Funny Little House

There are loads of small brick buildings all around Britain that I’ve no idea what they are.  Some have windows and are labeled as are police ‘huts’.   Others Bill tells me house electrical works of some kind. Some huts are metal, like the watch house for the North pier, also labeled.

There is another brick building that for years and years had no windows and only a plain blue wood front door, in need of paint.  It was situated on a triangular piece of land at the end of what used to be a school playing field.  I sometimes wondered what it was for when I passed, but I never expected it to change into something else, so I never thought to take a ‘before’ photo!

For several weeks I watched this building get a facelift: a glass front door, some fancy roof trim, a big south-facing window,  a skylight and some plants set to grow up the trellises to dress up the brick walls.

It already came with big trees and flowers and I really wanted this to be someone’s little enchanted cottage, but the glass front door seemed to argue against it.

I even stopped one day and asked the workman what it was going to be. He said he didn’t know and went back to doing whatever on the floors. I decided his wife had put lemon instead of milk in his tea that morning.




Then the interior walls went in and I could imagine a sitting room/kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom, but there were no windows in the bedroom. If it had to be a business I decided it should be a florists.

But no: it’s a beauty salon and the back room is the ‘treatment’ room. According do the sign on the door they do ‘St Tropez’ which I gather is sort of like taking yourself to the auto shop for a spray paint job. I’m sure that’s a better idea than sunbeds but it still strikes me as a ridiculous thing to do; just shows my age I suppose.



I have to say I was disappointed at the purpose of the building, but still really pleased it got its own beauty treatment. I’ll be curious to see how long it stays a beauty salon. It’s certainly made me look at some of those boring brick buildings differently!