We’ve lived in our house for over 25 years now but I realised that we have hardly any photos of some parts of it so I thought I would take some for posterity as we plan to downsize at some point in the future. The house is around 110 years old, so Victorian/Edwardian. The photo above is of the bottom of the stairs, they lead up to a half-landing – or mezzanine as estate agents call it. They lead up to the bathroom, yes, halfway up/down the stairs is the place where we sit. I’m going to spare you a photo of that though!
I suppose it’s a bit of a quirky house, I don’t think too many houses have a window right at the top corner of the wall on the stairs. You can’t see it too clearly here though. In fact you can’t see much. The small prints are all of Peter Pan illustrations by Arthur Rackham. The large poster facing you is of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh building – The Daily Record Buildings in Glasgow, (the Daily Record has moved somewhere else now) and underneath it is a print of Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh’s The White Rose and the Red Rose.
I took the photo above from the half landing. As you can see, just about the whole wall is covered with prints, almost all of them with a Scottish link. C.R.Mackintosh flower prints, Scottish British Rail travel posters and some Scottish colourist prints in the shape of The Orange Blind by Cadell and Lilies by Peploe. It occurs to me that it’s the sort of thing which you would expect to see in the home of an exiled Scot, rather than one who lives in Scotland – as I do.
And there’s that window I was telling you about. It doesn’t open and I have to drag ladders out to clean it so that doesn’t happen too often, but it does throw some light onto the stairs, which is handy. Next time I’ll take some photos of the top of the stairs, which you can just see in one of the photos. At the moment it’s a bit of a guddle (mess) though as our main computer is still on that landing – its winter headquarters.
Don’t you just love Kermit’s nephew Robin singing this song by A.A. Milne – Halfway Down the Stairs? I do anyway, so here it is.
I love quirky! I hope you,ll post pics of the whole house since you’ll probably have moved before I get there! I love those old stairs and wish I could look at each picture.
Peggy Ann,
You never know – we could still be living here! I’ll take photos of all the rooms anyway and I might take photos of all our prints and just put them on flickr.
What a lovely staircase in your home. Beautiful wall art. Can’t wait to see where you keep your books.
Lorraine,
My books are all over the place at the moment, at least half of them have already been boxed up, but I’ll take some photos of a few bookcases soon.
I like your house and I love all the photos / prints / paintings. Seems we have very similar tastes in books and art and houses!
‘Guddle’ – I’m going to try to remember that one to describe the state of my house!
Joan,
It certainly seems we do have similar tastes!
We also say – I’ve got a hoose I could stir wi’ a stick! – when it’s really untidy.
I love the mid-way window for the light – I’d probably kill myself on the stairs, distracted by the lovely art work! We live on pretty much a single level (just a 2-step down to our sunken family room)for a reason: I’m a hopeless klutz!
I liked your comment about the memorabilia marking an expat more than a longtime resident. Our hall (and most of the house…) is decked with charcoals, oils and watercolors from our travels. That’s what passes for souvenirs at the Pearls’.
Pearl,
I’m up and down those stairs about 100 times every day so two steps really appeals to me now, or a bungalow! Those sound like ideal travel souvenirs, not too much dusting involved.
Just think of how much benefit your heart gets from all that tromping up and down, though. No wonder you are in such great shape!
Pearl,
I don’t know about that! I’m feeling a terrible urge to eat sweet things at the moment, it’s this bleeping awful weather. It’s freezing here!
Love this glimpse into your home! The prints are wonderful – what a great idea to enhance a space that is mostly used for getting from one floor to the next.
Anbolyn,
I’m just not keen on blank walls and have so many things I like to frame. I have quite a lot of botanical prints too, I think you like those.
Thank you for sharing.it would take me ages to go up and down those stairs with all those pictures to look at!
Jo,
After a while you don’t notice things, which is a good reason to move them around I suppose, it also stops those tell tale marks developing where the light hasn’t go to the wallpaper, if you have any space left between the prints, which I hardly have here!