Covid seems to have left one us bu is clinging to the other according to lateral flow test. We are now both sounding as if we have colds and coughing has been reduced mainly to the evenings.
It’s a good thing that we are out of bed at least as one of our tenants gave notice a month ago. We knew we were likely to be faced with some physical work to do to get that house back on the rental market.
It wasn’t until we had the handover of keys and house inspection we worked out what needed to be done. The longer it takes to do the work and the longer the house lies empty we are responsible for council tax, services and without an sizeable chunk of income. Covid is tiring even in mild doses, but needs must.
A quick glance indicated a thorough clean and total repaint – could have been worse… We had new ceilings upstairs some months ago and we knew we’d have to paint them when the plaster cured anyway. What I hadn’t quite bargained for was trying to resolve a tenant’s approach to interior design that appears as eclectic as Boris’s approach to governing with integrity. One bedroom in punk pink and apple green and another in black…
The first half day was spent deep cleaning the bathroom and making an increasingly long list for…yup Screwfix!
One thing Covid has done is make me incredibly clumsy…that’s reduced the number of mugs and tumblers on the boat. When working around 10 litres of paint at a time it’s nothing short of a potential ticking timebomb! At the time of writing this blog, the only disaster to date has been with a much-needed, well-earned cup of coffee which I promptly upended in my lap as I took a rest in a deck chair (the only chairs we have in the house with us and bit do we need sit downs!). That then meant I couldn’t walk to the car three streets away as I looked like I’d had a seriously embarrassing accident!
So we’re 1.5 days into the turnround and so far the blackout room has been washed twice and experienced a brighter vibe with its first coat of white. This has been achieved with the socially distanced help of Steve’s brother who kindly provided ladders for us as he’s in the locality.
The underpants found tucked into the original Victorian fireplace have been removed (with gloves)… The kitchen has a brand new working mixer tap. The kitchen door now has a working door handle. The bathroom has a working lock and the oven is being steeped overnight in some no doubt hideous chemicals applied with gauntlets to save what skin I have left after scouring the bathroom!
The pink/apple room has been washed twice and awaits its first coat of single colour emulsion tomorrow.
A weekend of emulsion, gardening, cleaning, glossing and more cleaning awaits us. Hopefully that will get us to a point where we can put it back on the rental market to attract a new tenant, and continue other bits like recarpeting etc before they move in. Our tenants do tend to stay a long time, so it’s quite a while since this house had a serious makeover.
Getting back to the boat in the evenings even though moored 80 miles away from where we’re working, reminds us how incredibly lucky we are. It’s quiet, calm, and moving. Whichever way you look there’s something different to see, views created by wildlife or light. There is something both uplifting and liberating about leaning out of the swan hatch or sitting on the roof, drink in hand (taking Covid gin medication seriously as advised). In a town house life is much more constrained – bricks and mortar encase us with a static density that seems to separate us from the world outside and turn us inward.
Both ways we’re isolating still – keeping ourselves and any lingering bugs to ourselves. Once work is done and both of us record negative tests then we can socialise again, making up for lost time.
Pickingupducks 