Giving it the red carpet treatment.

Having just finished brushing down the stairs carpet I asked myself why I should find this particular part of house cleaning so satisfying. The answer was staring me in the face, (no pun intended) and it was the carpet itself that was the source of my pleasure. The deep poppy red short pile from the iron oxide end of the spectrum rather than a carmine or crimson cochineal red has been familiar to me throughout my life. It was there in dining room of my parents 1926 Lorimer arts and craft house on the Mull of Kintyre and when we moved south in 1961 it found a place in six out of the eight houses they lived in. It had been made in a narrow weave for stairs or corridors but later my father had joined it together with a backing of copydex and webbing. It failed to find a place in their final home but was rolled up safely in the barn where I rediscovered it. My croft house in Tolsta needed stairs carpet but these strips were too wide. Having looked at the price of new carpet I got out the Stanley knife trimming it to size and gluing the cut edge. It’s now been down for ten years and shows no sign of wear. The satisfaction I get is in seeing that my red carpet has already seen 90 years of service and will probably do as many years again. So what modern carpet could be expected to do such service? By equal good fortune I also have some of the old red velvet curtains from that Kintyre home and one pair now graces the parlour window. I still recall the Christmas of 1958 when these curtains were used to dramatic effect. We were ushered into the sitting room where the fire had been lit and the curtains across the bay window remained closed. My brother and I were told to go and draw the red curtains and there we discovered an entire farmyard of grey buildings with green roofs that my father and half-brother Bill had made in secret.  Another pair of these curtains I used to cover an easy chair in my bedroom, a chair that came originally from the croft house but was destined for the local skip. While my wonderfully over the top mahogany half tester bed (somebody else’s throw out) received a refurbished and relined pair of red velvet drapes. It is important not to confuse reuse with that of up-cycling. Reuse implies using some creative skill to bring back into service some tired and seemingly useless item, while up-cycling is the painting of old mahogany, oak, ash, chestnut, cherry, walnut, rosewood or elm furniture an off white, pink or lavender in the hopes that it will look less conspicuous alongside the flat-pack items.