Avoid bridging finance

When I eventually got to work one of my colleagues was thumping things about the office. She was grumpy. She’d recently moved into her new house, and as you'd imagine had been fairly happy about it. She bought it before selling her old place. Oops! It had sold soon after and the settlement dates seemed to be okay. But today something went wrong. She is now forced into bridging finance. I was almost in the same boat a few years ago.

The house in Tasmania I’d mentioned a few times earlier eventually sold, and of course we bought another in Melbourne. This house, as it happens. We nearly got into hot water in regard to the need for bridging finance.

We were living in rented accommodation in Melbourne. There were renters in our Tasmanian house. We had spotted the house we wanted to buy in Melbourne, and put a deposit on it. Being mindful that we had no money to cover the sale we arranged a 90 day period before settlement. The vendor was happy with this. Surely you can sell a house within 3 months. Surely there won’t be a problem there.

The tenants moved out of our Tassy house, and didn’t leave the place as well cared for as they moved in, but that’s another story. It was put up for auction, didn’t sell at auction, went on the market but things were slow, but in due course someone wanted it and it sold. Things were looking good. Then the problem hit us.

The purchase of our house was conditional on the sale of their property. There was a similar arrangement from the people who were buying theirs. There was a whole string of sales set to go through and the date was set, but somewhere in the chain of events someone was having trouble with their finances. Everything was in jeopardy.

The settlement date for our Melbourne house was now only a few weeks away. We had no money. We needed the sale of the Tassie house. I paid the bank manager a visit explaining the situation. He was reassuring saying everything would be okay, whatever that means. I began scouring the situations vacant columns to see what work was available on a casual basis. I could see myself working during the day in my regular job, and working in a service station during the evenings. The loan repayments would have been huge.

Settlement day was almost upon us. I was worried sick wondering how we might cope. Then on the day before settlement was scheduled we got a call from our agent in Tasmania that the finance for these people somewhere up the chain had worked out, and settlement was scheduled for the next day; the same day as settlement of our house was set to take place. What luck. What relief. It took a long time recover from the nervousness of it all. We promised ourselves never to let ourselves come close to that experience ever again.

A sick turbocharger

Money was the focus of this day. I got the turbo to the repairer in Fyshwick. Fortunately, I got a lift to my repairer’s workshop from my kindly landlady to pick up the turbo, and she dropped me off at the bus stop on the way to work. It must be about a 20 minute drive to Fyshwick but on the bus this turned into something in excess of an hour trip. The bus wound in and around so many back streets and byways that I almost lost my sense of direction. Still it was good to be able to see a few places I hadn’t seen before. It was an interesting joy ride. Though I suspect the few passengers nearby were wondering what I had on the floor by my feet as when I went to pick up my turbo, despite it being in a plastic bag and cardboard box, it had begun to loose a bit of black engine oil, leaving a little grease spot on the floor. Thankfully, the repair workshop, Cooma Diesel, wasn’t too far form the bus stop. I began to feel the weight of the thing as I reached the place.

I didn’t really expect the $460 that was quoted when I rang some months ago, with a general enquiry. What can you expect over the phone when it can’t be inspected in any way. I was expecting something in the region of $600 because of the amount of smoke that had been billowing from the back of the car. However, I didn’t expect to hear mention of $1000 for the repair. They suspected that the core was entirely worn out. With a new core installed I’d essentially have a new turbo on the car. I only have $600 in the bank; S has already used up her $400 and needs more money.

Anyway, at least its happening and I’ll be getting my car back on the road shortly, and as I walked back to the bus stop I was wondering how I can possibly pay for this. I’ll try and extend the limit on my credit card. If I can boost it by $1000 I could give S all the cash I have, then we’ll both be okay.

I managed to jump back on the same bus that I came down to Fyshwick on, which was rather nice as it’d save an hour or so wait, and it gave me a chance to clean up the greasy mess I’d left on the floor of the bus on the way down. It’s funny how some things just work out. All is right with the world.

A few troubles

Pay day at last. We were both hanging out for it. Though when I transferred $400 to S’s account she only noticed about $390 in her account. Banks are accountable to no one. While I was at the bank a request to transfer funds to another bank, my building society account actually, was refused. Funds transfers I had been doing for years were now no longer possible.

