I have a feeling that she will look back on her first home as some sort of success. A feather in her hat as her mother has said on more than one occasion she should have studied Interior design as if she has a natural born inclination for it. Except the tragedy of it all is that she should have studied it not because she thinks she is G-d’s gift (they both act like that mother and daughter) but to actually learn about proportion, perspective, colour, craftsmanship and learn about the Art of it. It’s so much more than making your husband lug backbreaking trunks from The Netherlands and a tacky mass produced giraffe from Hungary. Freddy seems to have inherited that blind sense of haughtiness too. The flat mark my words will be sold within a year maybe 3 at the most. She will move because she needs the content and it’ll be part of the whole Youtube spiel. Look at me, look how successful Youtubers are compared to mere mortals.
Why doesn’t the flat work. First and foremost it’s an awkward positioned flat. That’s why not all house renos work and why not every old building should be converted to flats. Usually the reason is about money and rarely about keeping the building alive and used.
Second of all is hugely reliant on trends. Classic features will stand the test of time if it’s done in a neutral way such as the panelling yet she goes and fills it with colours only a gastroenterologist would see. The bathroom is charming, I like the step thing however that is very very 70s thing not 18th century. The whole room needs gutting not only for cosmetic reasons but I fear hygiene reasons too. Imagine that place being reno’d say in 1960 for example. That’s over 60 years of people washing, doing laundry as the other family before her did and everything else in the tile work the grouting every single nook and cranny will have bacteria. No amount of bleach can clean everything. That’s why you gut things. Whenever I’ve moved the first things I do. I first get it fumigated professionally. Then gut it reno it then get it blessed spiritually. When she was saying about how wonderfully vintage the tiles were I messaged her and told her actually they aren’t vintage they look 70s made at a push but they weren’t vintage. I also recommended a company that can replicate tiles. She saw my message but chose not to reply. She either couldn’t afford to do it which she could have if she budgeted wisely or couldn’t be bothered. Freddy knows best and all that bullsheise. She will regret that flat if she hasn’t already. The fact she has stuck plastic stickers on her kitchen window for fear ultra private Freddy and her home will be sticky beaked by the opposite house tells you everything about her. She’s willing to sacrifice her money, her window light and ultimately her health for a pie in the sky fantasy that she lives in a stately home. I say health, natural light is crucial for overall well-being vitamin D. The way everything is looks claustrophobic. She doesn’t live in a stately home she lives in a badly decorated flat that looks like a brothel. That and the fact she religiously wears the knee boots and tarty mini skirts. Bitchy of me yes but sadly realistically, what I say is fact not just an opinion. She’s got the whole pro vibe right on the mark, sadly and I doubt that was her intention.
Finally if you haven’t fallen asleep yet, when I read her story about being born in the wrong era, that made me sad. She wasn’t joking she was being serious. She isn’t the only one that seems to think the past was so much more amazing than what is really was. The truth is the 1960s and 1970s the decades she fancies herself to have lived in weren’t amazing times. There were less laws to protect women and children. The work situation was unpredictable. If you had money I mean serious money it was ok but many didn’t. Racism was condoned and other disgusting things like Homophobia, Xenophobia. I could reel off a whole list of things that those eras had which would never be allowed these days due to Human Rights laws and the fact that society is so much different and there’s still plenty of work to do to make it better. There’s also I believe a spiritual reason why we are born when we are. Older people may have seen it and had fun things happen like Woodstock, Go go boots, Carnaby St the whole Swinging Sixties but that was in Western Europe. Was there any of that in the heart of the Borneo Rainforest? The outback of Australia? In the villages of Siberia? Or the bush wars in Zimbabwe, Angola, Vietnam War, later the Afghan-Soviet war. The Yom Kippur War. That’s how limiting Freddy’s outlook on life is when you contrast it to the greater world and the actual events that happened or started in those years she feels she’s entitled to have lived through. It’s beyond pathetic and actually quite tragic.