With the end of the season approaching we are taking the annual opportunity to carry out a few repairs and offer the building a bit of tender loving care to see it through another winter. Since taking over the hotel 8 yrs ago we have redecorated, or in some cases made wholesale renovations too, all the rooms at least once – so it is with an increasing awareness of the passage of time that I realise we are about to redecorate one of our principle rooms for the third time.
The room was once the dressing room for the master bedroom and on turning the home to a hotel in the 60s, it had been foolishly hacked about leaving most of the orginal carvings boarded up, cut out or given a lovely dash of magnolia gloss. Worse – the bathroom could not be reached from the bedroom but only from the corridor, leaving many embarrassed guests no choice but to appear in the lounge bar clad in nothing but a very small towel in order to retrieve a spare key.
Decoration revealed these treasures and the original Leiper panelling hiding behind the paint. Subsequent revelations included samples of the original wallpaper and evidence of Leiper ‘built’ in wardrobes. Interestingly we never did find a fireplace in the room – which would have necessitated some very hasty dressing in the winter months.
Fortunately modern central heating is now fully installed so the room with its new four poster bed and carpets will be significantly more comfortable for future guests than for the poor Victorian gentleman who first stayed there.
Tags: leiper panelling, renovation