There is a chap who loves his Ferrari so much it's moved in with him. Ooh, Monseiur Ambassador, with zis Ferrari Frontroom you are spoiling us.
Naturally, as it's the Daily Mail, the headline is utter rubbish. He has not turned his living room into a garage. He has kitted out his garage to look like a living room. And may I say he's done a damn good job of it too. It looks better than my front room. I won't mention my garage because his garden shed probably looks better. As for my shed, well, it would lose a compost heap contest.
My garage isn't that big. I think if I put an average sized car in there I'd be hard pressed to open the doors even if I took all the junk out. There certainly wouldn't be space to have a car and room to move around. However, I am inspired. My garage is plasterboarded now and I've been thinking how much better it would look with tables, chairs, a bar and ashtrays. Getting stuff in is no problem, an entire wall opens. Likewise, ventilation. Getting rid of the accumulated junk is something else. That takes will-power and smokers aren't allowed to have any.
Which reminds me, I still have to fix the arrow-hole in that garage door from when I bought that crossbow. I thought a straw target, palette and board would be enough but no, it's a hell of a beast.
Smoky-drinky has to develop for the future. The smoky part is already denormalised and the drinky part won't be far behind so best start getting ready now. Unfortunately antismoky-drinkies will have to start from scratch but that's their problem. Antismoky-antidrinkies already exist. They are called graveyards. Conversation in those places is... somewhat stilted.
So this guy turns his garage into a shrine to his Ferarri and considering the price tag on those cars, I don't blame him. I couldn't sleep if I had something that valuable parked outside my house. But hey, it's his garage, the work he's done looks great, if I moved into that house after him I'd be delighted to have a garage already kitted out like that, so no problem, right? It affects absolutely nobody so not even the professionally offended could be upset, right?
Wrong!
I bet his house smells just wonderful, being fully saturated with exhaust fumes. - Completely Average, Somewhere, 20/5/2011 15:43
I've never had a car in my garage. Does it fill the house with exhaust fumes? Somehow I had imagined that people who put cars in garages take the precaution of turning off the engine once it's in and closing the door after the engine is off. But maybe 'Completely Average' leaves his running all night so it's ready to go in the morning. Hey, Mr. Average, take heart. It could be worse. He might not have emptied the ashtrays.
I hope he had planning permission for the conversion. (Change of use springs to mind, amongst others.) - Leroy Gibbs, Reading, Berks, 20/5/2011 15:30
Planning permission to decorate an interior room? Really, Leroy? And how exactly does putting your car into a nice looking garage, as opposed to the crap hole that is my garage, constitute a change of use? It's still a garage, you bubbling pustule on the rotting corpse of common sense. He still parks his car in it. It's just that it's now a garage you can go into without thinking 'Oh hell, it's long past time for a clearout'.
The green eyes of envy are clear in those comments. This man worked hard to make his garage into a room worth being in, while still using it as a viable garage. There is no more danger of exhaust fumes than with anyone else's garage. There is no 'change of use'. They just want to take away his achievement for no reason other than pure spite.
Mr. Average wants to do it by denormalisation, which reduces in every case to 'Ooo, it's something I don't approve of so it must be derided'. Leroy wants the council to deal with this deviation from his comfortable life of sheep-like devotion to Blandland. There is a deviant! His garage is not full of shit! Stop him! Spill oil on the floor and strew spanners around and remove the hideous sight of a room that is actually pleasant to be in.
Sod them all. I think his garage looks fantastic and my only envy is that my garage doesn't look like that and I don't have the skill to do it. His car's nice, but really I'm not interested in cars and if it was mine there'd probably be a rusty Lada sitting there. But the garage is fantastic.
Mine is still a shithole. However, I am inspired now by the sight of what it could become.
And it would still be a garage, Leroy, so you can take your petty spite with all its barbs and razors and ram the whole lot into the top of your bishop's hat.
Yes, Leroy. The one in your trousers.
22 comments:
"Naturally, as it's the Daily Mail, the headline is utter rubbish. He has not turned his living room into a garage. He has kitted out his garage to look like a living room."
A couple just down the road from us have done the same, albeit for an Audi rather than a Ferrari. And why not? Their property, their money.
Nice story. Especially for the misery comments!
Every man should have a garage, or a shed, or just a space. If he wants one.
My garage is a detached tip. It has freesat television, central heating, and running water. Here I can live in a little world of my own. Most people wouldn’t set foot in the place for fear of getting dirty, hurt, or overcome by the smell of paint, oil, grease, and the occasional bit of burning flesh or clothing. This is where ideas become reality. Some are successful some complete failures. My garage is my idea of heaven and I treasure every moment I spend in there.
Now who could be jealous of that?
Actually, I think that it really is in his living room and he just drives it through the garage.
Change of use? Nope, he just has a large conversation piece in his living room. Good for him, we need more individualists.
