One of the joys of doing Lackan Cottage up has been taking old ‘stuff’ and making something of it. Wherever possible we’ve reused things from around the house – for instance the kitchen units are made from the old ceiling in the extension. This floor above was also in the (soon to be demolished) extension, and was a) unlovely looking and b) under some carpet, but being optimistic we decided to put it down in the bedroom, sand it, and hope for the best. The result is rather fetching, especially after two coats of linseed oil.
In our quest for interesting radiators we had a look around local salvage places, and were astounded by the price of cast iron radiators. A trawl of Gumtree yielded these ones, which came from a house on the Malone Road in Belfast. They are ridiculously heavy, but you can sit on them, dry clothes over them, and best of all, they were inexpensive.
Although some give them a bad press  as being inefficient, I think they forget that the mass of the cast iron is very good at storing and emitting heat for a good time once the rads are turned off. They don’t get wildly hot, as poor old Doric is somewhat stretched to heat them and the water, and the oven, but its plenty enough to keep the place warm. Brendan has very patiently painted them, and they’ve come up very well.