Steve Buckton said that things can only get better when he talked about us and our house move in his blog last week http://www.steveinjapan.blogspot.com/. Well he was right, things are getting better, albeit very slowly. Me and Phil sat down in the kebab flat on Friday evening and had a good old heart to heart and I was pleased that he finally agreed that the flat needed a mini refurbish. He knows that I am right and it makes business sense; for one I was never going to be happy living here with things as they were, secondly, any works that we do can only increase our chances of a resale and lastly if we don’t secure a buyer then we can achieve a higher rent per calendar month if we have to re-let.
So, never ones to sit and simply procrastinate (I wish!), we rolled our sleeves up and got really stuck into works at the weekend. You will be right in thinking that I did some redecoration when Mr & Mrs Dutta moved out after the leeks, leaving the place in a right shit heap (literally). However, not being certain that the leeks had stopped permanently and not knowing at the time, that I was going to be living here permanently, I did a sort of a bodge mini makeover, just making things good for viewings. This time though we are going to do things properly, without hopefully spending a shed-full of cash that we haven’t got anyway.
As Phil says, he does most of the hard graft where as my role is that of assistant cum labourer cum fetcher gofer. I felt really sorry for Phil at the weekend because now that I had got him on board with the refurbish, I really was a woman on a mission. Phil has had a poorly elbow for some months now and just last week Phil and two of his colleagues diagnosed him with tennis elbow. This diagnosis makes sense because his job is all done with his mouse and I am certain all the sawing, hammering and screwing at the cul-de-sac hasn’t helped his condition. However sympathy aside, we can’t afford to pay a man that can so he had no choice but to get stuck in.
Saturday morning was spent buying new blinds, paints, wallpaper and new bedside cabinets. Phil put the blinds up in our bedroom and they look great. I have been yearning to get rid of the silver bent Venetian blinds for years, ever since the prostitutes that were operating from the kebab flat, moved out. It was such a relief to put them in our skip and I instantly felt much better. I sanded and glossed the skirting in the spare bedroom and slapped a couple of coats of Duluxe rich matt white on the ceiling. Phil changed the light fittings so both rooms are already much brighter, as am I. On Sunday morning Phil put together the new IKEA bedside cabinets which took a couple of hours, much longer than I had anticipated. Actually they’re filing cabinets which are slimmer than your normal bog standard bedside cabinets. Phil had to ram them in because space was very tight but they too make a difference.
Phil popped a M&S steak and kidney pie into the oven and cooked some veggies for our Sunday lunch and very nice it was too. He served us both very big servings and afterwards all he wanted to do was lie down and read the papers. Unfortunately the spare bed needed wall-papering so I had to prise him from the sofa. It was a joint effort, I did the pasting and Phil did the difficult bits. You may recognise this wallpaper as it is the same as we had in the lounge at the cul-de-sac. I adore this wallpaper; it’s cheap, easy to lay and reminds me of home. I choose a pink leaf pattern for the second wall which I’m not 100% sure it works. Maybe I’ve gone a bit overboard with papering some pieces of wood to hang on the wall but I think it will look okay when I’ve finished. Hopefully it will work because if not, it will tacky, wacky and totally OTT.
I’ve been and ordered new carpets today from Carpet Right and bed 1 is being laid on Thursday which puts me under pressure because I have to get all the gloss work done before then. The salesman in Carpet Right knows me by name and asked me how works on the cul-de-sac house was going. He was surprised when I said they were finished and we’d moved out. When he saw my order he commented that I chosen the same carpet I had in t
he cul-de-sac house. Weird.
