Blog

Today they’re coming to value the house. By ‘they’ I mean a gang of three different estate agents. I have a massive list of questions to ask and in the last few days Kathryn and I have done an awesome amount of work on the house and garden. It’s not finished, which leaves me slightly frustrated, but I am willing to accept that realistically I could have done no more.

– Paint the entryway
– Paint the back wall (just touching it up, but there’s a lot of touching up) <- This is part done – all the bits that need a ladder to reach are done.
– Remove the doors and get them dipped-and-stripped (being done)
– Touch up some paint in the kitchen DONE!
– Finish the deck and the garden path
– Weed the garden and chuck down 100s of litres of bark chip
– Build gravel stairs at the bottom of the garden (edge them and then throw gravel in).
– Paint the bathroom doorframe
– Remove excess grout residue
– Make panel to go under sink

I have worked from 8-9am until after Kathryn’s got home; then we’ve worked together. We took our entire day off and worked for 9 straight hours sorting the two spare rooms and the bedroom. I’ve painted, cleaned, cut timber, disassembled more pallets, tidied, washed, wiped, dusted, pcked, sorted, been to the charity shop with a billion donations, bought dirt and path-underlay, moved a literal ton of gravel (and need to move it again)…

The deck now has an edge/barrier planter and (with the exception of the stairs) is boxed in. I’d like to have done the stairs with panelling too, but haven’t quite managed it and may not. Clearing out under there is the first priority.

I’m really quite pleased with it, especially considering the planter’s all scrap from pallets too.

Inside, the only jobs I can think of are to hang the bathroom cabinet and to rehang the doors, when they get back from being stripped (which should be today).

Outside, I’ve still got some painting to do of the wall, and the garden still needs much tidying. The front garden bushes need pruning and the front needs more weeding. I was threatening to paint the front wall, and haven’t yet, which may or may not happen.

And we won’t go into the state of the inside of my wardrobe. It’s almost as tall as me with clothing just hurled in there in a heap. It’s fearsome. It’s a mixture of ‘this needs sorting’, me rifling through it to get my old uniforms out to return to my work, and lord knows what else. All the laundry has just gone in it without being sorted (apart from socks and underwear which does have a drawer).

Oh, and Rebecca is due to go up to JLH this coming week. I’ve a custom gearbox being built which should be tolerable for the Ital engine and lovely with the EV motor.

So it’s all go here. We just have to hope that the visa comes through – although if not, we’ll be moving to the countryside near Bristol. That’s the plan B. And setting up shop here. Anyhow, let’s see how this goes.