The pleasant young clerk explained, after consulting with one of his colleagues, that my requested transfer could not take place because the account number was invalid. He lost all his confidence when I asked why it was that I could transfer funds to this account in the past. A further discussion with a larger group of colleagues revealed that the bank had decided to discontinue supporting some accounts which just happened to include mine. I was not happy with Westpac.

The mechanic rang. The turbo has been removed from my car, and ready to pick up. Had I been in the position of having more than one car I could have driven to the workshop, thrown the turbo in the boot, and zoomed off to the company to get it repaired. Or had I a bit of spare cash I would have asked them to get a courier to take it to them. A bus trip will be on the cards.

A reprieve

This was the day that the photographer didn’t come (again). This is no drama, as the extra time will be welcome. It took ages to get the brushed wood sideboard that’s in the lounge looking good, and S knows her efforts may not be well regarded by the stylist, who has some pretty definite ideas on what looks good and what doesn’t. Apparently, the study still needs a lot of effort.

No more news on the sale of my landlady’s house; the place that I live. Presumably the sale is still going ahead. It would be nice to find our new dream house, rent it until our house sells, and then complete the transaction. I’m not sure if such things are possible. Do people rent the property they are about to purchase?

A few developments

S was beginning to flake out with the workload of tidying the house constantly, and finding it difficult to find places to put everything. The photographer was delayed and couldn’t come, which is probably a blessing in disguise as there is now more time to tidy up.

At work, I asked my boss (by email) about extending the period for claiming removal expenses. He was confident it wouldn’t be a problem, but asked me to raise the subject again later, whatever that means. That’s not the most reassuring of responses, but at least I got a response, and its good to have these things in writing. It’s a great help that the company will cover some of the cost. The HR department said that I must make a claim for the funds within six months of starting employment. Not a chance of that, and I don’t want to miss out on the money just because I might exceed the deadline.

I felt lost without the car. The garage said they wouldn’t be able to get to it until Friday. I went to the National Library of Australia on the weekend, using Canberra’s bus services. It’s strange using the buses after so many years. The library has a rather nice café – now that’s a lovely idea. This library was a strange place. There were hardly any books on public shelves, most having to be retrieved by staff from storage. Though it resolves the problem of books being incorrectly re-shelved, but it limits your browsing ability. The 30 minute wait for materials to be delivered seems a bit much. All the books are referenced by an online catalogue, which is okay in that you can check things out from your home computer if you need to, but was a problem in that you have to compete with the web sufers who sit monopolising the computers, preventing others from using the catalogue. It's easy to whinge. I shouldn't really as it's a wonderful place and must see for everyone.

My landlady has had an offer on her house and a deposit has been paid. The sale will be pending the sale of their own house, and the settlement is expected to take place at the end of March. Now this is a problem. I’ll have to find somewhere else to live. Anyway, it was on the cards and mentioned when I moved in. I was rather hoping that I’d be in my house before she sold her place. That’s the way things go. It does go to show that private house sales do work. She said she got a price she’s happy with and has no agent’s fees to pay. She said when first put on the market not so many people showed interest. A few punters came by, but it wasn’t until she posted the house for sale on the allhomes web site that things took off. And, if that was her only cost then that’s not bad indeed.

Reviewing the stylist’s work

Was it worthwhile? A very definite: yes. She provided a perspective in the preparation of property for sale that would have been a pity to have missed. Oh, grant us the gift to see our property as others see it. Okay, Burns didn’t write it like this but the meaning is the same. And the power of this is in employing the talents of a stylist.

The stylist’s job is to present the property in its most attractive light. Removing the curtains and fly screen doors may not be a practical thing to do to a house. It made no sense to me at the time. But it ensures the punters see the view from the window, and that’s up for sale too when it comes down to it. Show it to them. The lack of curtains also makes the room very light. Show the punters you are not hiding anything. It also serves to let them imagine their own curtains hanging there rather than looking at your choice.

My initial thought was to leave the wall hanging. It was attractive. However, it may not have been attractive to others. If the house contains unappealing fittings, ornaments, wall hangings then the house may be interpreted as unappealing. Removing the wall hanging removed our personal stamp or brand, and allowed others to look at the space on the wall, encouraging them to think of it as a place to hang their own decorations, paintings and the like. Its absence also demonstrated there to be no nasty cracks in the wall.

