Transforming wooden furniture

I started with the little cabinet as I found that the most inspiring and couldn't wait to see how it would transform! With all the little cuttings it was obvious that I was drawn to white painted furniture which of course would fit well into the small house, as dark woods can be a little overpowering in a small space.
Its a labour intensive job to sand the furniture initially, messy and a bit boring so its good to start with a small piece so you get quick results and it spurs you on for the rest. In a sensitive and often self questioning condition the last thing you need is feeling like you've failed at something else so be realistic, if you've never done anything like this before, start with a wooden photo frame or a candle stick and work up.
You can do the transformation one of two ways. Either lightly score the surface of the lacquered wood and paint it with white matt emulsion (or silk if you prefer but not gloss) and finish it off with clear varnish or sand off all the varnish and take it back to the raw wood. You can then paint it with emulsion (has to be matt for this) and once that's dry, sand it back in places to reveal the lovely wood underneath.

The trick to this aged/weathered look is to rub off the paint in the areas that would naturally wear such as the corners and edges, around the handles and on the top surface. What your after is that 'years of use' look but its a fine line between shabby chic and ready for the dump so don't over do it. All is not lost though if you do sand back to much, just paint it over and start again. I find a good trick is to also rub a little shoe polish on those bits that would naturally get a little grubby as the new paint can look too white all over. Just a very small amount on a fingertip rubbed along a prominent edge gives it that overall aged look. You can also rub cold tea onto it in little patches but have a go at this whole effect with tea on a spare bit of wood first as it is a love it or hate it effect.

The final layer is the clear varnish over the top but do make sure its all thoroughly dry first as it doesn't look good smudgy. I wish I'd taken a 'before' shot of the cabinet but I hadn't thought about capturing the transformation of Ambleside at that point. It looks rather quaint doesn't it and the cabinet had only cost £15 in a charity shop and a few pounds for the paint and varnish which would of course streatch to many bits of furniture.

Hunting for Gold

Look Look Look what I found in the charity shop for £5!!
I couldn't believe it when she said the price, its proper metal and everything! I hope it works, she said they couldn't promise but it was worth a punt for £5. Will go very nicely thank you in the Living Room (when i eventually get around to painting the ceiling)

People give away perfectly good things when they redecorate or fancy a change of style and regular visits to Charityy shops and markets can throw up some amazing finds. Yes we would all like to pop along to our favourite designer store and kit out our entire house top to bottom in brand new furniture and accessories but I guarantee once you've got the bargain bug, you will never go back. When your circumstances have changed and you have a whole house to fit out starting from scratch the cost can be huge. Why tell anyone?
The light fitting above is timeless, still looks as good as new and if it really bothers you that it's not from M&S Home then just don't tell. I on the other hand can hardly contain my excitement that my mothers cost her £200 and mine cost £5, thats £195 that I have to spend on other things!
Previous generations saw nothing wrong with hand me downs and make do and mend, when did we get into the mind set that anything we didn't run up worrying debts on a credit card for isn't worth having? Its challenging, fun and thrilling to go hunting and its also very good for your carbon footprint. 

3 tables and a cabinet

Now I did buy 3 little tables and a cabinet to be going on with, I couldn't help myself. I ferried them back to Mothers garage and began sanding. It gives you a purpose, something to get up for in the morning and I highly recommend beginning your personal rebuild as soon as you can, even if you have to wait to move into your new home as it turned out I did.
Theres lots of little things you can do to begin your journey back to happiness, which seem pointless at first, meaningless when your drowning in miserableness and fighting with your own thoughts but find something to get your teeth into and MAKE yourself do it. What your after is a sence of achievement, however small and the creation of something new that has nothing to do with your old life.
When I first moved into Ambleside those boxes remained firmly packed for weeks, some of them still are. I took out the basics of what I needed such as pans and plates but most things were such painful reminders that I couldn't bare to have them about. So creating new things gives you something to look at at least, that doesn't reduce you to a jibbering wreck. I look at those things now, with some of my old life bits and pieces sitting on them and I remember that poor shattered person I was when I was sanding and repainting. How I would go back inside the house cold and numb wanting the comfort of my own house and feeling lost and alone. But those tables and that little cabinet fill me with a sense of pride now because it didn't beat me, even in those early confusing, scared, heartbraking days, those projects where just like the tiny new shoots outside the garage that signalled the end of winter and the beginning of spring, they were the new shoots of the roses that were to be my future life.

