My friends' junk attic

I was visiting some very dear friends who live near Targoviste and whom I hadn't seen for almost 2 years. In the meantime, they have been working on the house, managing to finish the attic, which has become the older daughter's apartment. They have another daughter, a chemist like me. I like to think of the girls as my friends although I could easily be their mom. Whenever we meet we discuss all sorts of subjects with pleasure and passion. But let's get back to the attic and the junk. The girls are enamored with old and authentic objects, rescuing over the years all sorts of such objects, many of them wooden, which, with the completion of the attic, have found their place.

As soon as I arrived they told me that the loft was ready and were eager to hear my opinion. The rightful owner of the loft was unfortunately not at home, so I was deprived of the "artist's" introduction, but she was successfully substituted by her sister. When I went up to the loft I knew there was a story coming. All of those old, lovingly collected objects were sitting there, beautifying the place. Some of them had little stories.

The attic is laid out like an apartment, with living room, library, bedroom, bathroom and even a small terrace. The spaces are not all on the same level, so the differentiation is even more obvious. The living room is on the highest level. During the day it is very bright with both normal windows and a velux roof window. As you enter, an old wooden workbench catches your eye. It was salvaged by the head of the family from an old workshop. They integrated it perfectly into the atmosphere of the loft, combining it with an old barrel and some glass siphons. The result is a perfect bar where you'll want to sit and chat with a glass of good wine in your hand.

The living room, although not large, is divided in such a way that several activities can take place at the same time without the protagonists getting in each other's way. To the right as you enter there is an area where you can play cards. The centerpiece is the table, art deco style. It's part of an aunt's dowry - furniture she received in the 1950s as a wedding present.

On the left is the place for chat-uit. It has a sofa brought from the Netherlands and refurbished here, grandma's dowry chest also turned into a sofa with the help of cushions, and the coffee table, made by the girls' father, Marian, from reclaimed wood.

The top is made of wine linen, an old piece used in the region to press grapes for must. When they changed the "methodology", the linen was put in the attic, "because it would be useful for something". It came time to furnish the attic and a small table was needed. Then Marian remembered the flax. It was a bit curry-eaten and cracked so he had to reinforce the underside of the top. The wood wasn't strong enough for legs. So he decided to take a strong post from an old fence (bulumac, as they call it in the area) and made the legs out of it. I told him about epoxy resin and I showed him the photos from the article on these resins. He immediately started asking me about its use. I'm sure next time I'll see some old wood immortalized in resin.

Next to the sofas, on an old wheel to thread the weaving looms, is an old radio. They told me it cost a pack of pampers. The family they got it from who wanted to throw it away had a small child. When they asked how much they wanted they said one pack of pads for the little one was enough.

Also in the attic, next to the bar-cum-workbench, sits grandma's spinning wheel.

In the library I found other old, fusty things. The round table, covered with a delicately wrought old tablecloth, is taken on "3 doubles of corn" from someone who bought corn from them. For 3 extra doubles they also high-fived for the table.

There's also an art deco dowry cupboard.

The books are set in old bookshelves on the wall in front of the door so they immediately catch your eye. They are old books, collected over the years and carefully maintained.

But what particularly catches your eye is the Romanian patterned rug. It was bought, along with two others like it, from a lady who had ordered them years ago for her daughter's wedding. But she didn't like peasant rugs, so they sat in a corner of the house for a long time. A lucky happenstance led to the lady meeting my friends and absolutely unrelated, talking about rugs. That's how they bought 3 hand-woven Romanian patterned rugs for only 200 lei.

I could go on and on about my friends and their passion for junk. I'm thinking of stopping though, with the promise that I'll come back with more beautiful things from their home. As one last example - Singer sewing machineThe girls' grandmother, a famous seamstress in the area, used to work with this over 100-year-old dressmaker