The joy of an old house

I have mixed feelings about our house. I love its history, its quirkiness and the sense of being one in a long line of people who've lived there. I do like looking at things, like the carved panelling that has mysteriously ended up lining the boiler cupboard, and wondering "Why?"

One thing I have had to learn, after living most of my life in houses no one else wanted to, is the ability to stick my hands over my eyes and go "LA LA LA LA LA I'm not looking," as the sheer enormity of what needs doing threatens to overwhelm us. Taking on a "project" when you have scadloads of money is one thing, but doing it when you don't, and your income is, as mine is, unpredictable, is daft. However much your surveyor might like to say that x, x, and x are urgent and y and y could certainly do with being done within the year, we know full well the limitations of what our income is, and so nod wisely and mentally stretch the period of works to years, not months. It's all very well other people saying why don't you sell it and let someone else with enough money do it. When you try, as we did a few years ago, and those someones think there's just too much to do, and press the avoid button, you really are stuck with it and have to battle on.

Which leads me to the mixed feeling bit I suppose: sometimes, after you've been doing it for years, you start to feel like the house is eating you. Every spare bit of money, it swallows. It demands things you haven't got: money; expertise; time. Sometimes it feels like a giant stone millstone round my neck. And I get tired, tired, tired.

But - it's just the rescue thing I suppose - I love to see houses that are properly restored, not b******d about; left as they are and not ripped about because someone who'll only be there for a few years has decided the house doesn't suit their "modern" lifestyle - in which case, don't buy a period house. Build one yourself so you get what you want, or go and carve up something modern. When we tried to sell, I hated it so much in the end I used to go and hide at the top end of the field whenever prospective buyers were show around, inventing some task I desperately needed to do up there. Anything to avoid having to listen to yet another person saying "Well, that wall could go; we could put a window in there; that's not convenient. That staircase would have to go. And LOOK at that uneven plaster. It wouldn't matter if we took up that Victorian tile floor, would it?"

YES IT WOULD. The house is 700 years old, for goodness' sake. Generations of people have lived here. The house has been in this format for at least the last 300 years, and you know what? None of them died because they thought that wall was in the wrong place. How people can breeze in saying how they love the house's period feel, and then want to rip out everything that gives it that period feel, leaves me alternating between bafflement and wanting to spit bile. So, I suppose I should be grateful that the credit crunch meant we didn't even get as far as putting the house on the market this year, as at least it's saved hapless would-be buyers being savaged by me snarling my SPAB hardline view (just leave it alone) at them.

Anyway, back to restoration. As long as it's water-tight, everything else can (usually) wait. So, I have learned to edit out what I know I can do nothing about, and concentrate on what I can. This does have the handy advantage that I can ruthlessly screen out things like this;






which was our lovely landing window. It hasn't been opened for years, not since we realised it wasn't attached to anything along the bottom, and that if you pushed it the whole thing would swing out in an alarming (though in an odd way, charming) fashion, from the top.

We finally managed to get this done;

which led to this;

The carpenters hung the sash on the wrong side, which is why the catch is upside down, but we decided to leave it and add our own bit of oddness to the house. Maybe in a couple of generations' time, someone else will be asking, "Why did they do that?"