lists and things

Always one for lists and planning, I sat down and wrote a list of the things I was going to need and scoured and cut up interior design magazines for inspiration of the style of house I was going to create. The planning helped, it really turned days filled with negativity, tears and uncertainty into days with a new beginning, a way forward and a challange, as I wasn't going to be able to afford it all!

Having bought and been given some bits of second hand furniture in my previous previous life and restored them by following the instruction in 'how to' books borrowed from the library, I realised that this was an enjoyable talent that I could resurect and save myself a tidy sum of money to boot. It was a shame that I had discarded those peices previously but now that the vintage, cottagey style was all the rage again it was perfect timing so I began to scour the charity shops for furniture that I needed.

As I didn't own the house yet, I couldn't buy because they have no interest in storing things for you and some really lovely bits were lost. The furniture in these places moves fast, if you don't get there early morning it'll be gone by the afternoon but visiting regularly I soon realised there seemed to be a never ending supply. People chuck out some perfectly good stuff and with a little vision you can create some really unique bits of furniture for your home. Of course if your property developing this is never a waste because you just simply take it all on to the next property with you or leave it there as a fully furnished house for tennants.

A lot of the stock was house clearences which is very sad, someones whole life, previously polished and cared for sitting awaiting its fate, which is what had happened to my Grandmas furniture only 6 months before, if only I had known. Sideboards, tables, wardrobes that she had collected over the years from antique shops and charity shops and had formed the familiar stability in my childhood and beyond everytime we visited, all bundled into the back of a van and carted off.
They could be sitting in my house now but everything happens for a reason and as I inherited my love of foraging and finding treasures from her, I would like to think she helped me on that wonderful day when I walked into the Mind shop and found everything I needed just sitting there waiting for me, even down to the Imperial typewriter that I had cut out and stuck into my folder. It was uncanny but everything seemed to fall uncannily into place in those first weeks and I have a theory about that but we'll come to it later.......

I've bought a House

Wondering around Ambleside for the first time, it felt like home. Kirsty and Phil have told me many times that you can't tick every box on your checklist but this old house came pretty close. It had no kitchen to speak of apart from a very old set of under sink cupboards with a sink on the top, old and stained but functionable. It had the original pantry cupboard in the corner, very dirty but restored to its original glory it would be lovely. The bathroom was very large for the type of property and had a toilet, sink and a bath in it but you could hardley call it a suite as the Estate Agent's particulars had. There were cracks in every ceiling but not too bad, the sash windows were rotten in places and ill fitting now after the years. I couldn't see any signs of damp and the roof seemed in good condition (both quite expensive things to put right) but there was something going on with the front wall in the bedroom. The cracks were larger in this room and the window had been replaced, with dodgy plasterwork in places. This didn't put me off as old houses do move but instinct told me something was amiss. I quickly checked the ground floor brickwork but there were no obvious signs of settlement so it wasn't subsidence but I didn't want any shocks or disasters, I'd had enough of those already. I put in an offer but with a very unsteady heart. We rallied backwards and forwards with the price and settled on something that made both parties happy. And I was happy. The house was empty, I was told we could complete in 2-3 weeks and with that knowledge the first blobs of polyfiller had been dobbed into my cracks and I poddled off to my old home to box up my 'stuff'

I had at one point in my life, a whole four bedroom detatched house of furniture, sofas, beds, tables, chairs, fridge, cooker etc etc and a whole room full of cuddly toys. But I was informed that my things didn't 'fit the style' of our new couple life despite the fact that there was very little coming in from the other side. Hey ho in the spirit of new beginnings I car booted everything I owned. STUPID!

