Category: Architecture

Avatar Damp saga

You’ve heard of tap saga. Now prepare yourself for… Damp Saga. The story of one man’s quest to conquer the Forces of Dampness that threaten to overthrow his way of life, turning everything slightly moist and, upon close inspection, slightly mouldy.

I am currently battling dampness on four war-torn fronts.

From the north, the paint on the bathroom windowframe and windowsill has worn away to a point where wood is visible. This is because, in their infinite wisdom, previous owners of the house positioned the bath under the window, so when you have a shower you spray the whole window area with water.

From above, the new loft insulation I fitted last year is keeping the house warm, but it’s also keeping the loft damp, with condensation forming to such a degree that in very cold weather it effectively rains in there. Everything we store in the loft is now under tarpaulins, except for the things we didn’t cover in time, which are ruined. I have fitted new vents to the roof to get some fresh air through it and eliminate this unwelcome indoor microclimate.

From below, the very high water table in this area (the whole housing estate might be built in what is technically a lake) means that in anything less than drought conditions the lawn is often under an inch of water. My neighbour has an elaborate plan to resolve this by digging big holes, creating new soakaway pits and laying pipes, though I can’t help feeling that his plan will only succeed if they are big enough to absorb all the rain in this area of Hampshire.

And from the west, water running downhill through a series of back gardens is now making its way through the wall of the garage, where it turns out the woodwork starts below ground level. This means that, now the monsoon season has arrived in the loft, we have nowhere to store anything that we wish to keep dry. A big damp patch is creeping across the floor and fixing it is going to involve removing a whole line of garden fence and digging up part of next door’s garden. I have made a half baked effort to deal with the symptoms using wood preserver and cutting holes in the garage wall to allow air in. I do not feel hopeful about this.

Unlike #tapsaga, there is no satisfying ending to this where, after a hundred frustrating steps, everything works out. This saga is just an ongoing list of damp situations. Thankfully the inside of my car is still dry, most of the time, so I have decided to live there instead. Please send towels and talcum powder.

Avatar Five Novembers ago

We bought our house from people who thought they’d be living there forever. They didn’t, because we sent them away so that we could have it all for ourselves. I regret nothing.

Anyway, last week we pulled all the wallpaper off the walls in what had been their baby room, and found a charming memento painted behind it that had presumably been intended to last for many years.

It lasted five years and we’ve painted over it. But here it is, a message from five Novembers ago, just to prove it once existed.

Avatar Kitchen guide

At the risk of inducing an episode of PTSD in Kev, I’d like to give you a quick rundown of where we are with the kitchen, one week in.

For a week now the living room has included a fridge, a sofa standing on end, a drinks cabinet, a table, a microwave, a kettle and a toaster. All our meals have either been boiled, toasted or microwaved. The kitchen itself has bare walls, a bare concrete floor (now perfectly level), wires sticking out of holes and pipes that go nowhere. The ceiling has one coat of white paint. As I type this a very tall Polish man is whistling and making loud banging noises and there are a range of half-built cabinets scattered around the room. The rest of the house does not bear thinking about.

For your convenience, I have compiled this list of things you might need and where you will find them.

ThingWhere you will find it
Extra large martini/cocktail glassesUnder the radiator in the spare room.
Electric chopper/blender thingElectrical bit is in a cardboard box underneath two other boxes in the spare room. Blade is in a bag with sharp things that you should avoid putting your hands in. Lid is AWOL.
CandlesIn a plastic bag underneath the Uno cards in the fold-down part of the drinks cabinet.
Dining tableIn pieces, under a blanket in the spare room, behind the chairs.
Dining room light fittingGlass shades are under a collection of tea towels on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Wires and metal bits and bulbs are casually scattered on top of boxes in the spare room.
Bag of quinces from the bit of our quince tree that hangs over the neighbours’ fence, brought round by the neighboursUnder the Flash Speedmop refills and a recipe book, on the shelf in the utility room next to the recycling.
Jar of ground cinnamonOne is in the bag of herbs, spices, condiments and oils in the spare room. Another one is in the bag of pasta, rice and tins. Another one is in the bag of snacks and biscuits.
Cat bowl, including remnants of cat’s previous mealNext to the wifi router in the hall, behind several pairs of shoes and some old post.
Skirting boards from the dining roomIn the garage, balanced on top of two old pallets and the saddle of a bicycle.
SultanasIn a drawer in the living room next to the Ryvita and a bottle of maple syrup.

