Hillfoot House

Next weekend it will be exactly a year since we moved in, and it’s a good time to take stock.

So… since we moved in, we have decorated three bedrooms, the study and the sitting room including carpeting.  We’ve had the floors sanded and lacquered in the dining room and the drawing room.  We’ve added furniture to all the bedrooms – virtually all the bedroom furniture we brought with us has been replaced – and to the sitting room; we’ve added rugs in the dining room, hallway and rear hallway, and we’ve added a table, chairs and dresser in the kitchen.  In the garden, we’ve removed one hedge, one tree and pruned the rest of the shrubs very hard; we’ve added a swing, replaced the patio, topped up the shingle in the driveway and planted two plum trees as well as a normal quantity of flowers.

We’ve gone through about three times as much oil as we expected; but we have been less cold than we also expected. We’ve learnt how to use an AGA, discovered how to live with four cats instead of two, seen deer and pheasant in the garden, and lots of lovely garden birds that we never used to see (despite four cats…).  We have dealt with decapitated rabbits and straying chickens, and jumped at the shrieking of barn owls.

We’ve changed our routines completely even though we only moved six miles: we shop in a different town, we hardly go to the supermarket (instead, we use Abel & Cole, the local farm shop, the local butcher, the local farmers’ market, with only a monthly trip to Waitrose for things like kitchen roll) and we go to different pubs now. Our journeys to work are less stressful and Ian travels from the local small station instead of the huge central station in Reading.  We’ve learnt about the auction sales and how to bid, and goodness, we’ve learnt a lot about the entire industry of specialists who can provide wallpapers, paints, fabrics, radiators, paint strippers, beam restoration, plaster restoration etc…

We’ve learnt a bit about the house and its previous owners.  A moment of sheer joy was when we found that a new variety of plum was discovered in our garden in 1912: there were no plum trees in the garden any more, so we have tracked down an example of the variety and planted it.

In the next year, the plans are to carry out some remedial work on the brickwork, chimneys and roof; to refurbish the sash windows; to resolve a problem with the damp course at the back of the house, and to address the plumbing generally.  Some radiator replacement, some refitting of the bathrooms; then we want to redecorate the dining room, drawing room, hallway and our bedroom. The kitchen will wait another year (as may some of the current list – there are limits!)

Meanwhile, the long promised photos of the spare bedroom.  We are very pleased with the quiet calm of the room, and the way that it looks like it has been like that forever.

We had help here: lovely Tracie at L Interiors in Bucklebury, together with Lynda, helped us to find the right fabrics, wallpaper, paint colours and curtain poles, and they arranged for the curtains to be made, and the headboard, and the valance.  We did consider whether to leave the floorboards exposed, but although they were lovely, there were quite large gaps between them.  There was such a risk of losing earrings, change or more in the gaps: and we also thought it might be draughty and cold in winter.  So we had the carpet laid.

We still need to get some more furniture for the room. We’re on the lookout for a pair of Georgian bedside cabinets, and we did bid on some in one of the local auctions but were outbid. We have, however, managed to get a George II mahogany chest of drawers which we have now installed.  Need a wardrobe, too; and it would be good to put in an older cheval mirror, rather than the one that’s there at the moment.  But we are getting there.  The chandelier was bought online. We installed the picture rail: there wasn’t one there before, and it has a nice effect.

Lastly, this is a lovely photo of the house which I took when the snow fell.  Delighted to find that the snow didn’t melt instantly from the roof…  and irritated that I still can’t work out how I managed to get the date to be stamped onto the photo, and nor can I work out how to turn it off again….  It would have been nice to move the cars too, but they were a bit stuck right at that point. Oh well, another time!