It’s so common to go to open inspections and see mounted photographs on dressing tables, desks, and on the walls. Children’s photographs of all kinds, the uncles and aunts, and all the relations and friends in either formal poses or the result of a happy snap from a party. The problem is that these personal photographs reflect your life and your family. These things are of your life, not for anyone else. Removing all aspects of your personal life from the house more easily allows the potential buyer to see themselves in the house. People can inspect a property without paying too much attention to them. But the trouble is that we do look at them when passing through the rooms. It may be for only a second, but there is a curiosity about who lives there. If you remove the personal items the punters will spend more time looking at the property and more time considering who will get which room, should they consider buying it. That should be your aim in preparing a house.

Do you have a large house for sale? Are all the rooms large? You can make a room appear larger by removing the clutter. Things can also be helped by swapping furniture around. Though, if you cheat too much this trick will be seen as a con job. Does your King size bed fill the main bedroom? Take it out and put up with a double bed. The room will look a lot better for it. The smallest bedroom should have the smallest bed. Remove any unnecessary furniture. Get rid of the bean bags, extra chairs, boxes. Aim for neat simplicity. Go for small rather than large.

No one wants to see any creams or lotions in the bathroom that may have been prescribed for you. The bathroom bench tops should be clear or with very minimal items that are tastefully arranged. We swapped all our mixed coloured towels with white towels, and neatly hanging, with spares neatly rolled on a towel rack, and matching hand towels on the bench the effect was very nice if not a touch clinical. The place looked clean and welcoming. Leave nothing hanging on the shower screen. The bathroom should look like the bathroom you’d expect to see when you walk into a quality hotel.

The laundry should be neat and smell free. Leave the exterior door open if you need to. Put everything away, and don’t leave washing on the line. And while on the subject of smell. A few hours before the inspection is scheduled bake a cake, time things so that it’s cooling in the oven before the inspection time. The wonderful aroma that emanates from the kitchen and pervades the house will make the punters drool. We didn’t need the stylist to tell us this. It just works. If the punters leave the place thinking they’d like to stay longer you already have them in the right frame of mind.

Our stylist suggested a lot of things, many of which seemed weird, but we didn’t know what she was on about at first. And then her ideas hit home. It was well worth the effort.

The last tidy up

It was an intensive few days in Melbourne. S had been advised by our stylist to make some changes to our house, the general theme of which was to reduce the clutter. So, we rented some space from the Fort Knox storage facility in Eltham and went to Rent-a-Bomb for a van to cart the stuff. It was a bomb to be sure, making my EXA seem like a luxury vehicle. Driving the thing was an interesting experience. It was difficult to tell the difference between 2nd and 4th gear, and at the first set of traffic lights in this thing I pulled the hand brake on and had difficulty releasing it. So, without really panicking, but feeling a sense of tension I worked at it. It doesn’t take long before the people behind you start honking their horns.

Anyway, the van rattled along and it did the job. We ended up putting the good desk in storage (we had two of these monsters), along with the chairs we’d been asked to get rid of, the box seats, filing cabinet, table and a few boxes packed with stuff. If you pack these storage facilities carefully, with stuff stacked well, it’s amazing just how much you can fit inside. After about two van loads the storage room still looked mostly empty.

The stylist said she had an arrangement with Fort Knox to give us a discount, but when we mentioned this they claimed ignorance, saying they didn’t know our stylist. Now that’s interesting. Someone was lying. Anyway, they gave us the first month free. Perhaps we just looked honest. It all helps.

S had done a surprisingly reasonable job of the painting, considering some of the work was very awkward, and she doesn’t like painting. I just couldn’t keep on going when I was at it a few weeks earlier. Anyway, I touched up some gaps on the ceiling that seemed to be missed, and fixed up the gaps in the cornices, which all turned out okay. I find it amazing how interior paint (flat or semi-gloss) can blend into the existing paint without showing any tell tale marks. Doing this might be a quick way of freshening up the place, with the minimum of effort. If you don’t have time to paint the whole place, and you can’t wash off any scuff marks that have developed over the years, just paint over the marks. It does a great job, and you’d never know there was a touch up, unless of course the paint is very old and faded.

