An Egyptian brothel?

Chris and I had a little discussion before we fixed the first length of tongued and grooved board. It would need two and a bit lengths of board to cover the length of the hall and Chris thought we should arrange the boards so that the joins were level with each other in every second row. In my opinion this would be just a little too formal and I preferred a random pattern of joins, which I thought would be more in keeping with a house of this age. Chris deferred to me most graciously.

"After all," he said, "it is your house. And anyway, we would probably end up with a lot of short pieces to fill the last two or three rows."

Fixing the boards was a little fiddly as we wanted to nail them through the grooves so that no nails would be visible when the job was finished. Luckily, none of the boards was unduly warped so at least we did not have that to contend with. All the same, it was well into the following day before we could turn our attention to the really tricky bit were the stairs emerged into the hall. But Chris's plan worked well and we were undeniably pleased with ourselves when we stood back and looked at the end result. There was just one final, finishing touch needed.

When our son and daughter-in-law had moved into their new house, Mrs S had looked at a lampshade left by the previous owners and realised straight away that it would not be to the taste of either son or daughter-in-law. She had decided it was just what was needed in the hall at Les Lavandes. It was a somewhat fragile affair of clear and coloured panels in a wire framework and I had been extremely careful how I had packed it in the car. Now was the time to put it up.

I thought Mrs S was quite right and it was just what the hall needed. Chris's comment was that it made the place look like an Egyptian brothel: I diplomatically refrained from asking him what he knew about such houses of ill repute, but Mrs Chris was less restrained when I reported his comment later.

 And just to finish off, this is the hall as it looks nowadays.