Today we did some rearranging of things in the dining room. The dining room is not a large room so there’s not a lot of space to do anything. We were thinking to move the sideboard from one corner to the other, but of course once we’d moved it, we didn’t like it in the new position so we moved it back.
We’ve had the sideboard for about a year and a half, so it’s still relatively new to us, although it terms of its existence it’s actually very old, possibly from the Art Deco period which makes it maybe 100 years old. That’s quite incredible. It’s a massive heavy oak piece my husband found on ebay. We use it to store board games and table linens.
Because today we had taken out all the contents and the drawers to make it easier to move, we actually had time to look at it up close. We realised there was a lot of fine detail in it that we hadn’t appreciated, like the carving in the drawer fronts, which shone up nicely after we rubbed in some furniture wax. We realised the true colour of the metal door and drawer handles isn’t “dirty” but brassy yellow (after application of polish and some elbow grease).
How often does that happen, that one day you actually look at something up close, something that you see every day, and you realise something about it that you never saw before?
During this time of lockdown, I am seeing or looking at things more closely that usual. My world is smaller so details are looming larger. I am seeing old things in a new light.
Tales from Tobhamhor 