Monday, March 26, 2007

New Home Update

As predicted, we spent the whole weekend decorating and it will be more of the same next weekend. I'm exhausted but it has been quite satisfying to do the work ourselves (with a huge amount of help & direction from the OH's parents) and we starting to see real progress now.

The lounge is ready to be painted but already looks so much better now the walls are smooth and clean. And I genuinely like this room again - the high celing, the cornicing and the original fireplace (picture taken before the clean-up began - it looks better now).

I investigated the contents of the shed further yesterday. I had been a bit annoyed that the previous owner had left a lot of junk in there, but there were a couple of useful things. Here's what I found:

  • 2 Directors chairs (dismantled so it took a while to realise what these were)
  • 4 rolls of masking tape
  • mop & bucket
  • fold out dressing table mirror (the type with three parts)
  • decking paint
  • pair of crutches
  • lawn mower

The last two items, I'm less than thrilled about - the garden is decked so a lawn mower ain't much use and I'm hoping we won't ever need the crutches.

I also met one of the neighbours - the OH's mother instigating conversation with her when we were in the garden. Silvia (probably mid 60s) who lives at 188 with her daughter - she bought her place for £1,040 40 years ago. She likes gardening but the woman next her (Scottish with a daughter) doesn't look after hers very well. She also told us where the nearest tip is, which local doctors were best and when the garden waste is collected. I suspect Silvia may be a bit of a gossip but she was friendly-enough and after 40 years, she must be a wealth of local knowledge.

5 comments:

Miss Forthright said...

The fireplace looks fab and it sounds like a nice area.

SandDancer said...

It certainly feels like there might be more of community to the area than where we are now - where we are now most people are just there on a temporary basis (lots of Japanese business people & their families and antipodean backpackers).

Miss Forthright said...

You're lucky to have a garden too- great stuff!

Either way, M was right when she said that to have a flat in West London is very lucky- when I think about all the millions of people in the world who would give their right arm to live in a great city like ours, it makes me feel really fortunate. For example, if someone said to me that they lived in NY, I would be like 'wow!'. The same applies for London.

You've done good, girl.

Anonymous said...

wow - lovely fireplace! How's the decorating going?

SandDancer said...

Not as quickly as I would like (just because I'm impatient and want my life back!) but it is being done thoroughly, so it should be worth it in the long-run.