future generations

[shilly]

We love our house, built 1797. Last week we had a visit surprise from a lovely man, Dave, who used to live in it. He lovingly walked around it with me and told me how he had got rid of those old sash wimdows and replaced them with lovely Aluminium ones. He showed me in the kitchen where the stove used to be, luckily he changed it for a nice modern one. He showed me in the bathrooom where a fireplace used to be, but he got rid of it and then told me knew where it now was, yes ...'tell me where and I will go and get it'. It is at the bottom of the river parrett, used to help build up the bank to make the river narrower'. Well I am a padi diver, could I?...
In years to come, will I be doing the same to someone living in our house. someone who in the future has covered up those damp flagstones, covered up those elm drafty floorboards, got rid of that old fashioned fireplace in the bedroom and painted the beams we have now managed to get all the paint off.....

 

[Zebra]

Grrr, I'm surprised you didn't "accidentally" trip him down the stairs!!!

 

[shilly]

:lol:

If only you knew what I was thinking at the time, I had to have a glass of wine to recover when he left...

 

[JoceAndChris]

That's a terribly sad story - I'm sorry to read of such an ordeal.

I'd like to be able to post "thank goodness attitudes have changed" but I'm not at all sure they have.

 

[MatthewC]

That's a terribly sad story - I'm sorry to read of such an ordeal.

I'd like to be able to post "thank goodness attitudes have changed" but I'm not at all sure they have.

They definitely haven't, both amongst naive owners and "professionals", not to mention those TV presenters who admiringly watch someone buy a "pretty cottage of character" and then rip out every last bit of character in order to turn it into a modern building.

 

[angrybird]

I think you acted very gentlemanly i'm affraid "Dave" may have been the hardcore under my patio as will the PO of my house if he ever dare come round :twisted:

 

[worms]

Yes, it is sad. But I guess that is what history is all about - often good people did things that by our standards were really bad. Our parents held attitudes that we would have difficulty identifying with and our children will feel the same about us.

However, on the bright side it must be perversely good to know what should have been in the house! I still have notions to remove sections of plaster-board on the naive hope that there might be an old arched stable door in the wall of the hall and I have never totally satisfied myself that there are no sections of cobbled floor below the cemented solum or in the yard. An hour with the builder who did the 1940's conversion would be more than welcome!

 

[MdB]

I think I've pretty much undone / replaced everything that the owner/builder did to the front of the house 40 years ago. He is now long dead and buried but I think we would both be mutually aghast at which other had done if we were ever to meet.

I guess there will be people too in the future that are horrified about the loss of hardboard and woodchip that we have taken out..

 

[worms]

The mantleshelf on our fireplace is a two-inch thick longitudinal section of a pine tree, with the original shape of the tree intact. Hideous, but of its era. It is on the long-term list for replacement...or was until we had a visitor whose aunt had sourced the particular piece of wood and we learned just how much time and effort she had spent in trying to find exactly the right piece! I'd now feel quite guilty about replacing it with something that I find more pleasing.

This also questions my own actions, in that, as this is a 1940s adaptation to domestic use, of an 1860s farm building, I'd be guilty of removing original 1940's features and possibly replacing with my pastiche of an 1860s cottage. :?

 

[dans]

Very amusing, and great self-control to not physically throw the old chap out!!

 

[shilly]

I guess there will be people too in the future that are horrified about the loss of hardboard and woodchip that we have taken out..

Exactly. I am allready missing the cork tiles that took me two days to take off the kitchen wall, which were under the cladding...

 

[plasticpigeon]

Wouldn't worry about that worms! I'm all for trying to make features match the overall style of house even if they are not original. Pastiche has immediate negative connotations that in many cases is unfair.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Ooh - "pastiche".

If only there was a thread on PPUK where we could discuss the meaning of pastiche... :wink:

 

[CliffordPope]

I give the same answer that I use when people on classic car forums bemoan the appalling things Previous Owners have inflicted on "their" cars:

Whatever their faults, they have ensured that the car, house etc has survived until now, largely intact, and waiting for the current sanctimonious know-all to have his turn. Most of its fellows have long since been demolished or scrapped, but this one has been saved, held from destruction, waiting for you.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Very well put Clifford.

I'm friendly with our PO but the funniest thing is that he sold us an early Georgian house with an Elizabethan basement, and the whole place has ended up being Regency from foundations to roof! It was Gareth Hughes who found it out, by looking at both the construction and maps, and all confirmed by the extensive research of English Heritage. But the previous owner won't have it. Lots of dark mutterings about how old this place is, ancient ancient flagstones, a priest hole, evidence of Roman settlement in the garden. I kind of wish I hadn't told him.

Worms - I know just how you feel about that mantle. These later additions are very difficult. In your case, they're the first bits of domestic use? I think I'd be inclined to leave any 40s work, and it's getting more respected year by year.

 

[Lime]

It is worth pointing out that there was good and bad in all eras.
Alterations in some instances genuinely express the time they were made while others demonstrate poverty, stupidity and destruction for the sake of it.

 

[worms]

I think I'd be inclined to leave any 40s work, and it's getting more respected year by year.

Yes, I guess in the late 40's this house was the epitome of a chic barn-conversion and probably ahead of its time, as barn conversions are perhaps a more modern thing? I think I've now grown to accept the external, red, quarry-tiled window-ledges. I had always wanted to replace them with whitewashed stone ledges to match the cottage next door, which would have been built about the same time to be the farmworker's cottage while mine was the stables/cart-shed.

 

[piper]

Yes, I guess in the late 40's this house was the epitome of a chic barn-conversion and probably ahead of its time, as barn conversions are perhaps a more modern thing?

From 'Brideshead Revisited' published 1945, though of course Waugh was looking back nostalgically to the 1920's & 30's and we can assume he remembered the fashions of the time fairly accurately.
This dialogue is sometime in the 30's, as Charles is returning from America with his soon to be divorced wife Celia - the barn conversion is all part of the gulf that has developed between them.

"Presently she said: ‘Looking forward to getting home?’ (My father gave me as a wedding present the price of a house, and I bought an old rectory in my wife’s part of the country.) ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
'Yes?’
‘I’ve turned the old barn into a studio for you, so that you needn’t be disturbed by the children or when we have people to stay. I got Emden to do it. Everyone thinks it a great success. There was an article on it in Country Life; I brought it for you to see.’
She showed me the article: ‘ ... happy example of architectural good manners..Sir Joseph Emden’s tactful adaptation of traditional material to modern needs . . .’; there were some photographs; wide oak boards now covered the earthen floor; a high, stone-mullioned bay-window had been built in the north wall, and the great timbered roof, which before had been lost in shadow, now stood out stark, well lit, with clean white plaster between the beams; - it looked like a village hall. I remembered the smell of the place, which would now be lost.
‘I rather liked that barn,’ I said."

The architectural historians on this forum could no doubt point to real examples, and real Country Life articles.

 

[worms]

From 'Brideshead Revisited' published 1945...

Thanks, I would never in a million years have seen any linkage between this place and Brideshead!

The architectural historians on this forum could no doubt point to real examples, and real Country Life articles.

I'll need to delve further into this myself as I had never thought about the conversion in the context of architectural history, only in terms of construction techniques and post-war austerity.