Wednesday 14 February 2007

home ownership, day one

The handover was this morning at 10am. At 10.10am we were standing on the footpath outside the agents' holding the keys to the new abode.

When we let ourselves in the previous owners had tidied up the yard for us, mowed the lawns, and left a kind little note on the kitchen bench wishing us happiness, weighted down with a jar of flowers.

(There was also an unflushed poo in the toilet, but we will overlook that and concentrate on the niceness of the gesture.)

The remainder of the day was spent pulling up carpet and picking out staples from the floorboards.


before

after

We're going back as soon as dinner's over. I have sample pots, and I'm not afraid to use them.

21 comments:

Fluffy said...

Woo hoo! Congratulations! I'll be handing over my place next weekend - the flowers and welcoming letter are a nice touch.

Your floorboards look great. What kind of timber do you think it is?

R.H. said...

Miss Tartan, you're a riot, no mistake.

(But maybe you should have painted first?)

-Robert.


Fitted carpet is a good dropsheet.

lucy tartan said...

Possibly it's Baltic pine? The man who's coming to sand & polish it will know, I guess.

BwcaBrownie said...

Voice Of Experience 2 here: RH is right. paint first.

also: do not simply ASSUME that the nice man who sands and two-packs your boards is gonna vacuum up every little bit of sanding dust first.
he will not.
Please be sure you get in after he sands, and before he two-packs, and get into the corners with the crevice tool of your vacuum.

If not, you may be doomed to eternal aggravation by the sight of sealed-in mounds of dust in every corner, or worse: a silverfish sealed flat forever right in front of the toilet.

Wishing you Happy Days and my Housewarming gift to you both is a truckload of good karma.

jo(e) said...

Congrats!

R.H. said...

Darlings.

I have no more to say about all this.

Anonymous said...

Don't get the wrong idea, L. The unflushed henry is a traditional gesture of goodwill to the new occupier.

(In prison.)

cristy said...

Oh, how fun!

I hope that you have a ball with the paint.

GS said...

I love the poo and the flowers!

Hope you get some large doses of champage amongst the hard work to toast your good fortune and aching muscles :)

Just Like A Woman said...

Congratulations!
Your excitement is contagious and brings back many happy house-moving memories.
We did our floor-boards not that long ago (oh those bloody staples)
and painted afterwards - no problems, just keep a wet cloth handy, and any splashes of paint just wipe right off that brand new mirror-shiny floor.
I'm sure the lady-of-the-house was responsible for the note and flowers, but the welcome-poo??!!This offends me, I'm sorry. Call me Bree Vanderkamp, but that is just unforgivable, notwithstanding Stage 3!
You have lots of hard yakka ahead, but just remember to enjoy the ride, (and drinking regularly along the way helps enormously)
Emily

R.H. said...

Yes well it's just like a woman to say that, a woman untrained in PAINTING AND DECORATING! So let me tell you something, I am trained. It happened when WORK SHY RH along with twenty other like-minded were sent to Sunshine Tafe by the CES for a three month course in PAINTING AND DECORATING, and we all got a special allowance above the dole which got us officially OFF THE DOLE. That's right. To make the unemployment figures look better. And it worked. But we didn't, except for when OUR TALENTS WERE PUT TO USE painting the scallop sheds down on the Maribyrnong River -and which you can see today -a TOTAL MESS.

Well look, paint flies off in tiny spots, especially from a roller, and are difficult to see when wet, but very obvious when dried, and then difficult to remove (rub rub rub) even if the surface is gloss, but if it's water-based anyway you'll probably remove that as well. Modern paints are tough, we found that out when my buddy and I got paint spots all over the scallop chief's car, and it took us all day rubbing to get them off. Wooh!- were our faces red! Not really, but it meant we couldn't sneak off and hide like usual.

Yes, and I'd like to mention that we all got a nice-looking certificate on graduation, from a CES OFFICIAL!- and which probably isn't as good as an anthropology degree, but pretty good anyway. So how's that! And I've got mine right here for anyone who wants to see it, so there, and what's more we learnt "LAYING OFF" too, and I'll bet you don't know what that is and I'm not going to tell you but you do it with a brush or a roller, and did I tell you that our certificates were handed out to us in a ceremony at Footscray park? Well they were, and very smug we looked too, all called up one by one, just like at at a real college. Golly, and I mean some of us had hardly been to school in out life! ha ha ha! So jam that in your pipe and smoke it!- and I'll tell you what if you want to delete this bloody thing go right ahead because what do I care -I'm a bloody GRADUATE!

So go to hell!

ROBBERT!!!

ha ha ha !

Mindy said...

Let the fun begin! Floorboards look lovely.

Ampersand Duck said...

Moving house vicariously is so much fun. Please keep posting EVERY detail, even the unsavoury ones.

R.H. said...

Unsavoury?

(I think she means RH)

Anonymous said...

Nothing like ripping something up to celebrate real house-decorating freedom...

congratulations!

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Reminds me of William Blake: "And lo, the carpet shall be furled like a cloud in the night, and the apocalypse give birth to floorboards". Or something. Good luck to you!

BwcaBrownie said...

another helpful hint from Copperwitch blogger: the floor sealing guys will mess up your skirting boards so don't topcoat them till after.

Anonymous said...

I can understand the urge to rip up carpets and polish boards. But after a few years when you get sick of the noise, lack of insulation, and cleaning, you'll wish for carpet.

lucy tartan said...

We've lived in an uncarpeted house for seven years and haven't had a problem.

Drewzel said...

I totally understand the carpet thing Laura, even if the carpet would have been a good dropsheet, you just DON'T care! You get in there and rip out that ugly carpet just for the sheer joy of getting rid of it!

Congrats on the house, I'm having much vicarious renovation-ery enjoyment from your posts!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.