Confessions of a Filthy House

My house is 230 years old and is built from granite blocks that have been covered up with an ugly concrete render. When we moved in 20 years ago there was a tiny damp patch near the back door but now there are several quite serious damp areas, not helped by the fact that old field drains run under the house. It was my mission this week to tidy out the worst cupboards and wipe down the mould. Obviously, everything snowballed and I ended up having a full-blown deep clean. I can’t remember when that last happened but it really needed doing. It is probably a combination of having more time, not knowing whether I should consider moving in future and sheer procrastination. I feel like once everything is sorted out then maybe I will have more headspace for creativity. 

The top landing where my kids had half-heartedly had a clear-out ages ago finally got cleared out. I did not chuck or recycle that much, It is amazing how much better things can be when properly organised. 

My Cornishware collection looked like a special effects company had covered it in a 100 years’ worth of dust and cobwebs and there was a knick-knack shelf in the kitchen that was basically coated in cat fluff. Once I got started, I needed to shift the greasy dust off the cooker hood and then I rearranged my pantry, relegating lesser used appliances to a shelf unit in my workshop. I was going to cut up a shower curtain to disguise all of that junk then remembered that I had a roller-blind that I had screen printed for an exhibition. There was a big empty space at the top of the blind so I decided to add a few more screen prints except that the ink had gone off and looked like mouldy cream cheese. I went ahead anyway - the prints are not great but from a distance it looks OK. 

The job that I had been dreading the most was the room where I sleep. I don’t think it is actually a bedroom because it also has my computer desk, a sewing cabinet, a piano and too many junk shop items. My bed has always been pushed up against a wall but it is such a pain to make the bed. I spent a whole day playing furniture Tetris, trapping myself inside. In the process the bed collapsed as it is one of those old wooden ones with planks that hold up the mattress. Let’s just say there was some foul language;) It took me ages to plug all of my gadgets back in and I am still not sure whether the layout is right. In fact, there is still a lot to finish off but I ran out of steam!

Somehow, during all of this frenetic activity I managed to get a couple of customer quilts done and I had a quick go with the Bernina L890 binding attachment. I will be glad to escape to my workshop, away from all of my self-imposed slave labour.