We removed the lounge room curtains as we had been advised by the stylist, as well as removing the fly screen doors, and they went to Fort Knox. This seemed like a very strange thing to do, I thought. But it worked. This house was a bit unusual in that the front entrance had two standard sized glass doors that swung open, kind of like French doors, only larger. So with both doors open wide and no curtains hanging it left the lounge with a wonderful open feeling. The vista from the floor to ceiling windows, which occupied the entire length of one side of the lounge, was spectacular, and with the doors open it had a pleasantly inviting feeling. It brought a surprisingly pleasant atmosphere to the room, and made it very light inside as you’d imagine. Though, the effect was kind of cold and exposed at night, but was fabulous in the day. Anyway, the punters only come during the day, and it was done for their benefit.

Lots of little things were done. We dusted the lounge ceiling to get rid of the cobwebs (cathedral ceiling), got the whipper snippering finished, repaired the nest of tables, a bit roughly I must say. We removed the various boxes that were cluttering the place, and removed the wall hanging, which all went into storage. The amount of dirt that was impregnated in the wall hanging over the years was amazing. Tiny pieces of brick and cement must have been falling from the ceiling. You wonder how it happens. I got some boxes packed and into the EXA for the trip back. I also took the small filing cabinet with me, so the car was well loaded.

We got rid of a spare mattress from under the bed. Perhaps it should have chucked out, but why do that with stuff when it’s still good. People throw too much away. It went into the caravan for storage. It was a very neat fit in the caravan, standing on its edge in the walkway of the caravan.

I was disappointed I couldn’t clear an outside drain that was at the side of the house, and there was the smell of something dead somewhere out there too. Bugger. I hope the blockage had nothing to do with the smell; thinking something might have crawled down the drain and died. The smell of something dead is the last thing we needed when the punters come round.

I got most of the garage sorted. It’s funny how the stuff builds up in sheds. I was surprised by the amount of rat and possum crap all over the place, the smell of which was almost overpowering. Which was all very disappointing because I had some good things stored in there. I had a stereo amp, turntable, notebooks and textbooks carefully wrapped in old sheets, plastic wrapping and in cardboard boxes and the little blighters had used as building materials to build their nests. Their little teeth marks were everywhere, as well as the holes they had made in the timber sideboard to get to where the stuff was kept, there were nibble marks everywhere. Of course the cardboard boxes were no trouble for them. This material and the pages from my textbooks must have made lovely nesting material for them.

We were beginning to get ruthless in sorting through what could be kept and what gets dumped. That’s a lesson on starting the job in plenty of time. It takes a lot of time to go through your old stuff, and you do become distracted in looking through things you haven’t seen in years, reminiscing in old notebooks that you had at school or wherever. It can be difficult to decide whether to keep or discard them.

So, in the end a lot of work had been done, and although the place was cleaner, a whole heap of a mess was left for S to put out in the rubbish. A lot of work was left to do before the photographer came. Still feeling unhappy with the selling price. Considering talking to the agent with a view to increasing it.

Making smoke

I had a great drive to Melbourne. It would definitely seem to be an eight hour drive with Albury as the half way point. It wasn’t such a great trip back. The smoke coming from my EXA had increased, and on the way back to Canberra the situation became much worse. Well, what do you do? Stop in the middle of nowhere or keep going. Well, keep going of course. Thankfully, it was in the late evening when I noticed the smoke. The headlights of vehicles approaching from behind lit up the pall I was making as though driving through a dirty fog. It was embarrassing.

I knew exactly what was happening. The turbo was worn out, and the oil from the engine that’s used to lubricate the turbine was leaking into the exhaust gasses, which as you might imagine are very hot. Hence the smoke. I had been trying to pick up a second hand turbo from the wreckers, but without success. Up until this point I would drive the car gingerly, feathering the throttle which prevented any smoke from being issued. Anyway, most of the smoke would occur when decelerating, with steady throttle openings there was little if any smoke, and acceleration producing only a little smoke. I would drive steadily, accelerate gradually, and put the car into neutral when coming to a stop. It was manageable.