Jay
Follow up story:
To get her own back his wife has built a room with lots of glass and plants in it. A greenhouse in the house whatever next!!
Can't pretend this is on-topic, though it merges the idea of crap information in the public domain with your being a proper scientist, who can understand such things:
I just saw an advert for a disinfectant (Domestos, Harpic, that sort of thing). It carried the tag 'Use Biocides Safely'. I just can't get my head around that one. This stuff kills all life, please use it safely whilst sploshing it liberally around your kitchen, especially everywhere your baby might play.
Do they write 'This product may be dangerous if used incorrectly' on the side of hand grenades?
When l worked in the States, l toured on my Harley when l got vacation time. The motels l stayed at l always got a fround floor room and brought Harley in. :) Sometimes there was no room for wife but needs must and you have to get your priorities right.
“ ….. antismoky-drinkies will have to start from scratch but that's their problem.”
There won’t be any such thing, Leggy, because the kind of drinkers who have, now, become anti-smokers will simply follow instructions and become anti-drinkers, too (just watch the membership of anti-smoking CAMRA wither and die before their very eyes. Hooray!). And the kind of people who will refuse to become anti-drinkers as directed are the kind of people who never were bothered by smoke and won’t suddenly become so because of the machinations of the anti-alcohol movement.
In fact, what’s most likely to develop are more and more places and occasions where people can relax, drink and smoke in other people’s private homes – i.e. precisely the places which morphed over time into what we call, er, “public houses,” just without all the silly licensing business or the open transaction of the sale of alcohol.
No wonder they’re gunning for home smoking bans “for the sake of the cheeldren” for all they’re worth. They can see this coming; I just wonder how many non-smoking drinkers can make the connection and see the impact that home smoking bans might have on the future enjoyment of their own chosen vice. Not many, I’d guess. Most of the non-smoking drinkers that I know have their heads buried so deep in the sand that if they went any deeper they’d come out in rabidly anti-smoking Australia!
What a fantastic idea. Love the tiled floor. Easy to keep clean and the hot tyres can't lift the garage floor paint. I think I'll get rid of my junk and do the same for my Corsa!
We were taught at an early age that being envious of others smothered the aspiration to better oneself. You can see from the commenters you describe how such behaviour rots the brain.
Sadly, I suffer from "garage filled with stuff" syndrome ...
It's a good-sized double garage, with a storage loft (and a stairway up to there) - but, entirely filled with "scrot" ! ...
Time to get a Skip delivered (again) - last time (4 years ago), I dumped 20m3 of garage \ house \ garden 'detritus' - this time, it's going to be more !!! ...
p.s. - Leggie - get some Tilley Lamps - lots of light and heat, and they kill insects, and you don't need any electricity ...
"Completely Average, Somewhere"
Haha - I had an argument with this person on the Mail a week or two ago, where the comments were unmoderated (although some still never made it).
I usually try to pity them and move on, but you know how just sometimes, you get SOOOOO annoyed that you want to try to get through to them.
JuliaM - why not indeed? I'm planning to turn mine into a bar. It's not really a change of use either, since it's never had a car in it and I've made a point of drinking and smoking in every room of the house.
So they are all designated smoky-drinky areas. No change of use involved.
And no antismoker is safe in here. Third hand smoke has a half-life of six million years (or so I tell them) and it's on every surface, even the doorbell.
Naturally, I don't tell them until they're already in.
Anon - a greenhouse in the house is a conservatory. My neighbour has one and I am jealous. I could have started those tobacco seeds in January if the greenhouse was connected to house-heating.
DaveH -
Do they write 'This product may be dangerous if used incorrectly' on the side of hand grenades?
You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised. We are, remember, under a government that sends troops into battle with no bullets in case they hurt the enemy.
Smoking Hot - do US motels still have rails where you can tie the wife's reins overnight? All the water and hay she needs, too.
Anon 13:21 - yes, they are desperate to stop us associating in our own homes.
That's why I'm kitting out the garage ;)
delcretin - it's worse than that. These kind of people aren't just lacking in any wish to improve themselves, they want to actively stop anyone else improving themselves.
There are a lot of them about.
Chief Sceptic - I have some old paraffin lanterns around the place. I'm not confident about future energy supplies from those ridiculous garden ornaments all over the countryside.
Stewart - I don't bother arguing in the Mail. I have a brick wall I can bang my head on if I feel like that kind of pain.
LOL, you're right. I hope I've learned my lesson. I need someone to hold me back, saying, "Leave it, Stewart, he's not worth it."
Pish tush!
I know a bloke who bought a Corporation bus and built a garage next to his house to keep it in, all 36ft of it, then he built another on the mother-in-laws house next door to house a Bedford flatbed coal lorry, so this is small beer folks...
Satire is getting difficult these days. US Army claymore mines (explosive thingie with a remote control, which drastically shortens the life of anyone standing on the wrong side of one) have the legend "THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY" printed on one side, just to assist their more stupid troops.
Post a Comment