It’s going to be a really busy week. Today I have David from PCFix around at 8.30am to hopefully try and fix my laptop. There is a problem with the wireless connection and I now can’t get on to BTOpenzone at all. I am drafting this from the kebab flat and will post from The Library unless he can fix it. Also today the land line should go live. On Thursday the Sky man is scheduled to come in the afternoon to put up the satellite dish and sort out the digital TV once and for all. Phil for one will be really happy when this is sorted but I’m not so sure. With only a handful of channels he has been talking to me a lot more and has been quite attentive. Actually do you know what? He’s actually been quite romantic. He brought some candles from IKEA and every night he closes the blinds and lights a candle in all of the rooms, (all of 5 of them!). I don’t know whether he’s doing this to mask the smell of the BO and the kebabs, I prefer to think he’s doing it to set the ambiance but either way,
the flat smell seems to be diminishing. Either that or I have become accustomed to it and now can’t smell it. It’s still bad in the airing cupboard even though I have repainted it and burnt a scented candle in it for 2 days. It’s a shame really that I can’t use the airing cupboard because space is so crucial here. I have even considered leaving my clothes in my car but then I figured they would be stolen or worse still, would be frozen in the winter.
Talking of temperatures, I can now confirm that we do indeed have heat. I was surprised that Phil didn’t mention the heating saga in his last blog but obviously he had so much other stuff to talk about. Well anyway, the heat came on as Phil waited on the council heating engineer turning up on Friday. Turned out there wasn’t a specific problem in our flat, the ever efficient council person had just forgotten to turn on the heating in our block! The engineer did pop his head into our flat and has recommended that we have the fan heater thingie in the lounge exchanged for a proper radiator with a thermostat control. Yippee! I am so glad it’s such an ugly thing that I can’t bear to look at it. The real problem though, is that now we are too hot.
Turns out the Emma, a previous tenant who called me this time last year to say that the flat was so hot that her son was in danger of having a convulsion fit, was right and I am sorry now that I dismissed her claim and fobbed her with the council repairs free-phone number. It is so hot even with the radiators turned off as the heat comes underfoot from the pipes in the floor, of which of course, because it is communal we have no control. I find it ironic that we fitted under-floor heating in the cul-de-sac house and couldn’t afford to switch it on and now we have it on tap for free and it’s too hot! Actually it’s not for free; we pay a hideous amount for the service charge which covers the cost of heating and water. But even taking that into account, it’s still less than we would have paid for electric and gas in our 3 bed house. The other bonus is that somehow it heats the water so now we don’t have to remember or pay to put the immersion heater on. Every cloud, hey?.........................
So, never ones to sit and simply procrastinate (I wish!), we rolled our sleeves up and got really stuck into works at the weekend. You will be right in thinking that I did some redecoration when Mr & Mrs Dutta moved out after the leeks, leaving the place in a right shit heap (literally). However, not being certain that the leeks had stopped permanently and not knowing at the time, that I was going to be living here permanently, I did a sort of a bodge mini makeover, just making things good for viewings. This time though we are going to do things properly, without hopefully spending a shed-full of cash that we haven’t got anyway.
As Phil says, he does most of the hard graft where as my role is that of assistant cum labourer cum fetcher gofer. I felt really sorry for Phil at the weekend because now that I had got him on board with the refurbish, I really was a woman on a mission. Phil has had a poorly elbow for some months now and just last week Phil and two of his colleagues diagnosed him with tennis elbow. This diagnosis makes sense because his job is all done with his mouse and I am certain all the sawing, hammering and screwing at the cul-de-sac hasn’t helped his condition. However sympathy aside, we can’t afford to pay a man that can so he had no choice but to get stuck in.
Saturday morning was spent buying new blinds, paints, wallpaper and new bedside cabinets. Phil put the blinds up in our bedroom and they look great. I have been yearning to get rid of the silver bent Venetian blinds for years, ever since the prostitutes that were operating from the kebab flat, moved out. It was such a relief to put them in our skip and I instantly felt much better. I sanded and glossed the skirting in the spare bedroom and slapped a couple of coats of Duluxe rich matt white on the ceiling. Phil changed the light fittings so both rooms are already much brighter, as am I. On Sunday morning Phil put together the new IKEA bedside cabinets which took a couple of hours, much longer than I had anticipated. Actually they’re filing cabinets which are slimmer than your normal bog standard bedside cabinets. Phil had to ram them in because space was very tight but they too make a difference.
