Well, not quite yet. But we are putting our house on the market, to see if we could actually get the £350,000 our most sensible estate agent (out of the classic three valuations) thinks it's worth.
This has necessitated some
tarting up normal maintenance involving paint. I don't get on very well with paint. It always seems to be going so well, until you spot a bit that's sagging like a drunken eyelid or dribbling like a cracked plastic glass, and it's too late to fix because it's already too solid to brush out. Also, despite my best efforts to prepare before hand, I always end up finding some new cobwebs, or sawdust, or dead beetles or something when I'm actually painting, so everything goes from smooth to gritty, and then there's no going back.
Fortunately
tarting up normal maintenance doesn't require a high-precision finish. If fact (I am assured) it's mostly about
changing the appearance, rather than re-protecting the fabric of the estate. Who knew? Anyway, this makes the job much quicker. We refinished the front of the house (including the garage door in fashionable grey) in what we non-time-challenged folk like to call "no time at all", and even gave the back of the garage (which is also the view from the spare bedroom) a new coat of cheery yellow. We also found time to fix all sorts of things which have somehow eluded my attention for the last year or more, like fixing the house back door lock so that it opens properly. I could say more, but I'll leave it that I had a complete spare lock assembly in stock from when I changed the one at the house of luuurve for a slam-lock version. Hah!
Oh, and we borrowed a pressure washer. I've never used one before. They're jolly good, but they can be a bit fierce, and it's easy to get carried away and remove all the mortar between your paving slabs, or inadvertently dig up the drive. Or remove a lot more paint from the garage door than you were intending to.
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| Pressure Washer 1; Garage Door 0 |
Still, that's OK, as long as you have enough primer in stock. A series of quick blasts with some aerosol cans on the door and a splosh of Sandtex on the concrete, and this is the result:
The pressure washer really is the tool of choice for cleaning the composite lower deck though (recycled plastic and hardwood, allegedly, although it's hard to spot any wood content), as shown here by the lovely Jackie, who is sporting a boiler suit by Dickies, worn in the contemporary "four sizes too big" fashion, and floral wellies "a là Glasto" (sunshade headband - model's own).
We had a go on the wooden deck to, but it proved to be very slow work and we had to give the pressure washer back, so that wasn't quite as good. Bah!
Anyway, if anyone out there wants to buy our lovely house, check it out on Rightmove (very soon), but don't get your hopes up too much. We aren't going to sell until we have found somewhere better (double garage, at least), and so far we haven't been able find anything that fits the bill.
