For past visitors to the Mill House...

[fleetfootmike]

...you may need sunglasses when you come next time.

We just had the three useless kitchen spotlights plus the light over the kitchen table replaced with three fluorescent strips. Man, what a difference.

One amusing thing we noticed, though. The three strips were going to be lined up across the width of the room, one at each end, one in the middle. So Geoff, our very nice electrician, drew himself an accurate line down the middle of the ceiling (middle of one end wall to middle of the other), fitting one parallel to each end wall, and the other in the middle.

For a first shot, he placed the middle one perpendicular to the centre line. And it looked MILES out. A bit of closer investigation reveals:

• No two walls in the kitchen are parallel.
  
• No corner of the kitchen is a right angle.
  
• The kitchen ceiling is not flat
  
• The centre line is *visibly* not perpendicular to either end wall.
  
• The whole room is skewed by about 3-5 degrees.
  

I LOVE 19th century stone built houses :)

Comments

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I can't top that, but I've lived in a couple places that were old (well, for us, you know!) farm houses and such, probably 70 or so years old. Nothing was square, everything had gaps, hanging pictures was an exercise in laughter, the floor noticably sloped underfoot (and didn't join smoothly from one room to the next) and none of the inside doors latched properly. :)Still, a very comfortable house!

[bardiclug.livejournal.com]

As Eddie Izzard would say about American History -

"We've restored this house to the way it was 50 YEARS AGO!"

"No! I can't be! No one was alive then!"

:)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

These things are, of course, also true of council-built houses from the 50s, 60s, 70s and, well, ever...show me a house with a right angle in it and I'll be very surprised.

[wolfette]

20th C brick houses - especially late 20th C brick faced wooden framed houses built by certain well known building firms - aren't any better. You have this from Daddy the surveyor.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm not awake. I read the second paragraph as being "useless kitten spotlights" and thought "No! There are no useless kittens!"

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the world of older houses. As you noticed about no. 32 - nothing is straight in that house either. (Nb. for readers who have not put up 4 poster beds in our old cottage - Mike noted that walking across a floor like that would make Anne seasick!) Some houses are worse than others, but I love those inconsistencies, and after living in 100 year old+ houses for 15 years or so now, I wouldn't know *how* to live in a straight and square house.

My personal favourite is a baby bouncer that someone gave us for Ellie. "Fits any size door frame!" the box proudly boasted. Doesn't fit frames in converted 18th century stable blocks, I'll tell you that! Not used to one and a half foot thick walls in that production office...

[armb.livejournal.com]

For really not-square, try a 17th century timber house with major 19th C (and earlier) alterations (Alice's parents). One of the bedroom floors was a good six inches higher in one corner where the Victorian oven had been fitted under it.

[adrianclark.livejournal.com]

Blimey, yeah... reminds me of when we "did" our kitchen (basically just replacing the worktops and sink and retiling/painting the walls). Cutting expensive worktops to size with a powerful and finger-threatening jigsaw is all the more terrifying when you have to allow for the fact that not a single pair of surfaces in our kitchen is parallel. :-)