Phil popped a M&S steak and kidney pie into the oven and cooked some veggies for our Sunday lunch and very nice it was too. He served us both very big servings and afterwards all he wanted to do was lie down and read the papers. Unfortunately the spare bed needed wall-papering so I had to prise him from the sofa. It was a joint effort, I did the pasting and Phil did the difficult bits. You may recognise this wallpaper as it is the same as we had in the lounge at the cul-de-sac. I adore this wallpaper; it’s cheap, easy to lay and reminds me of home. I choose a pink leaf pattern for the second wall which I’m not 100% sure it works. Maybe I’ve gone a bit overboard with papering some pieces of wood to hang on the wall but I think it will look okay when I’ve finished. Hopefully it will work because if not, it will tacky, wacky and totally OTT.I’ve been and ordered new carpets today from Carpet Right and bed 1 is being laid on Thursday which puts me under pressure because I have to get all the gloss work done before then. The salesman in Carpet Right knows me by name and asked me how works on the cul-de-sac house was going. He was surprised when I said they were finished and we’d moved out. When he saw my order he commented that I chosen the same carpet I had in t
he cul-de-sac house. Weird.
It’s going to be a really busy week. Today I have David from PCFix around at 8.30am to hopefully try and fix my laptop. There is a problem with the wireless connection and I now can’t get on to BTOpenzone at all. I am drafting this from the kebab flat and will post from The Library unless he can fix it. Also today the land line should go live. On Thursday the Sky man is scheduled to come in the afternoon to put up the satellite dish and sort out the digital TV once and for all. Phil for one will be really happy when this is sorted but I’m not so sure. With only a handful of channels he has been talking to me a lot more and has been quite attentive. Actually do you know what? He’s actually been quite romantic. He brought some candles from IKEA and every night he closes the blinds and lights a candle in all of the rooms, (all of 5 of them!). I don’t know whether he’s doing this to mask the smell of the BO and the kebabs, I prefer to think he’s doing it to set the ambiance but either way,
the flat smell seems to be diminishing. Either that or I have become accustomed to it and now can’t smell it. It’s still bad in the airing cupboard even though I have repainted it and burnt a scented candle in it for 2 days. It’s a shame really that I can’t use the airing cupboard because space is so crucial here. I have even considered leaving my clothes in my car but then I figured they would be stolen or worse still, would be frozen in the winter.Talking of temperatures, I can now confirm that we do indeed have heat. I was surprised that Phil didn’t mention the heating saga in his last blog but obviously he had so much other stuff to talk about. Well anyway, the heat came on as Phil waited on the council heating engineer turning up on Friday. Turned out there wasn’t a specific problem in our flat, the ever efficient council person had just forgotten to turn on the heating in our block! The engineer did pop his head into our flat and has recommended that we have the fan heater thingie in the lounge exchanged for a proper radiator with a thermostat control. Yippee! I am so glad it’s such an ugly thing that I can’t bear to look at it. The real problem though, is that now we are too hot.
Turns out the Emma, a previous tenant who called me this time last year to say that the flat was so hot that her son was in danger of having a convulsion fit, was right and I am sorry now that I dismissed her claim and fobbed her with the council repairs free-phone number. It is so hot even with the radiators turned off as the heat comes underfoot from the pipes in the floor, of which of course, because it is communal we have no control. I find it ironic that we fitted under-floor heating in the cul-de-sac house and couldn’t afford to switch it on and now we have it on tap for free and it’s too hot! Actually it’s not for free; we pay a hideous amount for the service charge which covers the cost of heating and water. But even taking that into account, it’s still less than we would have paid for electric and gas in our 3 bed house. The other bonus is that somehow it heats the water so now we don’t have to remember or pay to put the immersion heater on. Every cloud, hey?.........................
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