Home Stretch

I'm exhausted! I've been working pretty solidly on getting my house ready to let. The good news is two fold:

1 - I'm nearly done!
2 - I have a tenant moving in on the 13th!

Here's a list of what I've done (or had done) on the house:

Painted the woodwork outside (doors/windows)
Painted the woodwork inside (skirting, windows, doors, railing)
Painted all the walls which didn't have murals
Painted all the ceilings
Installed a bar for wardrobe space
Installed a bar for curtain hanging to hide wardrobe space
Ripped up the carpet
Installed laminate flooring
Cleared excess furniture
Cleared eves
Cleared rubbish from garden
Pulled out a raised flower bed
Put in 2 raised flower beds
Repaired 1 raised flower bed
Re-rocked the patio area
Trimmed all the bushes
Cut the grass (twice)
Seeded the grass
Painted the fence
Painted the shed
Repaired the shed
Weeded the drive and patio
Dug, levelled and rocked the area in front of the shed (it was horrible dirt before)


Ummm... not sure what else, but seriously, do I need anything else?!? I'm shattered. I've now packed my bags. I've got a bit of rubbish left to clear out of the spare bed. I've got one more trip to the charity shop to get rid of stuff. I've GOT to wash my hair! Then I'm off to my friend's house to drop off my car (she's selling it for me), she'll then drop me off at the train station. I'm heading into London tomorrow night to stay with friends who live about 20 minutes (train) from Heathrow. Then, midmorning the next day I'll head over to Heathrow to catch my flight.

Won't do me any good to turn up too early, as I'm flying standby again, so they won't let me check in til the last minute. But, I'm flying to Minneapolis, and the flight looks pretty empty, so it shouldn't be a problem. But, be sure to check out my other blog, High Class Hitchhiking, for all the adventures!

Much as it pains me to leave, I'm really ready to be gone. Being here has been really good for me, but for funny reasons. I've learned that I made the right decision last year in moving back to the US. England and the UK will always hold a special place in my heart, but it isn't home right now. Maybe sometime in the future it will be again. Hope so as I genuinely love the people and the land. But just now, it's time for me to go back to the US. I have a brand new life waiting for me, and I'm really looking forward to getting to it. No idea where the new path will take me, but one thing's for sure.....

I'll always Seize the Day and Throttle It!

Chaos Reigns!

One of the things I have wanted to do in this house for years is, replace the flooring. Downstairs the carpet is either ok (living room) or really worn out (everywhere else). Upstairs, the carpet is pretty horrific. It is poorly put in, stained, rippled and just generally awful. Not only that, in no 2 rooms does it MATCH. So, I've wanted to replace it for ages.

As you know, I'm getting the house ready to let out. I talked to the estate agent, and he agreed that having more uniformed flooring would be a help, and that hard floor is best, since it's so much easier to keep clean and if a portion gets damaged, you don't have to replace the whole room. I prefer hard floor, anyway, so I thought, right. Let's have a look at this.

I started getting estimates for the work being done, and was sad that, it looked like this was going to be another project that would have to wait. I just wasn't going to be able to afford the £1500+ estimates I was getting. Not for another year, or so, after I'd had the house let for a while, anyway. There were other things (like getting the outside wood repainted) that were more important to the continued maintenance of the house. Well, yesterday evening, my neighbour's ex-husband came round. My neighbour's still friends with him, just happier not being married to him. So John came in and asked if I was looking for some work doing on the house, and said he'd be happy to give me a quote. I knew he'd done some (lovely) work for my neighbour, but didn't realise that was his JOB. Anyway, he went away, measured up the house (my neighbour's house is the same floor plan and size as mine), priced some things, came back and said he'd do the flooring AND the painting, materials and labour, for £1,000. I told him then and there that he had the job.

He went off straight away and got the flooring materials, dropped them off, and this morning at 9.00, he came round to start the flooring. Bless him! He says he can have the flooring done in 3-4 days, and the painting done in another 3-4 days. 2 weeks max? £1,000? Wow. And he does lovely work. I've always admired the flooring in my neighbour's house. Oh, and the flooring he's using is much nicer flooring than the ultra cheap stuff the quotes I was getting were going to be using. Bonus!

Of course, this means I can't move around the house because it's all topsy-turvey. Here's a look at my bedroom. I'm currently sitting on my bed, in the 1 foot gap between the upended mattress and the bedside table. So funny. And to get into the room, you have to climb over the new flooring, under the door to the spare bed (leaning against the door to my room) and then further under the skirting!