Avatar The kitchen of the future

We’re getting a new kitchen. This is an exciting time for us, and also for everyone we know, so please rest assured that we will be sharing stories and pictures of this thrilling adventure at every opportunity.

Having decided to buy our kitchen from one of the big kitchening retailers, we had the room measured up and then attended a design appointment where all the possibilities for filling a space with plywood cupboard units were explored in full. We compared paint samples, touched various worktop textures and considered the merits of many differnet taps. Finally, when our choices had been entered into the supercomputer, we held hands and watched as our brand new kitchen was rendered in Hollywood-style 3D graphics before our very eyes. The kitchenologist even printed out a picture of it so we could take it home and gaze on it in our own time.

Our present kitchen, as you may recall, has pale yellow doors and a wooden worktop, arranged in a U-shape around the walls and sticking out on a peninsula. Our new kitchen, which is going to be totally different and better in every regard, will have creamy off-white doors and a natural stone-coloured quartz worktop, arranged in a U-shape around the walls and sticking out on a peninsula.

While the new kitchen will be far better built than the old one, incorporating improvements such as the upper cupboards not leaning precariously off the walls and the worktops not soaking up colourful patches of everything we’ve ever placed on them, the clever 3D render is not that detailed.

When we got home with our print-out, we excitedly stood in the dining room and held it up at the appropriate angle in front of the old kitchen. It appeared for all the world to be a picture of our existing kitchen.

We have put the picture away.

Avatar More culture in the workplace

In May last year, you might remember that I brought a little classical beauty into the lives of my work colleagues when I anonymously gifted the Mona Lisa to the men’s toilets on the third floor.

I was under no illusion that this artwork would be permanently displayed, and so it was little surprise that, after ten or eleven months, it vanished without warning, leaving an empty frame to greet toilet-goers once more. To be honest, I was pleased it lasted as long as it did.

My quest to bring culture to the workplace has not ended there, though. No, it continues, with renewed vigour. Since the Mona Lisa was taken down I’ve chosen to assume that the Toilet Overlords at work aren’t keen on renaissance realism, so my latest contribution is something more abstract.

For gentlemen on their way to their most personal ablutions, I now proudly present Piet Mondrian’s Composition London 1940-42.

Avatar A strange little lift

Recently I had to visit an office building not far from work on my lunch break. It was one of those really small office buildings that’s just a stack of little offices above a shop, so you go to a door next to the shop and ring the bell and they tell you to come up.

When you’re inside, the offices are tiny, just a room on each floor really, and there’s a tiny staircase that spirals up. There’s also a lift, but this being a tiny building of tiny rooms it is a tiny lift. The kind where you get in and there isn’t really any space for anyone else. It has mirrors on three sides to make it feel bigger but nothing can really change the fact that it’s about the size of a coffin. 

Anyway, the point is that I’ve never heard of the company that made the lift. If I had I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered them. 

Avatar Floor “saga”

Not a saga, not really. I tried to think of the right word and all I could come up with was ‘ragu’ and that’s definitely not the right one. Nobody wants a floor ragu.

Here it is in all its sexy glory. My new hallway flooring, floor hall. Look at it as it stretches off into the distance because, yes, it is quite a long hallway. It would take a few strides to get up and down there, even with Kev and his gigantic pair of legs.

The original planning phase begin in November of last year. Me being the ultimate slob I am decided to wait until Christmas was done before commencing any work. Then I temporary lost my hearing in one ear and had to wait until Boots was ready to suck out the various globules of wax hiding in my ear canal. Then some other things happened that stopped me from doing it. Then my installer got covid. It’s been one hell of a ride.

Don’t look too closely at the edges though because Council architecture, like most things, is not infallible and after sixty years there has been a bit of movement. How do I know this? Because when we were laying the floor from the front door down towards the living room the wall seemed to bend slightly to the right meaning the perfect symmetry we had going on at the beginning wasn’t present anymore. The further in we went a thin section remained uncovered along the edge. It wasn’t even a straight line too, the git. This then meant that muggins here had to use all the offcuts to try and wallpaper over the cracks (so to speak) to avoid spoiling the illusion of goodness.

Patience is a virtue. In my post-covid blues state, off work and with not much else to be getting on with, I cut the remaining pieces needed to finish the job. Similar to all great works of art, from a distance the integrity and the beauty remains intact. Get close though, dangerously close, and all its shortcomings will become apparent. I therefore ask that you only inspect the floor using your regular eyes, possibly from six feet away, wearing a pair of sunglasses and being distracted by genies.

I don’t think that’s asking too much?

When is a saga not a saga? When it’s a… ragu. No, it’s still not coming to me.