SUMMER SLOSHING 23

This picture illustrates the difference in taste between my parents and myself. The top left hand picture shows the 'lounge' I grew up with - the carpet arriving when I was a few years old, the wallpaper not long after, and the ancient settee dating from 1953 when my parents moved into a newly built council house that they later bought and I later still inherited.

Over the last year or so I have been redecorating the room, which turned from a lounge to my father's bedsit for the final 1-2 years before he passed away due to his inability to handle the stairs and our need of a third bedroom when my son moved in with us. A major stage was when Liz and I scraped the 45 year old carpet off - along with its lumped up underlay - to reveal tiles, last year. Previously, multiple pieces of furniture and bric a brac had to be sold/donated/taken to the tip. This intermediate stage is shown in the second photo - top right.

Finally, August 2016, and the recently painted room had new carpet laid, as described in my last blog post. As you can see, I am not afraid of bright and colorful decor - but I really do dislike the recliner chair. I was considering keeping it as it is only a spare room - but I have to live in the room whilst I redecorate my own bedroom, meaning in the same room as that horrendous chair.

This I do not look forward to - it is bad enough having to live downstairs rather than in an upstair room where I can leave the window open all night, but the room will be cramped and feel wrong to me, I am sure. It is also at the front rather than back of the house, so I shall not have the tree and garden birds to look out at when the sun and I wake up - but cars and people as the sun keeps me awake. I fear it will be like having a forced vacation in a place I do not want to stay - made worse by that dreadful chair that nobody wants.

Talking of nobody wants - does anybody want any of this junk? Once I have gone around the house touching up any damaged paintwork and tossed out the old paint cans, and once my onions and garlic have dried so I can put them in a box - I shall still have this room full of 'parental accumulations' to dispose of before I can install a lounge and coffee table and have MY coffee lounge room in situ.