Channeling Daphne Du Maurier
Posted under Witterings
This is the first photo of the inside of our new house. I’ve had to convert it to black & white to protect the innocent. I’m not sure we’re ready for the moss green carpet. Which is everywhere. Apart from the kitchen (cream/brown swirly tiles) and the bedrooms (dodgy peach carpet). So here are the boys on the staircase. Bertie is obsessed with the curtains since they are all on those fancy pulley system things. I give in 3 weeks after we move in before he’s pulled the whole lot off the wall.
These are strange times. We own the house, but we don’t live there yet. I’ve never done this before, had acces to ‘my’ house before turning up with all our crap and house moving related tension headaches. I’m enjoying just wondering around it, getting used to it, the way the light changes during the day and its little ‘funnies’.
Mostly I’m enjoying getting to know how it feels. It definitely has a feeling to it, a kind of vibe if you will. It’s peaceful, very peaceful…not in a physical sense (although it’s also blissfully quiet, with no other houses visible from the it) but in a calm, grounded way. It feels mature, adult and kind of ‘resolved’and at one. It feels the way I hope I will be when I grow up.
I never met the previous owner, an elderly lady who lived there for the past 30 years or so. I know her daughter pretty well. But I have never got the sense that it was the old lady whose spirit is dominating the house. Perhaps the previous occupants, but the trail is cold for me there. I heard through the village grapevine that the house was initially build by a local builder for his daughter as a wedding present. Is that that couple whose spirit I can sense?
I’m not ‘that’ kind of spiritual person at all, but there’s a certain lingering quality of something or someone. It’s very comfortable, comforting and reassuring. MrSpud, early on, said that house reminds him of the novel ‘Rebecca’ and he’s so right. Not the plot, but the setting and the ‘feeling’ is very Rebecca. Perhaps it’s Daphne Du Maurier, who knows…I’m definitely channeling someone.
Do we leave bits of our souls and ourselves in the places that we live? Or are they just bricks and mortar? Taking the keys for the house from the daughter of the previous owner was a very emotional experience, for her and for me. I tried to reassure her that it was just a house, just the 4 walls…and that people make memories and not places. Deep down I was wondering if these are just platitudes we trot out because so many of my most precious memories ‘live’ in certain places, often precious homes, but are wrapped around individuals.
I’d love to to think that I’m right, that houses are just bricks and mortar and no more than that. But this house, our new home, doesn’t feel like that. It feels like someone, along the way, lined the walls with something of themselves. I can feel it and I love it. Despite the green carpet…
I am a believer that houses have a feeling and you just know if they are right for you. I walk back in to my mums house, late Victorian and I feel its history, I know the mayor once lived there and I love it. I love the fact that we have wrote on the walls and put newspaper under the floorboards. I hope your new home will be your sanctuary for as long as you want it to be
When we pulled up the carpets and replaced them in our home I got a marker pen and wrote little messages about the girls on the floors in their rooms….just in case.
Thank you for the b&w conversion! shudder.
What a gorgeous window on the staircase! And then a second one too! Who needs 2 windows on a landing? It’s got a playful “I’m going to have what I want, right here” element. I would have bought the house just for that.
Perhaps people leave a bit of their spirit in the walls of their homes just by the way they look after them. The way they open up a window, restore old coving, wear down a step, plant a flowering tree.
I’m glad you’ve found a haven for your family
Looks a beautiful house!
And I’m a big believer that you weave yourself into the house’s memory and vibe :)
Houses definitely keep a sense of the people who have lived there – it took a long time to erase the echos of the horrid divorce the couple were going through who had previously lived in our London flat.
What sold us on our current house, The Project, was mostly that it felt welcoming to us (probably desperate to get rid of the previous owners and their bodging) and it has always felt like home to us
I think houses have personalities and spirits (or at least that is how I explain my knee jerk house buying exploits)
A new (to you) house! How exciting!
(I really want to see the green carpet now.)
I’m a firm believer that every house / dwelling you’ve ever lived in is always a little bit “yours.” I’m not sure if that means you leave something behind or you take something with you. In any case, have fun incorporating this house into your beautiful family.
(And thanks so much for your thoughtful words on my pathetic little post awhile ago. Hearing from kind souls like yours renews my blogging resolve!) xo!
I definitely believe there are emanations.
More pictures of the new house, please!
Has it just been freshly repainted? It looks so glossily white.
i am absolutely certain that houses, especially houses of a certain age, retain something of the people who had them. i could especially feel it when we first moved. i think now, we’re layering ourselves over whatever it was, because i don’t notice it so much now. it will be interesting if that feeling lingers for you.
Beautiful photo, love the light! Will you be able to celebrate Christmas there? The ‘spirit’ of home is a favorite interest of mine. Have tons of books on the subject if you’re interested. Keep us posted.
at least the staircase is gorgeous!!!! and the two sweethearts up and down too. and the window is beautiful. i read rebecca exactly a year ago (and watched the hitchcock-video afterward) and i know what you mean (but the green carpet is not rebecc-ish, it should at least be a very deep dark red!!!!)