Friday, July 21, 2017

Those were the days - cleaning day part 4

wooden floorWhen we first moved to this house some 29 years ago I loved the wooden floors in the hall and dining-room so much I would get down on my hands and knees and polish them regularly. (Well, a few times.) Today they're lucky if they get a brush over them. 

It's not that I love them any the less it's just that I've taken Shirley Conran's advice - life's too short to stuff a mushroom - to a new level.

This house was built in about 1952 for a doctor and his family; we bought it from them. Because of his profession they were able to have more wood - it was still restricted by rationing - than most people but only enough for the two areas. The rooms are also higher than in other houses of the same period again thanks to more generous rations allowed for those working in the field of medicine.

It may sound crazy but he did have his surgery in his home so it does make sense.

So we're only the second family to live in this house in the 64 years it's been built. We like it. I'll always remember a woman who called doing a survey. She commented that as she was walking up the steps she felt, 'This is a happy house.' It is.


5 comments:

nick said...

Our house was built in 1949 and has wooden floors in the two reception rooms. Whether they're original or put in later I have no idea, but they're lovely and there's no way we would cover them with carpets.

nick said...

Oh, and like you, we just sweep them occasionally, we've never bothered to re-polish.

Anonymous said...

You should write the pictorial history of your lovely home, Liz ... I've had too many!

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

They built to last then . I've still got a 'utility' chair that looks as though it'll last another couple of hundred years .
















Liz Hinds said...

Oh no, Nick, to cover them would be criminal!

That's a thought, Shirl.

We had the same sofa and chairs for years, sonata, until visitors started commenting about the difficulty they had getting out of them because they sagged. (Although I think it was more to do with the age and stiffness of the visitors.) In fact we only replaced them when the children left home with these 'new' ones.