My parents’ house and now flat is full of carefully matching furniture.
Not like mine! We are hunters down of rare antiques, rare as in, not awfully expensive so hard to find, because of raising children to feel that our house was their house too. Not a problem convincing our children of that I don’t think!
We have downsized from a three thousand square foot home to a eight hundred square foot flat. I like to say it’s 90 square metres because that sounds seven smaller and pity evoking.
While we’re on the subject of talking smaller, people use kilograms to measure their weight. Here I am a lithe 59 kilos! But my waist is a colossal 76 centimetres and I am 172.7 centimetres tall! We buy everything in grams and kilograms too and our milk and petrol comes in litres not pints and gallons and our cheese and meats come in grams not pounds. Aaaah, the metric system!
Back to the perfectly matching furniture. The living room consists of twelve pieces of light wood Ercol,
and a round dining table with six chairs.
Ercol is wood with cushions and at times quite comfortable, but not the kind of sofas you’d imagine sleeping on or flopping on heavily after a hard day at the office.
It has been featured in our house, my parents’ house, since I was six. I asked my brother if he liked it and his response had me calling dealers looking for a buyer. No tears would be shed by the selling of the family sofas and chairs in favour of more modern and comfortable, unique pieces of and mismatched antique chairs and tables.
The bedrooms are full of Stag, all matching. The wood here is very dark, highly polished, and ring resistant. There are a plethera of drawer chests, dressing tables, headboards and bedside lockers, where our bedrooms at home were minimalist with the walk in closets here the whole range has been bought.
The lightwood furniture in the lounge harldy ever needs dusting, well, not unless I stand really closely and peer, or am doing a long hold in a yoga pose and can’t help but notice the rungs on the chair are in dire need of a dust, instantly forgotten about once the pose has been released and my mat rolled up.
I like this kind of furniture.
But the furniture in the bedroom is quite another story. I dust, and there’s dust, I dust again and there’s more dust. I use oodles of Mr. Sheen and although my duster dos not come away dark with dirt, I still see the dust manacingly beckoning to me in the sunlight.
I should be safe in England, so far there has been minimal sunlight, but really, the dust shows up even in plain old cloudy daylight!
I had a couple who own an antique shop come and check out the goods. They were Irish and hilarious telling me that I wanted to get rid of it fast, and when I mentioned that I had observed the rapidly gathering of dust on the dark furniture she said,
“The poor dear wants it out of here now!”
I am waiting for a job lot price to see if it’s worth the exchange from flawlessly matching furniture to the bibs and bobs we are wont to put together when left to our own devises and imaginations.
Perhaps the new carpet will help me see it all in a different light.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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