On the trip back there something must have gone wrong, and a steady stream of fumes began pouring from the back of the car in volumes akin to that of a steam locomotive. It looked as though the engine had ‘blown’ in some really bad way. Ironically, the engine performance was as good as ever, and if I could get my eyes away from the rear view mirror I would have had no idea this was occurring. The occasional motorist that would catch up to me might flash their headlights or wave madly at me on their way past. I wasn’t sure whether this was to indicate something of the notion, “excuse me sir, I think your engine may have a problem.” As if I didn’t know, but more likely, “Pull over you stupid bastard. Stop polluting the environment.” Well, sorry but I need to get to where I’m going.

I was about half way home when I spotted the problem, which meant I had another four hours drive to go. Was I going to pass a police petrol car along the way? Well, I didn’t as it happened and I promised myself to get the car to a repairer with a priority.

Driving through country towns became precarious. Reducing speed from 100k/hr to 60 meant decelerating. And when did this little car put out most of its smoke: when I decelerated, of course. I tried various strategies for driving through country towns. Braking hard a long way from town and powering through helped somewhat. Freewheeling only got me so far and was a plan doomed to failure. When I dropped it back into gear an even greater cloud of smoke issued. I think the oil may have been dribbling, building up in the turbo, and when I put my foot back on the pedal there was even more oil to burn. Under the city street lights, and bright lights from shops and service stations of the towns I drove through I could see the smog trail. I would have likely left the streets in a cloud of pollution and stink that would have caused a few people to look up and wonder what was going on. Thankfully, there were hardly any people around and little traffic.

I took the car to a repairer the next day, but driving in bright light of day was a sight to behold. I could have cringed, and I apologise to the unknown motorcyclist who had little option but to ride behind for part of the way and breathe my smoke. I had previously been getting quotes from companies that could repair the turbo, none of which were cheap, but there is no choice now. At least I know where to take the thing. I wonder how I’ll be paying for it. Most of my money is going back to Melbourne to fund the renovations.

The stylist

S has been continuing with the house painting, including the cornices but isn’t happy with them. Cornices are difficult and you need a steady hand. I’m going back to finish off. Driving back this time. I checked the various web sites for air fare prices, but prices seem to change like a roller coaster and higher than I’d like. S said she was feeling rather sad about selling. There are so many memories in this house. So much work has been put into the place, for someone else. And the work doesn’t stop.

The real estate agent had recommended a stylist. Was this a hair stylist calling by to do an in house haircut? No. The stylist offers her opinion as to what to do to improve the presentation of the property. I’d never heard of anything like this before. The agent said some people find her confronting, but it turned out that S didn’t mind her. Possibly people can be offended by her manner. Though, it’s probably the suggested improvements that offend people.

Her recommendations included

• getting rid of any personal items (photographs etc)
• we have a handmade wall hanging that has to go
• two chairs in the dining room have to be moved into the lounge by the table, and
• the four chairs from the table have to go
• the fly screen doors have to be removed and stored
• the curtains in the lounge have to come down
• she liked the brush wood cabinet, but not the antique oil lamps that were on top
• the CDs have to go from the bookshelves
• the bedspread had to be replaced with a yellow one, no doubt to match the walls
• she offered the loan of another bedspread for the end bedroom, which was generous
• the nest-of-boxes in the end bed room that had been purchased recently had to go
• but she did like the wardrobe that was in that room, but wanted it moved
• we had to put white towels in every bathroom
• she was not impressed by the garage, at all

Actually, I was never impressed by the garage either. It was just a place to dump stuff, but in our case you must walk through it to get to the house. That’s unusual, I know.

The dates for the photographer have been moved. So, with that extra week and me being able to take a couple of rec days off work to give me a decent weekend just prior to the photo session should give the place a boost. Well, at least relieve the load on S a bit.

How do you tell if you have asbestos?

The simple answer to that is that you can’t tell. Well, not easily. You could take a sample of the suspect material and have it analysed. You could try to find the original plans and specifications for the building. There may be notes that indicate what materials were used. This is of course almost wishful thinking.

I gather calculating the material’s density can determine what substance is used in the building. There are probably other tests. However, no house owner is going to let you take samples, and would you want to do this anyway? Drilling or cutting asbestos is the last thing you should do. Have a look at this guy in the picture taking a sample. I’m not prepared to do this, are you? And this guy in the photo is protecting himself. There is no accounting for the dust that goes floating around the room for other people to breathe.

