This morning I had to chisel off a little bit off the new runner I had made, to support the second drawer, in our new old Freecycle drawers. Excepting for the missing bits of trim, this is now complete. And it’s already in place.
We’re off out to Oxburgh Hall, a (fairly) local National Trust property now, to make the most of a beautiful sunny day, and both having the day off work. When we get back, I’ll load all my clothes into it.
Whilst disposing of the old Ikea chest of drawers at our local municipal dump/recycling centre, I spotted the writing box, pictured above, in the waste wood tip. Unbelievable! It’s such a lovely thing. So I asked one of the guys who work there if we could fish it out, and – if it wasn’t too bad – could I have it? In the end he charged me two pounds for it. Score!
It is fairly dilapidated. But not so far gone I don’t feel able to have a go at restoring it. It needs new fabric; we’re going to try and match the lovely original dark green velvet. There are some marks and dings, and a few little bits of wood that need replacing. And internally, there’s need of a fair bit of restoration to the internal components, which include some lovely little drawers. It also has a lock. Will I be able to retro-fit/source an appropriate key, I wonder?
Whilst examining it in the company of the dump employee, I found the above inscriptions. One reads ‘Ely—* Margetts, a Present from Edward Hodson, Esq, September 1850’ (or it might be 1858?), in a lovely copper-plate script. The other, dated May 18th, 1943, says ‘C. Edwards, 32 Creek Road, March, Cambs, Age 18.’ We live on Creek Road… fabulous!
Rescuing and restoring a bit of local history feels great. I’m going to give it to Teresa, as a bonus Xmas gift
Returning to my first subject, kind of, on top of the chest is another fairly recent restoration job, a Philips GF 446 portable record player. This was yet another Freecycle acquisition. Did I say I love Freecycle?
When I got it it wasn’t working properly. In the end it turned out all it needed was a new stylus, which I got for under a tenner, via the interweb. Here’s a video of it in action, sat atop our former Ikea drawers.
* I can’t quite make the whole of this first word/name out!