When we (Mum, Dad, my younger sister and I moved into No.28 Gumtrees (from No.28 Queen St, anyone see a pattern?) on the 4th of July 1975 it was the wettest winter in decades. Not that us kids cared. We had free range of a house at least twice the size of the one we had left, and much better laid out. We left the long hall down the middle, the 2 bedrooms off one side, the lounge room on the other with the bay window (which features in my earliest ever memory at 18 months), the large old kitchen and a tiny sunroom/laundry. We exchanged it for 4 bedrooms, 3 living areas and a terrace on half an acre of gardens.
One of those living areas was dubbed ‘the lounge room’ to distinguish it from the living room and the sunroom. Visible from the hall through a wood and glass internal wall it opens into the living room with double sliding doors.
It started out as the formal lounge – the brocade couch and chairs flanking the fireplace. We used to wheel the tv into the double doorway on Sunday nights in Winter and sit around the fire watching The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie and eating soup and smoked toast.
Once the fire stopped being used it got very little use, closed up in Winter to keep the rest of the house warmer it was generally only used when we had meetings or gatherings here. It was an excellent room to put the dining table in the middle to serve buffet dinners or suppers. Finally after fishing my nephew out from under the table one too many times when he started to crawl we jsut moved the table permanently into the lounge and called it the dining room. As such it got used about twice a year. Mum and I usually ate on our laps or in the study.
I moved the table back into the living room after Mum went into hospital. But the lounge room still only got used when entertaining. It was a great room for that – we had 50 people here for dinner one night, no problem.
So, this is what the loungeroom looked like before this Spring…
From the hall:
The fireplace:
Looking back to the hall:
And, the last corner, behind the door:
Stay tuned to see how it looks today.
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