Houseworks Step 3

Balancing planning with patience when you are acutely sensitive to your surroundings.

Part of my Cleanest Greenest Home Series: demystifying eco upgrades, healthier materials, and smarter ways to live well inside the homes we already have.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

In my last houseworks post I mentioned the importance of going slowly when planning a renovation, ie taking the time to work out what you have to play with in terms of existing finishes and materials, and giving a space time to reveal itself — how does the light move? Which rooms get afternoon sun? Where do we naturally gravitate? How are we finding we want to use each room?

But the impulse to write this post came from a sudden burst of, well yes, that’s all very good, but I also just want it finished! In other words, to limit the amount of time I have to look at stuff I dislike.

It’s a hard path to tread.

Certainly, I know from experience that you have to max that initial can-do drive when you first move into a place to reconfigure, re-paint or plan works. Far too quickly we can become used to how things are, or figure, oh-it’s-not-that-bad/cold/small/ugly.

Speaking personally, I constantly feel on the edge of that already, six months in (including the time we were renting here). With so much to juggle, perhaps I could learn to love the straight-edged stair spindles, the cracked 70s corner bath, and the ridiculously unergonomic kitchen.

Except in my bedroom. There I lie looking at a set of wardrobe doors that profoundly annoy me (see below). Every night I fall asleep re-planning them in my head. But as they are not a priority, they get left. But maybe I have this the wrong way round.

To explain, they annoy me because of the hinges (bear with me reader!). Massive big black barn door type things that because the cupboards run, single, double, single, on the last single one, the hinges are misaligned with all the others, because otherwise they’d bump into each other (I know it’s also an issue of the slope above, but still)!

In my head, this would have been worked out beforehand, and another solution sought. It’s also, as per my black window hardware hatred, a question of why make a feature out of such over specified nonsense! I could just paint them white I suppose. But the doors are kind of beige, so I think the beige/white mismatch might annoy me just as much. Plus, the wardrobes are already semi-ruined inside because not one of the units had space for a full-length drop. They all had drawers or shelves at the bottom. So when I ripped those out in frustration, I didn't do the neatest job.

The point is, something as “simple” as this becomes a headache for me because on the one hand I despair of the waste of ripping them out wholesale and starting over, but equally, to re-make them into something viable and more aesthetically appealing is a whole project in itself because the infrastructure is not particularly well-made.

Meanwhile all the walls in this room are to be stripped of the old Gypsum plasterboard and re-lined with insulating boards, then new lime plaster. So, is it even worth re-doing the wardrobes until that work is first complete?

But then, every morning this is what I wake up to. Aargh. Maybe I’ll just paint out the hinges after all. And make a moodboard to make myself feel better. In my minds eye I’m seeing slatted wooden fronts. Perhaps sliding doors (easier for the small triangular cupboard). Simple. Clean. no handles. And definitely no visible hinges!

PS Just wait until I show you that avocado bathroom!

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