Friday 3 April 2020

Changing Rooms

This story starts with a piano.

The particular instrument was owned, loved and played by Sue's Grandmother, and featured in many happy family sing-alongs. After Grandmother's passing, in her memory, Sue was determined to keep the piano, and in time, use it to hone her own playing skills.

For some ten years, after we moved to Skye, the piano resided at Rowan Cottage, where it was occasionally played by our self-catering visitors. When we sold Rowan, we had the piano moved to Summer Cottage, Being much closer to our home, Sue has been able to call-in at Summer when the cottage was vacant, to have a little tinkle, and is now becoming an ever more accomplished pianist.  But popping up to Summer to play is not a very convenient arrangement, so we came to the decision that the piano would have to be moved here to Roskhill Barn.

Now, the only place it could stand here would be in the downstairs room that we refer to as the study. This room is also my 'playroom', with decor and furnishings to my taste. Sue has her own 'playroom' - furnished to suit her - upstairs.

I didn't want the piano in my playroom, and there wasn't space for it anyway, so the only option was for us to swap rooms. This means I have to give-up my view of the bird-feeders, and my convenient en-suite bathroom, but I do get a larger room, and - to be fair - a rather better view over our garden and field to the cliffs and sea beyond.

As we are currently enduring coronavirus lock-down, I have no-where to go just now, and the weather is not good enough for working outside, so I have dedicated the last few days to stripping out both rooms, moving a lot of furniture (and all it contained) plus all my computery stuff. I have redecorated both rooms (luckily there was enough paint for each room in half-used cans in the shed...) (just as well I'd kept them...) and now, my 'new' playroom is all-but finished. Sue will spend some time in the next few days organising her books, pot-plants and trinkety bits and pieces to suit her, and will leave a large space for the piano, which will be moved here as soon as we are allowed to do such a thing.

Now, we just need to get Cupar used to the new arrangement.

The study / my playroom, in the process of being 'taken apart'
Sue's former playroom, in a similar state of disarray
The upstairs sitting room became a temporary furniture store
I thought everything was wireless these days...???
My new view -
the weather was good this morning but it has been raining since lunchtime
My new playroom...sitting end
... and again - working end

2 comments:

Tante Jacqueline said...

I really enjoy reading your blog posts and have done since before we moved to Skye in 2016. Really interested to hear about Sue's piano playing. If she ever fancies any duets then I'm just across in Colbost. I used to teach piano part time before moving up here, but now mainly just play for fun. Best wishes Jacqui Ross

Richard Dorrell said...

Thank you Jacqui. I'll make sure Sue sees your comment. Could you send me your email address? richarddorrell@aol.com.