Weatherboard homes: my first true love - Part 1

The hubby comes a close second though!

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The weatherboard home we created between 2013 and 2016.

If you’re new to me and only been following for a short while, then you might think that my favourite style of architecture is Victorian, or Victorian Gothic, to be precise. But, you would be entirely wrong. I have an appreciation for rickety old houses and the attention to detail they were afforded. I’m not quite so keen though, on the blackened, singed edges of the gaping hole they burn in your pocket. If one more tradesmen pulls an “ooh that’s not gonna be cheap” face at me and says we’re looking at at least a grand, I swear I’m going to swing for the bugger! Why does everything cost a £1000 now? Drain blockage - a £1000. Stud wall - at least a thousand. Kick up the bum with an open toe sandal - definitely a thousand smackeroonies, but I’ll give you a wink and a smile too- we take credit cards, although not Amex.

But, I digress. My one true love is for the simple weatherboard home. There are hints of it in our current home with the whitewashed timber-clad garden canopy. It’s my little slice of New England/Key West (the two places I holiday in more than anywhere else) and is the place I am most happy in.

My first memories of having a bit of a design crush with wooden houses is probably rather rose-tinted. ¹One of the many gruelling house moves my parents put us through involved emigrating to Australia and then on to Tasmania. God, I sound like an ungrateful bastard, don’t I? It’s not that going to Oz wasn’t fun. It’s just that we moved so often and so I always had this crushing assurance that we wouldn’t be there for long.

I was five, I think. We settled in a place called New Norfolk, which hugged the banks of the River Derwent. It sounds idyllic, but actually, back then it was a bit of a dead end dump and at any rate, our home was way out of town on a dusty dirt track in the middle of nowhere. A row of seven single storey shacks in a desert full of nothing but dry dirt, scrubland and sky. I have a very strong recollection of tumbleweed.

The house in question can best be described as a humble bungalow on stilts. There was an entire undiscovered world underneath the house, which was screened off with silver-grey trellising and a single door that had a crack in it. It was the perfect place for hiding, or setting up imaginary sweet shops. However, we were warned never to play there for fear of copperhead snakes and redback spiders. My elder brother Steven didn’t give two hoots, but for me, the fear was palpable.

The house itself was adorned from top to toe in horizontal wooden bevel cladding. Each board was lovingly fitted slightly on a gradient, allowing each one to rest on top of the other. The technique allowed for rain water to be expelled easily and also created a pleasing under shadow when the sun was shining. The weather worn matte white paint was cracked and blistered in places, revealing rusty nails and patches of husky dry rot.

Sun—bleached grey wooden steps led up to a small, but amiable verandah. The third deck board passed the top step always creaked as you walked over it as if to remind us that we were home. At least for a while. There was a white-washed timber frame porch door with well-used fly screens that had lost their stretch. It had a spring attached on the inside, so that it slammed shut behind you when you walked through. It always made me jump.

It was our home for just over a year and a half. But, it was also the place where we loved our first and only pet dog as children. Her name was Lady and my god, she certainly was that. I adored her because of her airs and graces. She wasn’t cut out for bush life and neither was I. When we moved back to England my parents told us that she had gone to live on a small farm run by an elderly couple with rosy cheeks and a plentiful waste line.

She was going to spend her days reluctantly bounding around chasing sheep, with a face on her like Mrs Slocombe of “Are you being served?” I only found out a few years ago that actually, no one would take her. A dog over there had to work for a living. They weren’t pets, or part of the family. Lady was never going to cut it. She was sent to that eternal luxury doggie bubble bath in the sky. Champagne on ice. Yummy treats dangled into her chops like juicy ripe grapes. It broke my parents hearts.

My real love affair with all thing’s clapperboard, however, started when I was thirteen. Back in the UK and at least eight house moves later (I promise I’m not making this up), we were living in St. Leonards on Sea, a coastal town in East Sussex. Channel 4 (we only had four channels in the U.K then) started airing a new television production of Anne of Green Gables. It starred the forever fabulous Megan Followes as Anne and the late Jonathan Crombie as the dreamy Gilbert Blythe.

My beloved Alexander’s verandah in Key West and the house we based our weatherboard home on.

Both characters and actors had me in a spin and I was utterly obsessed. I think I was going through a phase of trying not to be gay at the time, futile I know. I remember finding the telephone number for Megan Followes’ agent. That was hard, by the way, there was no such thing as the internet, but if I’m anything at all, I’m a determined soul! I trekked to a phone box to see if I could speak to her and tell her how much I loved her. I did manage to get through to a rather officious sounding man in Toronto. He put the phone down on me. Rude!

Our previous home in Autumn

I recorded the series on VHS tape and watched it over and over. I adored Anne, but Gilbert had my heart. I dreamt of living on Prince Edward Island with him surrounded by the autumn blaze of reds and ochres emanating from the Maple trees. It was always autumn on P.E.I. The white timber-clad homes seemed to sparkle amongst the deep, rich scarlet canopy like it had been frosted with sugar.

Gilbert and I would set up home amongst these sweet autumn delights. Anne could live with us too if she so wished, but she’d have to earn her keep and she was 100% having her own room. No bisexual threesome tomfoolery in my house, I’ll thank you very kindly! She’d have to give up all hope of ever being with Mr Blythe, or it was curtains, ginger ones at that!

In my dreams we had a large white wooden weatherboard house with a wrap-around verandah and an obliging seat-swing. We would sit there, Gilbert and I, sipping lemonade whilst we watched the sun go down. After many years had since passed and many a building project had taken its toll, I eventually got my very own weatherboard home and I also had my Gilbert. We would sip a little more than lemonade watching the sunset though!

The house we bought and the home we created.

Back in 2013, my hubby Mr C and I sold our latest, completely renovated home and bought another dump. Everyone thought we were crazy. It was a 1919 ugly box that had almost no redeeming features. It had a leaky conservatory and small dark windows, with no real connection with the outside world. Honestly, the only reason we bought it was because of the view, everything else would be changed! I hated the road it was on and the garden was an overgrown mountainous jungle. In fact, the deal was that we would buy it, but that we would turn it into something completely different. I’m not sure if Mr C knew what I had in mind at the time, but it wasn’t long before I started to hatch my weatherboard plan.

The jungle we bought and the garden we created

N.B. Continued next week. In part 2 I’ll be going into a lot more detail about how we made our own weatherboard home and why we left it in 2020 and why I still miss it!

1. The following seven paragraphs are taken from a chapter of a book I’ve been writing for an eternity. It’s autobiographical. But, I’m not sure whether I should make it semi-autobiographical, just in case I’m not interesting enough.