom and old cupboard doors, that top is a piece of mahogany no less. The shelves above came from the old place.
Upstairs is going all out on the vintage cottage style. All this stuff came from the old cottage, but now has more room to breath.
Before the rooms lacked colour and warmth. What’s with all that cream, brown and beige?
The walls here are ‘Camomile Pink’ Farrow and Ball, not showing up very well in the photo.
Here’s the ‘home office’. Basically a desk in the corner of a bedroom.
Meanwhile at the other end of this room there was a lot of work to do.
The far end was completely taken up with cupboards, housing and hiding the old water tank and lots of plumbing. The placement of the bed meant that you couldn’t even get to all these cupboards.
With a new heating system all that has gone. However the room isn’t wide enough for a standard bed (it’s 6ft). The solution was to build a bespoke frame. It is stupidly high (80cm to the slats), but that means an enormous storage space underneath (There are doors on those front panels). The final touch is a made to measure 6ft mattress which is now on order.
Apart from the framework itself, all the wood for this project, as well as all the other cupboards around the cottage, were made using materials found down in the workshop and storeroom. The Workshop featured way back in the last Post.
There’s still plenty of work to do around the edges. And the general clutter of evey day life has yet to build up. But all that can come in it’s own good time.