I can't believe how quickly the time has gone but It's just about four weeks since we got the keys and already a huge amount has been done at the house. And not just the sorting and clearing and cleaning. We have been lucky enough to find a gem of a builder, Paul Hart, who knows a thing or two about renovations and knows a few useful people.
He arranged for the plasterer, Tim, (who's easily spooked, by the way) to come in and get to work on the bedrooms, bathroom and landing, which meant that we had to get on and get all the wallpaper, picture rail and skirting off. We were literally clearing up as he was starting work!
The bathroom has been cleared of all sanitary ware and Hugh has got off all the tiles. We salvaged the 70's toilet roll holder, complete with toilet roll, and I presented it to our good friends, Jo and Andrew who love all things 70's! Needless to say, they loved it!
Scaffolding has been erected around half the house so that the roofers can start work on taking off the roof tiles, replace the felt and batons and put the cleaned tiles back on.
BT have been and repaired the faulty line so we have both phone and internet and the plumber has been to service the boiler. The skip has been filled to bursting and has been collected and replaced with another 7 yard skip!
So it's all looking good and we feel like we've made a lot of progress.
Friday, 27 December 2013
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
...and now the fun begins...
Having finally got the keys to Crossways, pulling up on the drive and unlocking the back door for the first time was daunting, to say the least. The house had the air of neglect...almost as if the previous owners had done a moonlight flit..their coats still hung on the pegs, food in the cupboards, books on the shelf. I know that on the morning of the day of completion the sale very nearly didn't go through due to shortage of funds on their part, and I wonder if the house was about to be repossessed. Just a thought that crossed my mind.
Another thought that crossed my mind was 'what the hell have we done?' But it was a fleeting thought i'm please to say.
From there on in, it was busy, busy, busy, arranging for a skip to be delivered, ordering gas cylinders so that we could at least be warm while we cleared and sorted, phone calls to BT to connect the phone and phone calls to find out who supplies the electricity. It's an odd thing, buying an empty house, there's no one to ask all the things you need to know!
Sorting was interesting. Packing up boxes with other peoples books, clothes, shoes, childrens toys, ready for the charity shop. Sometimes coming across something interesting or useful, but mainly amazement at how people could leave such useless stuff for someone else to get rid of.
I cleaned the kitchen. It took two days to empty the cupboards and clean from top to bottom. The kitchen units themselves are quite good quality. The worktop is ok, not my choice, but ok for now. The oven took three goes with Mr Muscle to get remotely clean, and surprisingly, it seems to work. Our little round handmade table fits in quite nicely, so at least we've got somewhere clean to sit to have a cuppa and a sandwich. Something else that amazed us was the amount of cleaning products and dusters we found in cupboards - although the house was filthy! Another thing was the amount of hospital stuff lurking - most of the cleaning products were from a hospital, first aid kits, sheets, eye baths, no wonder the NHS is in such a mess. Does the hospital not realise their staff are 'borrowing' from them. The mind boggles.
Hugh ripped up every carpet in the house - it was definately a case of 'wiping your feet on the way out!' LOL. I'd rather live on bare boards, than with those disgusting carpets.
We made a start on the shack, (the large shed,) which was absolutely full of stuff. Again, lots of decorating stuff even though the house was in such a bad state. Tools, electric sanders x 2, jigsaws x 2, drills, all abandoned. More boxes of books (very mildewed), childrens scooters, (rusted) old clothes, a fluffy white cat, either chucked in the skip or packed in the van to bring home for recycling.
Having owned this house for almost 4 weeks now, it's looking so much better,
Another thought that crossed my mind was 'what the hell have we done?' But it was a fleeting thought i'm please to say.
From there on in, it was busy, busy, busy, arranging for a skip to be delivered, ordering gas cylinders so that we could at least be warm while we cleared and sorted, phone calls to BT to connect the phone and phone calls to find out who supplies the electricity. It's an odd thing, buying an empty house, there's no one to ask all the things you need to know!
Sorting was interesting. Packing up boxes with other peoples books, clothes, shoes, childrens toys, ready for the charity shop. Sometimes coming across something interesting or useful, but mainly amazement at how people could leave such useless stuff for someone else to get rid of.
I cleaned the kitchen. It took two days to empty the cupboards and clean from top to bottom. The kitchen units themselves are quite good quality. The worktop is ok, not my choice, but ok for now. The oven took three goes with Mr Muscle to get remotely clean, and surprisingly, it seems to work. Our little round handmade table fits in quite nicely, so at least we've got somewhere clean to sit to have a cuppa and a sandwich. Something else that amazed us was the amount of cleaning products and dusters we found in cupboards - although the house was filthy! Another thing was the amount of hospital stuff lurking - most of the cleaning products were from a hospital, first aid kits, sheets, eye baths, no wonder the NHS is in such a mess. Does the hospital not realise their staff are 'borrowing' from them. The mind boggles.
Hugh ripped up every carpet in the house - it was definately a case of 'wiping your feet on the way out!' LOL. I'd rather live on bare boards, than with those disgusting carpets.
We made a start on the shack, (the large shed,) which was absolutely full of stuff. Again, lots of decorating stuff even though the house was in such a bad state. Tools, electric sanders x 2, jigsaws x 2, drills, all abandoned. More boxes of books (very mildewed), childrens scooters, (rusted) old clothes, a fluffy white cat, either chucked in the skip or packed in the van to bring home for recycling.
Having owned this house for almost 4 weeks now, it's looking so much better,
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