It was all I could do through the years to keep ontop of the huge bills for the home we shared so any furniture purchased was, at the closing of the show, apparantly not paid for by me and therefore not mine. Shame you couldn't take back electricity, gas and water used, not to mention ....ah be still my bitter mouth.
Anyhoooo the upshot was that I boxed up all the bits that I had been allowed to keep in the house during our time together along with the things that I had bought with my own money and presents that although not paid for by me must surley class as mine? Hideous business. Took ages, was very painful and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Hopefully I will never have to do anything like that again. Everything was stacked in the garage to await moving in day. I was going to have to buy furtniture for me and the two kids as well as a kitchen, bathroom, windows, carpets......the bill was rising, it was scary stuff.

The House at the Bottom of the Hill

Theres many reasons why you can end up in this predicament, I know a women who's partner died of cancer and he's left everything to his child from his first marriage. Coping with the heartbreak of watching someone you love die from a disease is bad enough, I know I've done it but then to have to leave the home she shared with him with nothing, hideous. When she's stronger she may fight it who knows but there she was sailing along with a happy ending when wham, heartbreak, homeless.

Another friend has to sell the house that she was born in because her partner left her for another women and left her in so much debt that she can't afford to live there anymore. Her mothers house. She lost her mother recently and now she's loosing the home her mother left her. It can happen to any of us, for all manner of reasons and you might say we were all stupid not to protect ourselves but your in couple mode, does it matter who's name things are in, does it matter that one earns the money while one tends the home..er well..yes it does as it turns out but here we are and you can't cry over spilt milk. Well you can cry and you do..buckets full. If you have any buckets that is. But all that water doesn't get the baby bathed so you need a plan of action, hence the clipboard.

When I first went into Ambleside I knew what I was looking for and I knew what I was hoping not to find. A house up the road was also for sale and was exactly the same but considerably cheeper so it would seem a no brainer BUT theres always a reason and usually with Estate Agents you have to dig to get at it. Because I have surveyed a great many buildings, pubs, a lot of them very run down I could tell that this poor little house had rather more than a few surface wounds. Turned out it had subsidence, not a deal breaker in itself but you have to be very very sure that you can cope with that before you take it on. It can prove to be either a simple job of repairing a nearby cracked manhole or a huge expensive job when builders dicover theres actually an underground stream thats dried up and is caving in taking your whole house with it. I took advice and the pie of unknown ingredients coupled with limited access for the necessary cooking implements made that particular slice just too much for me to take on. Safer to pay a bit more, take less of a risk and choose the little house at the bottom of the hill, Ambleside. 

Building Model Aeroplanes

The internet is such a friend when your on your own so instead of shutting the door of wherever you are resting your head and disolving into a blubbering heap in front of Sleepless in Seatle for the hundreth time, get online and research how much it will cost to put 7 radiators and a boiler into a terraced house!
How much will 12 double glazed windows cost, which are the normal cracks and which ar...

e the 'run a mile' cracks that you should look for, could you spot the signs of damp? Its all on there and armed with the facts you should quickly be able to make an overal appraisal of each property with a simple tick box system that you have compiled from your research. Keep it simple so it doesn't take an age but include all the points that you'll need to catch in each room so that your mind can't be distracted by the his and hers monogrammed towels.
You can then take that list home and do a more in depth report, costing out what each property will cost you and be able to compare them logically. Make a 'possibles' pile and an 'in my dreams pile' and then chuck that pile away, no matter how tempted you are. You've been through enough, don't load more heartache upon yourself by overstreaching finacially or by thinking you can change a manhole when you've never even changed a plug.

