My husband got up early yesterday morning, barely an hour after I’d left the house to go to work.
As he pulled his trousers on, he heard the two builders chatting as they walked up the stairs to continue their work on our chimney. They didn’t realise he was still home. “This house has been the gift that keeps on giving for us, isn’t it?” one of them said, rather revealingly. Yes, it’s true, we’ve given them an enormous amount of work over the past few years.
It started with the long drawn out torment that was the retiling of the exterior walls. The repointing of the ancient brickwork – who even knew that was a thing? – was just the icing on the cake. The concrete ceiling in the coal room that collapsed to the ground around the same time was due to the double whammy of council failures with leaking water pipes in the street plus a blocked drainpipe from the upstairs neighbours, and you could call it serendipity that the builders were already on the ground so that they could address it. The new concrete ceiling is wonderfully smooth and virtually pristine. I’m sure that crack isn’t anything important. Plus, the fact that the floor remains dryish in most weather conditions makes it far more useful for storage than the indoor swimming pool vibes it was giving off not too long ago. As part of replacing the coal room ceiling, the stairs down from the street had to be removed. Due to a misunderstanding, this also entailed the destruction of the gate, which is now being replaced, I’m guessing at our expense. The replacement of the other gate is due solely to Ratdog’s athletic leaping abilities, in spite of her current portly dimensions, so you can’t blame the builders for that. Similarly, the new concrete roof to the coal room provides a launch point for an escape route around the back of the house, and the new fence going in there wouldn’t be necessary if our previous more sedentary pooches hadn’t all curled up their toes within a few years of each other.
But at least Simon and I were on the same page as far as those previous projects went. Our latest renovation was entirely my idea.
When we first moved in, there was an old fireplace in our bedroom, right above the one in the lounge on the floor below us. We replaced them with enclosed gas fires, which seemed like a good idea at the time. The one downstairs has been quite useful, lit many times for warmth and charm even with the central heating. The one in our bedroom, in contrast, was hardly ever on. Simon mentioned several times over the first few years that he could smell gas, which I pooh poohed (was I literally gaslighting him I wonder?) Finally even my rudimentary sense of smell could tell that there was something wrong, and when the plumber and gas fitter we finally got hold of (the original company having gone bust, oddly) examined it he said there was a leak, and probably it had been there from the moment it was installed. Well it could have been worse, I suppose. Maybe we had been slowly poisoned since moving in, but at least the house hadn’t exploded. This is me practicing stoic principles. Anyway, more thousands of dollars later, it was fixed, the smell of gas had gone, but for some reason, the chimney was now incredibly noisy. Simon can sleep through anything, especially after a few beers, so it was only irritating to me. Finally last year I’d had enough, and I asked the builder (James, on speed dial) if he knew anyone who could help. Mere months later, we had a cherry picker parked outside the house. Apparently the government frowns on gas fires in bedrooms now, strangely enough, so the old one is gone, to be replaced by an electric fireplace. Unfortunately, in removing the firebox they not only damaged the historic wooden surrounds, they also dislodged some bricks in the chimney. So, every time it rained, water would come down the chimney. The next week signalled the return of our old friends, the scaffolding company. It only took a few days for the leak to be found and (hopefully) fixed, which meant the search was on for an electric fireplace to replace it.
Flame effect technology has moved on enormously since I last bought a fake fireplace, which is not surprising as that would be twenty years ago now. Having said that, you can still buy the old ones. They look like someone’s school project, with bits of tinsel waving in front of an old torch glued in place, but they are very cheap. The flashiest new technology is holographic fireplaces. These look far more realistic, only missing the sounds and smells of a real wood fire, as well as, I suppose, crackling embers leaping out to burn holes in your carpet when you aren’t looking. Unfortunately they also come with that sparkling new technology price tag. So, we’ve ended compromising with something cheaper but not too fake and cheesy, hopefully. Not sure why we even bother trying to save money, frankly, as this week we’ve discovered that the old brick surrounds have to be replaced as well. Remember this all began with me thinking the chimney was too noisy. Ah well, never mind. I never wanted to retire anyway.
