If there’s one thing that is consistent about The Well Room, it’s that it is constantly in a state of renovation. The problem with this room has a lot to do with what we now call it – The Well Room. When we bought the house (and for a good few months), we had an internal stone well, slap bang in the middle of this room, with a deep, deep chamber where the rain water collected. It had been a working well, but as the house is connected to mains water, the function of it became pretty redundant. Nearly a year ago, the actual overground stone well was relocated to outside the front door and the chamber drained. A reinforced glass well cover has been on order for, forever. But we are in Croatia, so this is perfectly normal. Other parts of the house take precedence too, as need arises and so we never, ever seem to complete this room.
The other issue is that the front door opens straight into it, and so as work is being done around the house, this is the “messy room”. The one that always has the dirty floor when it rains – the floor is still the original stone so we don’t mind this too much at the moment, but it doesn’t lend itself to being overly comfy. Or warm. The window surrounds and cills need to be treated and fixed. The temporary well cover replaced. A wood burner fitted. A new wooden floor laid. But none of this can really be done whilst there’s still a lot of renovation work going on in the room, so we just chip and chip away.
Part of the recent chipping away, has been the sealing and insulation of one of the outer walls. This room is really cold in the winter – unsurprising with no heating (apart from our electric heaters and millions of candles) and a stone floor, single glazed & pretty ill-fitting windows and a front door which when open, brings in the elements. So, a false wall has been created, behind which is thick insulation. We’ve also taken the opportunity to sort out the “day bed” AKA the big lump of concrete in the corner of the room, which abuts this exterior wall. A false shelf, with very soft, integrated LED strip lighting, has been built. This is all in-situ, and now just waiting for the final plastering and painting. It’s looking like this, currently…
…but hopefully, by this time next week, will look quite considerably better!
We’re also taking the opportunity to final get up our beautiful white concrete light bulb pendant shades, bought from Moth in West Didsbury, when we renovated our last house. They are very delicate and very pretty and I’ve just been waiting to find *the* place to have them installed. Now that we have our LED shelf lighting and the same lighting on the steps going up into the kitchen from The Well Room, they will work perfectly, on a dimmer, in a line above the concrete dining table. Which might soon be used for its intended purpose, rather than a tool storage!
We’ve asked that the concrete shades are connected by exposed cables, so that they can hang at different heights above the table – and I, for one, cannot wait for these beauties, last seen in Arley Avenue, to be out of storage.
Concrete pendant light bulbs from Moth, West Didsbury…