In Funny Little Bungalow terms, it is fair to say that The Budget is now well and truly depleted.
We have come so far (yes, we even have a bath now!), but there is still a very long list of things yet to tackle. Big Seymour calls it his Snagging List.
Snags? Er, not quite. Rendering the outside of the house? Not snagging. De-cluttering and doing up Baghdad? Definitely not snagging. Carpets? Nope. These things are significant, and will cost accordingly.
And so, in trying to make our new and exciting house all pretty, I have come up with many, many plans to 1) exercise my interior design muscle, and 2) use up stuff.
Often, I announce to Big Seymour, of an evening, that “I have been thinking.” He groans, and probably makes a face, but I always announce it with my back to him, feigning indifference (if I get too animated he knows I have already made my mind up and the stress of knowing he has a battle on his hands leads to hostility). Then he duly listens as I describe my fantastic, often unconventional mission that I have no hope of achieving unless he helps me.
A few days ago, I had one of my genius plans. It involved the telly (-the humongous telly that dear old Big Seymour has painstakingly moved after a previous cunning plan of mine). We have discussed boxing it in, to make it less of “a thing”. Televisions are genius and wonderful but they should not, in my opinion, be the focal point of a room. Which I suppose is a dichotomy, but still…
We’d seen a local pub use scaffolding boards to box their TV in, and we liked that idea, but I think Big Seymour is reluctant to waste several scaffold boards on one of my whims. So I ventured down to the beloved shed and studied my surplus furniture stock.
And there they were…. my very special 1950s/60s white glazed kitchen units, ripped out of our dear old kitchen and stored for two years, having failed to sell on ebay and now looking like a possible solution to the lack of a TV unit that fits.
I lugged the bloody things up the garden. I stared at them for a bit, and placed them in front of the TV. That’s where they sat for a few hours, until a had an epiphany! Late that night, as I sat scratching my head, I realised that, if we turned the units round and stuck them together and thence to the wall beneath the TV, we would have a very unique piece of furniture! I was very excited. The shelves would then be defunct as they had been moved round 90 degrees, but that was not going to stop me. I prepared to sell my idea to Big Seymour the next day. I felt very satisfied that I had thought outside of the box and come up with a FREE solution.
Big Seymour was, typically, unenthusiastic when I told him of the plan. He doesn’t really like the units anyway, and to customise them by turning them sideways and drilling them into the wall probably felt like pointless sacrilege to him. Despite my utter conviction that THIS WOULD WORK, I could see that it would never happen.
So there they sat, sideways, for three weeks, with me slowly learning to accept that they’d have to go, but feeling very reluctant to accept it.
Yesterday, though, Big Seymour was off on a jolly, snowboarding of all things. In a charitable mood as a result, and relieved by my backing down on my crazy design plan, he found alternative homes for the retro shelves. One is in a cupboard, now providing much needed storage (woohoo!) and the other is, in fact, under the TV. Not sideways, and not joined by its twin in a grand and unusual design twist, but it’s there, and it looks quite good.
As for that “snagging” list, it just seems to get longer. There are now fence posts to replace, walls to re-paint, decking to scrub, bulbs to plant, hedges to trim……..
But it’s OK. We are in the house for Christmas! Which in itself is a something of a miracle.
0 Comments