Saturday 27 July 2013

floored

Our home has beautiful old hardwood floorboards, floorboards made from trees from Bellingen, they are really strong and are particularly lovely to look at, as long as your eyes keep away from those um, scratchy bits. However there is one room in this home that has carpet and that is our room and it is foul. It is grey and laden with dust, regardless of how often we vacuum, it is there lurking deep within the creases, it is so dusty that sometimes I even have to face inwards in bed just so I don't breathe in it's disgustingness. 'Rip it up', I hear you say and we hear you, we have our landlady's approval but the only thing is that strangely, it has been glued to the floorboards, crazy, we know. So we have peeked and realised that it is a big job, well one that needs helpers and possibly a shovel and a willingness to lose some skin off knuckles.
But unfortunately we haven't been able to find the time and we lived with it like that for a while, disgusting, yes. It took Jo, our landlady and some professionals weeks to do the rest of the house, she was so over it by then that she just stopped at our room.
Anyway, one night whilst I was away with Poe and Ilo in Sydney, I let myself fantasise about the possibility that Scott might just take this opportunity to strip the carpets whilst I was away, pretty saucy, hey, oh yeah.
You see, in my childhood whenever my mum would go away somewhere, for more than a night or so, my dad would do something to the house to um, err, surprise her. He used to get so excited unveiling the surprise but unfortunately for him the responses to the painted black wall or an 'interesting' and colourful new bathroom were not always what he expected. Luckily he did create some amazing surprises like a mirrored cupboard, a new bedroom for me for my 13th birthday (up in the attic no less), stunning stained glass windows and yes, the stripping of very old brown shag pile carpet and the polishing of the floorboards, looking back though, I do think his successes have been probably more than his um interesting, failures. As a child and teenager and then adult, my heart would always go out to my dad, as he always put so much effort in, he had so much vision and loved to surprise.
So, basically I was projecting all this onto Scott, without him even realising it, so I talked myself down and decided not to think about it.
And then we arrived home, it was delightful seeing Scott, we all really missed him and he really missed us, despite being shared around by the whole town every night we were away, two hour long baths and time spent with his guitar and laptop writing songs, oh and the silent house and no mess, oh yes, he really did miss us. And we could tell as soon as we saw him and hugged and kissed him, we were home. And home was clean, very clean and yes our room was especially delightful, the floorboards were on display in all their glory. I was speechless and delighted and rambled to Scott about wishes coming true, it was very special and so wonderfully sweet, yes sweet sweet air, I now take great pleasure in sleeping facing out and taking big luxurious breaths.

12 comments :

  1. aw that's so lovely!
    www.rosesjaunes.blogspot.co.uk

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  2. What a lovely surprise - I sympathize. We rented a house in Canberra that had that kind of carpet in the living room. In desperation I covered it with all sorts of different rugs. Thirty years later - after purchasing the house at some point - I'd totally forgotten about it and wasn't impressed to see it when we packed up to move up north. Thank God the house was sold by then, and the new people were planning to strip it out anyway :)

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    1. Wow, that is a long time to live with that kind of carpet, but i guess the covering up did the trick. xx

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  3. Hello dear Jay
    Scott and your Dad sound like real sweeties!
    As always, so lovely to visit here. xxx

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    1. Hello lovely Judith,
      yes they are wonderful humans. So nice to see you here. xxx j

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  4. So wonderful! I wish we could tear up the carpet here... landlord approval or not... sometimes I want to do it just to see what's under (I doubt it's good though!).

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    1. Oooh, what do you think is underneath? Is it possible to take a peek? xx

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  5. Who on earth would hide such gorgeous timber under grey carpet?! Scott, I am so impressed by your enthusiasm. And Jay, I missed you on the coast - make sure you let me know next time you're down. I've got some more gorgeous tablecloths to send you...off to Bali in Sep and would love another top (slight addiction, clearly). Do you have time to make me one? x

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    1. I know! It's sacrilegious. I will definitely let you know next time we are down, the stay at my mum's for the first few days largely consisted of me letting it go and resting lots, it was very lovely. You are number one on our list when we next come down, it will be such a treat. Would love to fuel your addiction, just send them up. Bali, how wonderful. xxx j

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  6. That's so sweet of Scott, and what a champion your Dad is! I was only reminiscing today with a friend about the time we lived in a house with carpet that smelled of damp dog. The floorboards underneath were a bit old and the landlord would only agreed to replace the carpets. Whilst the old carpet was being ripped up we hovered around and caught a glimpse of the beautiful old floorboards before new carpet was laid.

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    1. Oh Natalie, how unbearably tantalising to get just a glimpse of those beautiful floorboards before being covered again, craziness. But better i guess than having a house smelling of damp dog, especially when you don't even have a dog! xx

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