The Harris project has now reached the stage where every detail has to be considered…and re-considered…first of all on aesthetic grounds, then on practical, then on whether at all possible within the curves, and finally whether possible within the budget….Site meetings are now weekly, which means getting up at 4.30am on Tuesdays to drive up to Uig for the morning ferry, arriving on site bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (ish!) for a noon start….
This week, great excitement as the textured glass arrived for the dining table, shelves for the snug wall and for the curved internal windows…and relief when the box was opened to reveal just the right number of pieces…
Next to arrive was the postie with the calico templates for the curved sofa and chairs in the sitting room…
…which will be covered in a lovely textured weave from Ian Sanderson.
That night, my lovely hostess, known to everyone on the island as Grannie Annie, showed me her beautiful woven tweed cushions and rugs – she makes the “cloth” by weaving strips of tweed into an open weave crochet, also made from wool, and as far as she knows, this process is unique. Of COURSE, we have to have this somewhere – so she has now been commissioned to make the covering for the study footstool!
The next day I made templates for all the bathroom floors, showing the areas to have mosaic tiling – this is the main bathroom, which will have a pebbled floor spilling out into the hall…one room flowing, literally, into the next!
…and we spent a long time considering the materials and fixings for the blinds, dress curtains and pelmet over the 6m. wide, curved in every direction, “eyebrow” windows in the dining and sitting areas. So many challenges to overcome, there was nothing for it, but to make a cardboard “prototype” so that we could envisage everything more clearly. (ooo err, I hope the finished article will be more beautiful than this) We are all still mulling the challenge of achieving a sufficiently flexible solution (metaphorically and literally) to the lighting pelmet – a narrow cornice hiding an LED strip light, running the entire length of the living areas…maybe a combination of plastic extrusion and wood…more research tomorrow!
Having the dogs with me made my shell-collecting excursions much more companionable – they couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw their new playground and rushed around blissfully while I scooped up handfuls of treasure for making the entrance hall light and decorating two of the bedside tables.
Back at the ranch, I spent a happy afternoon sorting out the large ones, washing them, drilling holes and varnishing them ready for the next stage…they are so varied and beautiful in their patterns and colours, it was a very therapeutic exercise…