Well, it’s been a thrilling couple of weeks for us! We stepped into 14 Lostwithiel St on 1st February, and since then have unearthed all manner of amazing finds.
We started on the walls. The original plan was to strip off the dreaded woodchip wallpaper. Quickly it emerged that the paper was not on plasterboard but a highly porous chipboard, which would dissolve upon soaking. So the boarding would have to come off and the entire space plasterboarded. The job cost rose horribly and sharply. A low. So we started pulling the old board off. And found some stunning tiles, perhaps dating from the 1920s. A high! And incredible what people boarded over in the 70s.
It turns out that before Belinda’s Boutique this was a butcher’s by the name of Eastman’s. We seem to be quite the talking point in Fowey at the moment – we’ve had many people of a certain generation pop in and tell us they remember shopping there when it was a butchers. We’ve even had Tony come in who used to work there. And fascinating to learn about the history of the place – Eastman’s as far back as the early part of last century, up until the mid 1970s. Then a nick-nack shop before Belinda took over in 1991.
So back to what we found – we then turned our attention to the enormous marble slabs that make up the display window, which were covered over – with blue carpet. Blue. Carpet. And so, so much carpet adhesive. Only an industrial scraper and gallons of elbow grease will get it off. Happily we were persistent, and we now have beautiful, and huge – very huge – piece of marble in our window.
The tiles outside were next. With careful painstaking work in taking off the paint, we’ve uncovered the original tiles that adorned Eastman’s. And lovely they are, with amazing detail.
We can’t wait to display our new shop to our customers. All being well, this will be in just few weeks. Restoring this shop to its former beauty has been a wonderful journey so far. Pop in and see what we’ve done!
