The Top
Floor (nearly done!)
‘After travelling from Alexandria, with nine children, servants, two cows, and who knows what else to keep the whole Mavrellis family fed on their journey one can imagine the family’s joy when they saw Lemnos on the skyline. They put down anchor in the harbour beside the
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| Grandfather George with his nine children |
‘I can imagine the arrival
of George and his family of nine children at the house, and how it might have
been when all the children tumbled out of the carts. They would have rushed up
the stairs to see their old bedrooms. I could imagine some wanting to
immediately catch up with old friends in the village, perhaps local children or
the children of other Alexandrians who’d also sailed back to the island for
their summer holidays.’
‘Ephterpi,
their mother, was probably the most relieved to be back in her family home,
breathing in its special smells of scrubbed floorboards and polished furniture.
I could imagine her walking from room to room to check if all was well: the
pictures on the walls, the furniture in place. The younger children were probably
checking out whether the same cats were in the garden as were there last year.
And perhaps there were one or two daydreaming girls who just wanted to lie down
on their beds at the top of the house with a book. These top rooms look out
over to the sea towards the Castro. However, with such a busy household I’m
sure they weren’t allowed to daydream for long, but would have been dragged
downstairs to help look after the younger children or unpack the bags and cases.’
( I've been told that the door between the bedrooms on the top floor facilitated circle dances, through bedrooms and hall way.)
The top floor, 2003
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| Water damage |
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| More water damage |
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| Anestis inspecting the water damaged floor! |
‘Going
out the front door onto the front steps and looking up at the balcony, we
pointed out to an engineer that was with us that this was a major hazard to
passers-by. And we all wondered how the T.V. technician had managed to install
an aerial onto its railings. Then we came inside and up to the top floor, where
Takis pointed out the dip in the floorboards. He proposed that this was the
result of the badly leaking roof and showed the engineer the ceiling stains. He
added that if the house was constructed in the same way as the old ruined
outbuildings, as we believed it to be, we could expect that once the roof gave
way the walls of the house might also slowly collapse into a pile of stones.’
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| Takis finishing off one of the new windows |
'With some trepidation we climbed the
stairs to the middle floor, concerned that even our footfalls would disturb the
balance of the sloping floors above us. So aware were we of the sagging ceiling
boards above us, and of the bent newel post at the top of the stairs, that we
held our breath as we climbed.
‘Don’t
you worry,’ Takis laughed. ‘This house has stood for a hundred years, and it’s
not going to fall down today.’That first day’s exploration of the house was in many ways a repeat of the investigation Takis and I had made the previous year. Lisa was with us this year and the two of us went from room to room and opened up a few shutters here and there.’
‘As we opened up one set of shutters a neighbour outside yelled up a warning at us, as he could see that the shutters were hanging by only one hinge and were in danger of falling down into the street below. We looked at the piles of rubbish in each room – at the old beds and mattresses, chairs and pictures – we wondered how and where to start cleaning the place. In some despair Lisa and I looked at each other. Would we ever get the house cleared and cleaned enough to enable us to live in a couple of rooms? I decided we needed a plan of action was needed to tackle the interior. While Takis spent his time contacting various workers, Lisa and I would began the cleaning. We started at the top of the house and worked down, one room and one floor at a time. We began by taking out everything we weren’t willing to live with, and we used a room on the top floor to store those things that could be renovated later.’
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| Center wall removed, and replaced, with the electrical wires now hidden |
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| New lights fitted |
The top floor today
Today
we have almost got an entire flat to ourselves on the top floor. Almost, but
not quite as one room is still being renovated.
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|
 Kitchenette |
| Anesitis is now removing the plaster from the last room on the top floor. It needed doing but perhaps more so after the earthquake that we have just had. We could see a few cracks in the plaster. He’s now removed the plaster and cemented the cracks. A messy job which brings dust down into the house. Thus we’ve asked him to put it on hold while the summer guests are here and we’ll start again in September. Perhaps we’ll get it finished before we leave again for |
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| Work in Progress |
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