Our Tenement Flat

My boyfriend and I are very lucky live in a pretty huge old tenement flat, just off Byres Road in Dalcross Street (formally Buchanan Street. It’s in Glasgow’s West End if you’re an estate agent, or Partick if you’re not. At the end of our road is the pub Sparkle Horse which used to be the Dowanhill Bar (Billy Connolly’s favourite apparently and some of my more seasoned neighbours have told me you could sometimes you could see him collapsed in the close after a few too many juices).

Our flat is an ex housing association flat, in a half private, half Partick Housing Association block, which is the only way we could afford such a property, sadly all the original features have been ripped out years ago. The kitchen, carpets and fittings are the cheapest possible and it’s covered in wood chip (it’s everywhere, even on the ceilings). Everything needs addressing, there are no sockets in some rooms due to the weird way it has been made up from 2 flats, literally everything has to be rethought! Despite all this I love this place, it’s beautifully light, has huge cupboards and rooms and the location is amazing. It’s so exciting to think about restoring it to it’s former glory by putting the things back in that were probably ripped out in the 1960’s when it’s purpose was changed.

We’ve done some of the boring things like new fuse boxes, a new boiler and had some lovely new windows put in a few weeks ago that are sympathetic to the style and look like old sash windows. So we’re on our way but I thought I’d write a series of posts to share our journey as we slowly restore the “tenementness” back to our flat. You could say this is the before post – one of many, because to be honest, due to time and finances it’s going to be quite a lengthy project.

The first thing to do is very simple, it’s a new front door. Our door as it stands is a council fire door, painted bright blue, as is the close, (I’m guessing a job lot was acquired by the housing association), and it’s not very attractive. After a crappy and scary interaction with our eternally drunk neighbour last week (most of our neighbours are amazing, a real mixture of people from all backgrounds, this man however, although thankfully hardly there, is an absolute liability!), we decided a new solid door would be a good start to the restoration. We went to Glasgow Salvage Yard and picked out a new (but old) wooden door. The Glasgow Salvage Yard is stacked full of old fixtures and fittings and also some very weird stuff. It’s amazing and they will definitely have what you’re looking for hiding away somewhere.

Anyway back to the door, it’s just an old door, nothing fancy about it but I like it, with some new fittings it’s going to be perfect. Our flat wouldn’t have been grand back in the day, just a normal workers house, Partick was boomtown for mills, shipyards and engineering works, so there is no need for some of the grand fittings you would maybe see in some tenements further west. We’re thinking of maybe some stained glass at some point for the window above the door, but that is years down the list in priority. For now it’s going to feel like a major milestone to have this new door and start making this sad, unloved old flat our happy home.