The garden room

I quite like pretentious room names.  In Scotland we had a large room above the double garage that we called the morning room because it got the sun am. I know a keen weaver and spinner who called her workroom the loom room, you get the idea.  The garden room sounds better than the room under the balcony and makes it acceptable to be a mix of outside and inside.

So the garden room is coming on, it’s decorated, cleaned and partially restored.  I’ve been applying linseed oil to the unsealed terracotta tiles, i love the smell of that stuff, and they look much better.  MrFF has cleaned and repaired the fireplace, it was pretty awful with crumbling plaster and mortar splattered bricks.  

The room was full of brown furniture, we donated the table, bench and chairs to someone opening a taverna down in the valley, the brother of our local bar owner. We have a white wooden garden table and chairs that are far too heavy to move in and out that we can use instead to fill the space, I doubt we will ever wish to traipse our meal downstairs.

I am toying with the idea of chalk painting the large dark dresser as there is far too much brown in the room, it needs lifting and the change would be worth the effort.

Between the spiral stairs and the room we have made a library.  I enjoyed dusting and re-shelving all the books, most of which I’ve read. 

There’s still work to do and it feels rather make do and mend but when I remember that two years ago water was pouring from the ceiling and the walls were black with mould it does feel like progress.  It’s not the beautiful space it could be but neither is it the embarrassment it was, for now we’ve spent enough time and energy on a room we have never used.