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,
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