This week, with getting back from London late last night (well, the pub) and preparing for the arrival of one of my London friends at the weekend, I shall have little time to do any work on the house or garden.
This is a bit annoying, but a side-effect of my galavanting. Tonight, for example, I have spent unpacking from the weekend, uploading photos, tidying up. Thursday night I will spend tidying up, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom and getting the sofabed ready.
When I bought the house, I bought it as a project. I still don't know whether it was a poisonned chalice or not. On the one hand I have been soending money on the mortgage rather than rent, however on the other I haven't been able to move. It is hardwired into our family (well, except for the sister but i'm sure she has rogue genes) to buy rather than rent. Getting on the property ladder was drilled in as the second most important thing to do after getting a decent job.
When I bought the house it was easily liveable, but in need of a substantial amount of updating. For example, the downstairs showerroom was usable, tiled and looked ok if a little dated. My first job was to install a bathroom in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs. The problem occurs in that I didn't have enough money to finish everything, so for a few years there was a fully useable bath, toilet and sink, but no tiles on the walls, no cupboard boxing in the immersion tank, and no bath panel on. In this state there was no chance I could sell the house without making a loss, in which case I might as well have been paying rent.
And of course that's not the only thing. In order to get the damproofing done, a lot of plaster needed chipping off which also involved stripping off a lot of wallpaper in various rooms (not to mention the removal of a VERY 60s full wall-length fire surround), leaving the walls very unaesthetic, albeit that this is mostly cosmetic. But it's surprising how costly both in money and time plastering, sanding, painting and finishing a room can be. And when you're trying to save for the more costly things such as tiles for the bathroom to at least get that room done, plastering and painting the lounge slips a long way down the list. And then there is the kitchen: as well as needing to update the hob and oven which were at the height of fashion when man was first landing on the moon, the removal of it for dampproofing damaged a lot of the tiling. That room falls as one of the major and costly jobs.
It takes someone special to see the value of a house in this state. It does have value, and the value is currently pretty much the same as what I bought it for - realistically bearing in mind the cost to get the house up to scratch and the value that the house will have then. And I do call it and think of it as home. But it is also a millstone.
A couple of years ago I got made redundant. I could have gone anywhere for a job if I had been renting, just giving one month notice. And again now, I am forced into a lengthy commute because, although I am looking for another job, there aren't any in my area. There are in London, or Manchester, or Birmingham, but unless I want a longer commute still they are currently out of the question.
But the weekends away, though incredibly fun and a nice break, also delay my ability to move on. Maybe I need to reassess my priorities and not spend all my time and money galavanting around the country, just until I have my house sold at least. And who knows, maybe next week i'll get around to starting on the airing cupboard shelves or the bath panel or boxing on the pipes or chipping off dead plaster in the spare room or doing the electrics in the spare room or plastering the ceiling around the new loft hatch or sorting the floorboards out in the hallway...
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