Its even more sensible still to think about how much time and energy you will be able to commit also. How long will it take you to strip, replaster and redecorate a room when you have a job, 4 kids and two dogs to walk? If you don't know find out. Ask a friend "how long did it take you to redecorate your living room?" Realistically calculate how many spare hours (or minutes) you have in a day and devide the time it took them by the time you have spare to come up with how long it will take you to do the same job. 5 years? best choose a ready decorated house then!

But seriously, you are healing, slowley nuturing yourself back to the glory that you once where and your shattered self esteme will not be able to take your Jiminy Cricket voice telling you that your useless because you haven't got that tiling finished in the downstairs loo yet.  

Its very very rewarding to build a new world around yourself and you can do it as fast or as slow as your time and finances will allow but its very very important to fit it to suit you. If you don't like decorating, don't take it on, find a property that fits you and will re-build you in other ways "I could really bring that garden back to life" "I could make that spotless but cold new-build into a home with my talent for making cushions and curtains"

Try to look for something within the house that you can do well, that will make a difference. What is your talent? (you may have to look quite far back if you've lost who you are in couplesville) Go on you know you have one, everyone does if you look deep enough. What have you done thats made you proud of yourself? Not others proud of you, what made YOU proud. You can bet your bottom dollar you can link that to something you can do in your new home that will help to begin to restore your faith in yourself. Put that on your check list too  'am I going to be able to make a space in this house to build and display my model aeroplanes' (you know those ones you stopped making because your partner said it was a waste of time) Its going to be YOUR home, YOUR space and you can do whatever you want with it. Isn't it exciting!

What Needs To Be Done?

If it doesn't feel right, leave. Even if your developing purley for profit, I firmly believe you need to have a bit of emotion involved or you wont finish it. Doing up a house is exasperating, exhausting, overwhelming at times and the phrase 'labour of love' couldn't be more fitting, especially if your having to live in the mess while your doing it. Everything takes twice as long as you think it will, generally costs twice as much as you think it will and there will be times when your pushed to your limit. Its easier if you care about the place, even if you hate it at times!
Its a bit like raising children, they can run you ragged all day, you could swing for them, you really could but at the end of the day when you tip toe into their bedroom and they're all snuggled up and sleepy, you remeber why your putting yourself through it and thats the feeling you need to keep you going when you've been sanding paintwork ALL DAY. You flop down on the sofa, filthy, tearful, dust up your nose, your hands raw from the sandpaper, microwave meal for one on your lap and you look around and think, I did that, me and I'm going to do it all again tomorrow.

Back to the first viewing, then if you decide you do like it, of course you DO need your practical head on. Look around the house at what needs to be done and how much it will cost, which can be utterly daunting if you've never done anything like that before or if you've never done it alone. At first, when you view it helps to have a pre-written checklist so you can just tick off the points as you go around, especially if the agent is rabbiting in your ear trying to distract your attention away from the things he doesn't want you to see. When your in the kind of raw state that only the loss of a loved one can bring about, your mind is fuzzelled, nerves are raw and it helps to have a security blanket of a clipboard, a pen and a mission (and maybe a pair of dark glasses so the silly pin stiped wally doesn't see you cry) Worse is being shown round by the current owners, knowing our luck a blissfully happy family with smiley faced photo frames on every surface and couply bits jumping out at you at every turn. You'll need balls of steel so pre-pare yourself.

At First Glance

The pictures of the inside of the house are exactly as the house was when I first walked in to view it. The carpets had been taken up in every room and most of the furniture removed apart from a few peices put by for collection. You have to try to look beyond what you see when you first walk in and try to imagine all that it could be, this comes easily to me with having developed properties before and seen the transformation of properties I've drawn planning applications for but it isn't a difficult thing to master how to do. First look up at the ceiling to guage the size of the room, rooms can be cluttered with furniture and personal belongings but up there on the ceiling is (usually) nothing but a light fitting. Train your eye to look at the corners, notice the size of all the area and play a little game of flipping the room upside down in your mind and imagining the ceiling as the floor. Sounds nuts but it really works with practice.

