Chapter 11: From 1992 to the Present Day

Sitting room

In 2013 I implemented the last major piece of decorating in the house -- the final job for which Chris Whiteman was responsible -- namely the sitting room. I had long delayed doing this since the Willetts had bequeathed quite an acceptable striped paper and there had always seemed more urgent bits of decorating or refurbishment to do. Now, however, I decided to bite the bullet and to deck the room out in a nice new wallpaper. For this I went to Vintage Bird in the High Street and, as already noted, went straight for the papers produced by G.P. and J. Baker, of which they had a book of samples. The paper that I found was not quite the colour I originally had in mind, but it seemed perfect: it is called ‘Myrtle’. In the course of decorating various details came to light about the history of the house, which are recorded in chapter 3, above. There was also a strange picture of a Buddha on the wall facing the windows, of indeterminate date, of which I have retained a photograph.

In 2015 the back gate had to be replaced: I recall that it had long been getting a bit delapidated, but one day I was just walking past the side the house - I think having been over to Hastings Motorcycles - to find that it had been completely staved in. The replacement was executed by Woodbase, who did an excellent job as usual.

Exmouth House from Exmouth Place

2018 saw the outside of the house redecorated, a truly excellent job by Stuart Glazier, who used oil-based paint instead of regular emulsion. For this, I changed the colour slightly from its predecessor, using a tint called Devon Stone which is a stronger yellow, and I think it looks lovely. The entire job took from 20 September to 29 October, in other words just over four weeks, including the erection and removal of scaffolding, and the work included repainting the railings, on which Emma’s partner, Seb, had done a repair job earlier in the year, strengthening the place where the railing had decayed. I also took the opportunity to have Simon Bartlett make a new window for the upstairs toilet: the original one had been a d.i.y. job by Kevin and had never worked properly. Luckily, it was possible to insert the window without any damage to the decorations inside.