On the Carpet
Here's the hall in our house. Eat your heart out Laurence Llewelyn Bowen and all you other interior designers.
Yes, it's like a scene from Life on Mars - - instant time-travel to 1977.
Here's the carpet:
"Oh, we had a carpet like that!" I hear you cry.
Yes, yes, I know you did. Everybody did. The difference is, WE'VE STILL GOT OURS. My parents, in one solitary incident in a lifetime of "bodge-it-quick" interior repairs, decided to buy a carpet of such quality that the blasted thing has just refused to wear out in any way at all.
I broke the news to my mother gently.
"Mum, we're going to decorate the hall. And the stairs. And the landing. And the back hall. And the back passage." (Insert your own back passage joke - - I can't do all the work).
All these bits of the house join together and they were all last decorated in 1977, when the new carpet was laid.
She paused for a little while and then said, magnanimously, "Well, I suppose it's a little while since it was done."
"It was last decorated in October 1977, just before I went to Cardiff, when the water tank burst and flooded the hall, remember?"
Ah - - that's why it was such a posh carpet! I bet it was the one and only time they've ever claimed on the insurance.
My mother is stunned when she thinks I spend money that could be better spent on other things. I'm not sure what. Holidays, probably. She doesn't buy clothes and is astonished when I buy myself new clothes (and I don't, often). All her clothes were bought for her by her family as Christmas and birthday presents. Occasionally she'll pick something up in the charity shop at Moortown Corner. She cuts her own hair. These aren't money-saving measures, more lack-of-interest measures. Her teenage years, of course, were full of "Don't you know there's a war on?" and the attitude has stuck.
"And, Mum," - I paused before daring to say it - "we're going to get a new carpet."
Deep shock. "Oh no! Why? There's nothing the matter with the old one!"
"Yes, Mum, I know it isn't worn out, but it's been there a very long time. 1977, you remember."
"But it's a waste of money."
"No, because if we get the hall decorated it will look much better if there's a new carpet to go with it. And that carpet must be very dirty, even though it doesn't show the dirt."
"Well, you could always get it cleaned - - "
Living next door to your parents has definite advantages - - and disadvantages. Now, I happen to think that I'm very lucky to still have two parents alive, one aged eighty-four, one eighty-five. But this guilty feeling that somehow I am a terrible spendthrift because I want to replace a thirty-one-year-old carpet is definitely one of the downsides.
And, what's more, under this hideous 1960s hall is hidden a far more elegant 1898 hall, and I'm going to find at least some of it. Watch this space.
Yes, it's like a scene from Life on Mars - - instant time-travel to 1977.Here's the carpet:
"Oh, we had a carpet like that!" I hear you cry.Yes, yes, I know you did. Everybody did. The difference is, WE'VE STILL GOT OURS. My parents, in one solitary incident in a lifetime of "bodge-it-quick" interior repairs, decided to buy a carpet of such quality that the blasted thing has just refused to wear out in any way at all.
I broke the news to my mother gently.
"Mum, we're going to decorate the hall. And the stairs. And the landing. And the back hall. And the back passage." (Insert your own back passage joke - - I can't do all the work).
All these bits of the house join together and they were all last decorated in 1977, when the new carpet was laid.
She paused for a little while and then said, magnanimously, "Well, I suppose it's a little while since it was done."
"It was last decorated in October 1977, just before I went to Cardiff, when the water tank burst and flooded the hall, remember?"
Ah - - that's why it was such a posh carpet! I bet it was the one and only time they've ever claimed on the insurance.
My mother is stunned when she thinks I spend money that could be better spent on other things. I'm not sure what. Holidays, probably. She doesn't buy clothes and is astonished when I buy myself new clothes (and I don't, often). All her clothes were bought for her by her family as Christmas and birthday presents. Occasionally she'll pick something up in the charity shop at Moortown Corner. She cuts her own hair. These aren't money-saving measures, more lack-of-interest measures. Her teenage years, of course, were full of "Don't you know there's a war on?" and the attitude has stuck.
"And, Mum," - I paused before daring to say it - "we're going to get a new carpet."
Deep shock. "Oh no! Why? There's nothing the matter with the old one!"
"Yes, Mum, I know it isn't worn out, but it's been there a very long time. 1977, you remember."
"But it's a waste of money."
"No, because if we get the hall decorated it will look much better if there's a new carpet to go with it. And that carpet must be very dirty, even though it doesn't show the dirt."
"Well, you could always get it cleaned - - "
Living next door to your parents has definite advantages - - and disadvantages. Now, I happen to think that I'm very lucky to still have two parents alive, one aged eighty-four, one eighty-five. But this guilty feeling that somehow I am a terrible spendthrift because I want to replace a thirty-one-year-old carpet is definitely one of the downsides.
And, what's more, under this hideous 1960s hall is hidden a far more elegant 1898 hall, and I'm going to find at least some of it. Watch this space.
posted by Daphne at 6:53 am
5 Comments:
Never mind a pristine copy of Leo Sayer's "When I Need You", I expect you'll find ration books and blackout leaflets when you lift up that carpet. Hey you might have Leeds version of 10 Rillington Place as well !!
Glad you have an archaeologist in the family too. Have her standing by.
Your mum and my mum would've got on like a house on fire....in the blitz. Must've been the times they grew up in. So I was doomed to be tight with money and you can't fight your genes. (Just buy new ones every 20 yrs)
I'm *only* 67 but I think like your mum. When I saw the photo of the carpet detail, my first thought was, "It doesn't show the dirt."
Given the current political climate, some people think showing the dirt, independent of a decision to get rid of it, is a very good thing indeed.
I vote for cleaning the carpet and having your hallway and stairs put on your country's equivalent of the historic registry. Then you could charge admission and wouldn't need to be flying off to Paris all the time to augment your income.
I think it's very exciting that, after 31 years, you are redecorating and are aiming to rediscover the late 19th century delights of your hallway. But would they have had wall to wall carpet there in 1898?
What goes around comes around and that cool retro carpet design is now well in fashion in Surrey and Essex. You'd be a fool to get rid of it for some berber monstrosity - so nineties! I'm with mummy on this one you spendaholic!
Silverback - the archaeology student is on standby. So far I have found one page of a 1971 diary but who knows what treasures may lie undiscovered?
Mr Brague and YP - - yes, yes, good ideas, but I'm STILL getting a new carpet, End Of.
Ruth - - well, I'm compromising. I'm taking the good bits of Victorian times and ignoring the bits I don't like, such as the fact that it was mostly very cold.
Post a Comment
<< Home