Shut the (yellow) front door

Occasional extra bit, #4

More than fifteen years ago, we moved into our home in Northumberland. One of my first thoughts: that front door needs some love.

Scratched, unkempt and very, very black. A not-quite-centred letterbox, with a weird contraption on the other side that meant it was basically impossible to post a letter through. Then we had a cat flap put in, which didn’t do a lot for either aesthetics or windproofness.* But the door had thick wood, good bones, heft.

And it wasn’t a front door in the door-for-best sense: it was the main door, the one you go in and out of every day. Many, many times every day, if you work in a studio in the garden. ‘This needs sorted,’ I thought when we first moved in, ‘it’s going to drive me mad. What an ugly way to welcome yourself, and the people you love, to your home.’

And then it turned out that the shower didn’t work, that there was something unsavoury in the chimney**, that getting a higher fence installed so your greyhound couldn’t jump it*** was a lot pricier than you would think. After a couple of years we got the bathroom done, and then a wood-burning stove (the most effective way to dry out the chimney). By the time we’d got all that done, I’d more or less stopped seeing the door.

Every now and then, I would notice it and shudder afresh. I once got someone in to quote for restoration. They came and had a look, talked about all that they could do to restore it to a brave new beauty, and then didn’t get back to me. I briefly toyed with the idea of replacing the door with a brand new one, but this house has good, old, stone bones, and it just didn’t feel right.

During the pandemic I painted our dining room, in an extremely first-draft way, the way that would never get past a room-editor. More recently, I painted our living room, in the same let’s-not-worry-about-the-woodwork-or-the-ceiling manner. Last year, when days were long with grief, I was doing things that I now realise were my mind trying to direct me to activities I could control, so my heart could get on with figuring out the emotional impossibility of my world without Lou in it. A 7-step skincare routine, complex cross-referencing of all recipe books, an idea for turning the entire garden into one huge terraced rockery****. And… painting the hallway. I did the bannister spindles and the radiator. Great, I thought, little by little. Except I couldn’t get further than the first small bit.

A friend and I speak regularly on the phone, and she often tucks herself up in bed for the call. I realised, one day after talking to her, that she experiences her bedroom as a kind of sanctuary. Our bedroom was very much Not This. Beloved Mr Butland and I have a very comfortable bed*****, and the space at the beginning and ends of the day when we settle down and wake up are lovely times of ordinary happiness and connection for us. But it would never have occurred to me to go into our bedroom during the day for any reason unconnected with collecting or putting away washing. So I decided it would be good if our bedroom was a sanctuary. BMB was supportive, if a little bemused - after all, it is only us and Harris in our home now, and over the years we have made the whole place ours. It is a place of comfort and peace and we are very, very lucky to live in it together.

And then I looked at the high ceilings of our bedroom, and the slightly mildewed bits in the high corners, and I thought, I can’t tackle this. Or rather, I could tackle this, but it wouldn’t become a sanctuary, because I would sit here and look at all the botchy bits and feel the opposite of the calm, peaceful safety that the word ‘sanctuary’ brings to mind.

Enter Mal, painter, decorator and all round excellent human. He decorated our bedroom and it was perfect. We had it recarpeted (did I tell you about the Carpet Measuring Disaster?) and it is truly a sanctuary.

And if I ever had any idea of redecorating the hallway and stairs myself, I gave it up, having watched someone who actually knows how to do something - and enjoy it - do such a great job. I asked Mal if he would do the hallway when he had time, and last week he had time. When he came to have a closer look at the job, I heard myself ask, ‘Would you be able to paint the front door as well?’ I honestly didn’t know I was going to say it. I don’t know who did - whether it was past me or future me - but it certainly wasn’t that moment’s surveying-the-staircase me, who was wondering whether it was wrong to choose a paint colour based on the name (we live in the Old School House).

‘Paint the door? No bother,’ said Mal.

If you’ve read ‘The Second Chance Book Club’, you may remember the when September arrives at the house she has inherited from her Great Aunt Lucia, she notices the orange door with the bumblebee door knocker. Did that door inspire me, or did I write the door I longed for? I don’t know. But look.

Look!

I am so very happy.******

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I’m off to London on Thursday, for Writerly Business (the lunching kind). Thursday is ebook publication day for ‘A Bookshop Summer’ and it will be nice to be out and about and celebrating, rather than doing my usual publication day rituals of intermittent crying, refreshing sales figures every fourteen seconds, and only very occasionally managing to be proud.

After that I’m spending a few days catching up with friends and family. (Oh and popping in to a yarn festival.) I’ll see you next week.

Until then, be well, stay well, and maybe paint your front door yellow? I promise, it will do wonders for your soul.

Love and light,

Stephanie x

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*windprooficity?

**wet asbestos

***before I adopted Harris, my daughter Joy had a rescue greyhound she named Hope. We soon realised the idea of Home needing a five foot high fence to contain her was laughable. But she was like a gazelle compared to Harris, who cannot manage to get into a car at least 40% of the time. Yes, I lift his backside in. Yes, I know we are ridiculous
****to give me credit, I realised this was a non-starter before I had even Googled it

******When we went to buy the mattress I fell asleep on it in the shop

******It’s the sheep-in-a-mug all over again. Hooray!