Next notice any features, skirting boards, picture rails, fireplaces. Block out and ingnore everything else thats there, try it in your own home before you start to view properties, really focus on the permanant parts of the room and make everything else invisable. Property developers/interior designers can do this without even having to think about it but they weren't born knowing how to do it, its a learned skill. Do you like what you see so far? The size, the features? Does it 'feel' right?

Go back to your upside down ceiling as floor house, imagine your furniture in that space. Again practice doing this at home, look right up at your ceiling, you know your belongings, you know where the sit in that room, imagine them positioned upsidedown on the ceiling. They fit of course, you have designed that room previously (oh yes you have!) so when you go into the new property do the same, will your furniture fit? Look up, arrange your furniture in that space, do you like it?

Meeting Ambleside

So when I left I was homeless, literally. I had no rights to the home that we had created and it had been a bone of contention for years that had driven a wedge between us greater than even I realised. Yup I was stupid and I knew it. So there I was, back at mothers with nothing. It takes time to pick at the bones of the carnige that is a broken relationship and people do come out the other side with some kind of financial arrangement but in those first few days and weeks, if your the one that left, you've got nowt.

I needed somewhere to live and quick. I have developed property before and enjoyed it so I set about looking for a run down place that I could do up and sell on as the beginning of a property developing project. The idea was that I would go it alone, I didn't need anyone, I would be brave and strong and basically I couldn't afford to do it any other way.

I first saw Ambleside on an Estate Agents website and it was perfect. It had had some renovation but still needed an awful lot of work, it had new wiring and most importantly new central heating. I can't live without warmth and putting in heating was expense I didn't need as there was no double glazing which would be the first big expense.

I rang quickly as I knew it was exactly the type of property a landlord would snap up and I think I was one of the first people to view. It was very run down but it had a lovely feel to it as soon as you walked in despite the first impression, even the Estate Agent said she had a 'soft spot' for the house. Everyone who visited in the first few weeks I moved in, when it was in its rawest state, commented on the 'good feeling' Having surveyed a great many buildings in my working life, I have experienced the 'feel' of a building good or bad when there are no obvious reasons for either. I firmly believe that buildings absorb the 'energy' that exists within them over the years and it was obvious this little house had had some very lovely times. Despite its outward appearence, inside it was still smiling :-)

feathering the nest

Now when I feel like this, I nest, hence the decorating part of this story. I have my own home now, well it isn't a home yet, its too soon to feel that way about it, theres no history here. I like my bedroom window, I've feathered that, its where I sit and write, read, think, try not to think..

 Today will be a homemaking day, I've fabric to turn into cusions and curtain poles to put up to try and stop the cold pouring through the rotten old doors and windows, its a very delabidated house. It's lost its family too, as the old couple that lived here have both died. Its a very sad little house, damaged and run down, a bit like its new owner! We have been brought together for a reason and will rebuild ourselves together, this lovely old house and me.

'sigh'

As you can probably tell some time has gone by since I left, some days it feels like a chunck of time and other days, like today, it feels like seconds. There was a huge party last night, a celebration that had been planned before I left at which everybody and anybody belonged and today there are pictures all over Facebook of fun and sillyness and happy faces, of which mine isn't one. Theres someone missing in the group shots.....me. Social Media can be a real friend when your living alone but other times it can be a curse. Here I am isolated.
I can't talk to the party goers of my sorrow as that would be humiliating, it wouldn't occur to them to talk to me today anyway as those friendship are only occasional now and besides they only see the brave face I want them to see, so they would think I'm fine.

I talked to them in the beginning and they were all so kind but now to them it would feel like dragging it all up again, sour grapes, as they're totally over the shock and upheaval inflicted upon them against their will by my leaving and everything is now all back to normal in their world with a new face slotted into my spot in the team and anyway I am all fine and dandy on my new chosen path.
I can't talk to my other friends who, although I have had them for years, I did not make part of my couple life, other than the odd tearful moment when I let my guard down and fessed up. They think I'm well out of it all and are very proud of me for staying strong and staying away.

