In some respects my restoration of a 17th-century townhouse on the Norfolk/Suffolk border was my greatest act of vanity.
It was a work of love, and as it happened, my last opportunity to express myself through workmanship. Towards the completion of the project, I was diagnosed with the multiple sclerosis that would, ironically, mean that I would be unable to live in the house that I had lovingly restored.
Listed buildings are famously unsuited to the use of wheelchairs. And only so much can be done to make them reach the kind of standards that a disabled person would require, before an act of vandalism takes place.
Hours of labour were devoted to the restoration of this unique survival of an age past. the fact that the house had been abandoned and squatted had in some strange sense protected it from the worst excesses of inappropriate restoration.
With us when we purchased it from the squatters that could not really afford to repair the house, and make it more habitable, it was purchased not freehold but with the kind of title deeds that allow for the lost owner to potentially reclaim their property, through a form of insurance.
My partner and I were able to transform this to a proper freehold when we purchased the neighbouring cottage, and combined the two houses to make a five bedroomed house. With two full-size bathrooms and just the one kitchen, but with the second kitchen used as a utility room.
When finished it was indeed fabulous. We had adopted high standards in the work we mostly undertook ourselves, only bringing in experts when absolutely necessary.
Thus a firm specialising in the restoration of churches were employed to replace a 6 foot section of solid oak on which the roof rested, because such work would have been beyond us, and the Carpenters that did the work were gentlemen in their late 60s that had spent a lifetime using skills that are almost beyond modern craftsmen.
We taught ourselves to be able to work with lime plaster, and one of my proudest possessions was my large container full of goats' hair that was used in the mix of lime and sharp sand to help bind the soft mortar that is essential to the sensitive repair of an older house. So that it can continue to move and to breathe.
On the ground floor, what had perhaps once been a simple earth floor had been concreted over many years before we came on the scene, and this was both cold and somehow not right for the period of the house.
Research suggested that the correct floor would once have been red pine boards, and eventually we located a local timber yard in which we found something that we felt was exactly right.
It was a plank of Wellingtonia, Giant Redwood, Sequoia Sequoia. This single plank measured about 4 inches thick, was 3 feet in width, and about 12 feet in length.
In other words, when we sent it to a specialist to be machined into random width boards, we had more than enough to cover the entire downstairs reception room and hallway.
It wasn't really until the boards were delivered from their machining into tongue and groove boards that we realised quite how pink the timber was. And how soft.
The colour was simple to dye, and several coats of diamond hard varnish made it suitable for walking upon. But I suppose it was the romance that had convinced us of its suitability, as it had been harvested from the Duke of Wellington's estate, and must have been one of the first of its kind imported into the United Kingdom, as indeed the common English name for this timber, Wellingtonia, suggests.
I fixed Marine ply boards to the concrete floor, and was thus able to nail the random width boards directly to this subfloor with nails that in effect were invisibly driven into the side of the boards. The overall effect was simply stunning.
The softness of the timber made it easy to cut and fix, and once the colour was turned from the pink to an acceptable brown colour, it looked as if it might have been in place since the house had been built.
But I would tell people the story of the floor at every opportunity, and it was always admired.
In the room that it mainly adorned, there was our front to the street, and we found a beautiful marble fire surround, simple enough to have passed for an early 19th-century example, perhaps it was original, and at one of the road closure fairs we found a Carron grate, which fitted perfectly and gave us a roaring fire. local supplies of hardwood logs were easy to come by, and stored just outside our side entrance, became an attractive and efficient winter feature.
The chimneys proved to be in remarkable condition, and were quite safe to use.
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