Furniture and Effects

For the past year or so we have been host to almost the entire contents of the seven bedroomed Well House, where we lived whilst the water tower was being restored.   Family circumstances have dictated this situation and we await the planning decision on our extension, which will absorb some of the items but by no means all.

The stored items occupied
- one entire bay of the garage / navvy hut, floor to ceiling
- the entire volume of the coal truck
- the summer house
- almost the entire garage loft
- some of the interior of the main tower, especially the utility room and the atrium

Altogether, a big invasion of 'stuff'.   During last week we had a serious onslaught on this stuff, ruthlessly categorising it into keep (for the extension), ship to Pittsburgh (a family outpost), sell, take to charity shop and take to tip.   The ship to Pittsburgh category was in the event nil as shipping costs are absurdly high and the actual number of items in that category was actually low.   The biggest category by volume was 'sell' and it has worked out incredibly well in these social media days.   The Settle Sell and Seek Facebook facility has worked a treat and we have been able to reclaim an enormous amount of space - the garage bay in fact.

Such decisions can have unexpected results.   The dining table below was in the 'take to tip' category as it was so scruffy.   It fell into the 'sell' category when a £10 offer was made online, later upped to £20, unseen.  Then I sought advice from Simon Byrne, who has a flourishing restoration business.   He pleaded that we did not scrap it so I spent a couple of hours wax polishing with Fiddes 'stripped pine' blend of waxes - just right for use on almost any colour.   The first picture below does not do justice to its scruffiness but it does show potential:

click to make that enormous table leg even bigger

and here is the result of waxing the frame and legs only:

The top (which extends) remains to be done but already the results are remarkable.   A quick Google search reveals these things at £600 upwards.   Seller beware eh?