They just wouldn't 'get it'
ok so today I am doom and gloom....

let me explain

The reasons why I left I won't go into, just run of the mill it seems these days reasons. I lived with them for years and they were my grievances. I had a choice, it was my choice, I made it, I own it. It was the wrong choice in hindsight for my self respect, confidence and dignity. I knew that all along and I know I am very damaged by it now but I made it, so suddenly blowing a trumpet out loud would make me look pathetic.

Saying that will make some people angry I know but trust me when I say I have watched other women do this who have also left the social circle and it did them no good whatsoever, in fact it made it a hundred times more difficult for them. They shouted as loud as they could to anyone who would listen and boy do they all want to listen to every gory little detail but the women are out of the fold and it backfired on them. They were gossiped about, ridiculed, blamed and treated damn right cruely. I've seen them over the years bursting into tears in the village shop, isolated in the village pub when faced with turned backs from people they thought where freinds and when my partner and I first got together I even witnessed it with his ex, so when I left I knew full well that it would happen to me if I wasn't careful.

I don't need to tell all to re-build me, I've let it all out to my therapist and her and I are making great strides in putting me back together but spilling beans here would serve no purpose as part of my healing and I would hurt others by doing so, so I just won't go into it and thats the last we'll talk of my old life. Now I will share with you my new one and I hope you will share too :-)

and loss

You walk away from friends too, people you've known for years, even if there isn't immediate side taking, as in my case there wasn't. There were coffees and lunches at first with the female halves but it doesn't last, how can it? Your 'couple' friends are still continuing the couples routine that you were once a part of and I wasn't a couple from that moment on, he was but not with me and where do...

es that leave the group, who do they invite? Well the couple of course. All the dinner parties and dances and weekend frivolities that I loved stopped at that moment, as I knew they would. I knew I would be walking away from that part of my life that I loved even before I left and maybe thats why I had stayed too long because again it was something I didn't want to walk away from. Painful and isolating. You loose so so much more than just the man, you loose your 'life' as you know it.

Lost

Don't worry this blog isn't going to be all doom and gloom and self pity! I asked myself why I'm writing it as I keep hand written diarys and have for years, so why do I feel the need to share with strangers something very personal? Well there is the answer, it's the sharing. Sometimes you feel so isolated, as very often you walk away from your whole life and everything changes. Many people can't stay in the place they've known as home and have to move, which is incredibly tough when your going through such heartache, that your forced to loose your familiar surroundings as well.

 

When I left all I wanted to do was to go 'home' I left everything, only taking a few posessions and I loved the house that we had created. I wanted to go back to my kitchen, make a cup of tea for my family, clean my surfaces and load the dishwasher, back to my familiar routines but I couldn't, I had to force myself to stay away and I felt so lost. Friends where sympathetic but they didn't understand how every minute of everyday was so hard because of that loss too which to me meant so much. Where I was staying wasn't home, it didn't smell right,the chair I sat in wasn't mine and the bed I slept in was all wrong. It wasn't only that he wasn't in it wrapped around me while I fell asleep which was agony enough but it was that every familiar thing I knew and valued so much was gone too.

Hearts a breaking

There is heartbreak all over the world, many tears over terrible losses and each person suffers their own pain so I keep reminding myself there are far worse things. But walking away from someone you love, giving up on a life, a family and leaving your home, that hurts, it really really hurts. Right now it doesn't feel like that pain will ever go away and with Christmas coming, that the guilt will ever go away as my children are suffering too. It's all horrible but it had to be done and I have to be brave, at least to the outside world and I have to show my children that living your life with self respect and dignity sometimes takes an awful lot of strength.

Beginning

I was brave and left the man I loved after lots of years. It was something I didn't want to do but something I had to do whilst I still had a tiny shred of self respect left. So here I sit in my bedroom window writing my diary, feeling proud of my self, brave and totally and utterly broken.