These were the immortal words that Bette Davis spat out in her 1949 film – Beyond the Forest and that Liz Taylor later incanted as the opening lines of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
It was pretty much what was running through Douglas and my minds when we came to have a first look at the inside of the house we live in now.
I had always liked the outside – it is simple, almost gaunt.
But the inside turned out to be a rabbit warren of flats, with awkward dividing walls and horrible decor. Worse still, the land agent was a blabbermouth. His idea of good salesmanship was to keep up a rapid fire commentary on everything from rugby and the weather to any other crap subject his turgid brain could dredge up.
He never shut up for a second.
Meanwhile Douglas and I walked round the house in an advanced state of shock.
mind blowing decor
The purple room was …’mind blowing’ – but not in a way you might like.
We decided after this, that the house was a no go.
BUT
We got ambushed.
Down in the city council – remarkably, since most papers got burnt in the earthquake – was a plan for the interior which showed this remarkable space – a studio.
- The Studio as was – divided into 3 ugly rooms
We ended up in a bidding war for the dump (the property cycle in 2005 was revving up, heading straight towards the 2007 cliff…)
I’ll let Douglas tell in another blog about how he discovered there was enough of the studio left for us to really really really want the house.
In the meantime, luxuriate in the sheer horribleness of the interiors of the house that we bought. And I guess the message is: there’s an awful lot of work in changing things, but it is worth it (just…)
PW
The Studio: as it became (an early incarnation)
Decor Extremus: 