My friends' junk attic

I was visiting some very dear friends who live near Targoviste and whom I had not seen for almost 2 years. In the meantime they had been working on the house, managing to finish the attic, which became the apartment of the eldest daughter. They have another daughter, a chemist like me. I like to think of the girls as my friends although I could easily be their mother. Whenever we meet we discuss all sorts of topics with pleasure and passion. But let's get back to the loft and the "junk". The girls are in love with old and authentic objects, saving all sorts of such items over the years, many of them wooden, which once the loft is finished have found their place.

As soon as I arrived they told me the loft was ready and they were eager to hear my opinion. The rightful owner of the loft was unfortunately not at home, so I was deprived of the "artist" presentation, but she was successfully replaced by her sister. When I went up to the loft I knew an article was coming. All those old, lovingly collected obicts were sitting there, gracing the place. Some of them even had little stories.

The attic is set up like an apartment, with a 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 attic, combining it with an old barrel and some glass traps. The result is a perfect bar where you want to sit and chat with a glass of good wine in hand.

The living room, although not large, is so divided 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, in art deco style. It's part of an aunt's dowry - furniture she received through the 1950s as a wedding present.

On the left is the chat room. There's a sofa brought from Holland and refurbished here, grandma's dowry chest also turned into a sofa with the help of cushions, and a 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 was needed for something". The time came to furnish the attic and a coffee table was needed. That's when Marian remembered the linen. It was a bit decayed and cracked so he had to reinforce the countertop at the bottom. The wood wasn't strong enough for the legs. So he decided to take out an old fence post (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 in the article about these resins. He immediately started asking me details 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 put thread on the loom suveks, is an old radio. They tell me it cost a packet of "pampers". The family where they got it and wanted to throw it away had a small child. When they asked how much they wanted they said a packet of pads for the little one was enough.

Also in the attic, next to the workbench bar, sits Grandma's spinning wheel.

In the library I found some other old and frothy stuff. The round table, topped with a delicately worked old tablecloth, is taken on "3 doubles of corn" from someone who buys corn from them. For 3 extra doubles they also haggled over the table.

Also here is a cupboard of art deco furniture.

The books are set in old shelves on the wall in front of the door so they jump out at you immediately. They are old books, collected over time and carefully maintained.

But what particularly catches your eye is the Romanian patterned carpet. It was bought, along with 2 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 rolled up in a corner of the house for a long time. A fortunate coincidence caused the lady to meet up with my friends and absolutely unrelated, talk about the 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 of their beautiful things. As a final example - Singer sewing machine, over 100 years old, with which the girls' grandmother, a famous seamstress in the area, worked