Asbestos sheets, as well as any other structural sheets, will have identification of some kind stamped on the sides. If you can read the label you should be able to determine what you’ve got. Though, the term Villaboard doesn’t really scream danger to anyone. The trouble is that the eaves will probably be painted, obscuring any labelling. You could climb onto the roof, remove a few tiles and look for the label on the unpainted in-roof side of the eaves. Once again, the owner is unlikely to allow this. And if the roof has been constructed from sheet metal your only option might be an in roof inspection, but if you climb into the attic you will find that the roof line intersects with the external walls, allowing only a gap of a few inches clearance. The clearance is essentially the dimensions of the roof trusses; a gap not nearly wide enough to squeeze your head and shoulders through to have a look. The only way of inspecting the eaves would be with some sort of remote video camera, possibly along the lines of what surgeons use in key-hole surgery. The chances of being able to read any labelling would be made difficult due to the build up of dirt and dust that’s in the roof space.

It’s all very depressing.

Asbestos

I had an interesting dialogue going on by email with the agent over the house I’d spotted in Bonython, when I was in Melbourne. There is asbestos in the house, which ruled it out for us. I’d prefer not to have a house built using asbestos if it can be avoided.

Interestingly, whilst its use in the building industry has been discouraged for about the last 15 years, and even though the house was built in 1992, it has asbestos in it. I was surprised to learn that in Australia, asbestos has only been banned for the last few years. A new (or newer) house is to be considered.

Is there asbestos in your house? Yes? No? Are you sure? Have a look at this web site.

This Bonython exercise has been quite an eye opener. In Canberra, building reports are mandatory. A very comprehensive report has to be made available to prospective buyers. This is an excellent service. The report for the Bonython property included a statement from the owner saying with words to the effect that there was no asbestos in the building as far as they were aware. Well, that qualifier leaves the issue wide open. It’s a pointless statement. A waste of paper. If the content of these reports provides limited information the value of the report is diminished. Similar statements regarding asbestos came up in the report at various places, all of which generally noted a supposed absence of asbestos. Then I made an interesting observation in the report.

There were some building plans included in the report. Building plans are generally large sheets of paper. Well, the ones I’ve seen are. Think: architect’s easel. But the copy in the report had been photo reduced to the standard A4 paper size. Consequently, the hand written text was faint and difficult to read. But with a magnifying glass, and a sense of Sherlock Holmes about me, I managed to make out the word: Villaboard.

The eaves were labelled in the plan to have been constructed of Villaboard. Some sort of sheeting used to build villas? I don’t think so. A trade name obviously, but what is it? The web comes into its own, at times. Villaboard is an asbestos product manufactured by James Hardy.

It’s easy to imagine builders having large stocks of asbestos sheeting back in the mid-1980s being hesitant to dump their stocks simply because its use was being discouraged. No one willingly throws away money. And if you can afford to buy bulk to save costs, why wouldn’t you? Builders would be using up their old stock. So, with a ban only taking effect from 2004 onwards there is a chance that any house built earlier than 2004 will contain asbestos. An unpleasant thought. No doubt the closer to 2004 the construction date of your house was, the less likely you are of having asbestos in the house, but it is possible.

And have you been thinking about newer properties; perhaps an apartment? Think again. I was surprised to see a note on the ACT govt web site that “the first compliance date is on 1 September 2008 for multi-storey buildings.” So much for anyone considering moving into a high rise apartment building as a way of escaping asbestos. There is a good chance you’ll still be living with asbestos for years to come. The legislation will affect different types of structures in stages. The legislation will come into effect progressively in the coming years, with community or recreational premises not being obliged to be constructed without asbestos until late in 2010.

I feel quite depressed, now. There's plenty on the web on asbestos. Try this.

Committing to a real estate agent

We signed up with Vicki Gardner (real estate) to sell the house by tender. We were talked down from our preferred selling price, but won slightly by reducing the agent’s commission from 3% to 2.6%. But then there is GST on that. And of course, we pay for our own advertising. It’s not going to be cheap despite the slight discount.

Negotiating rates is something you should all consider. Of course, you should also consider the lack of attention the agent will give your property when selling it for you if you cut their profit margin too much. It’s a balancing act.

Watching the sun rise

So many things took longer than expected. We’d bought a flat pack desk to replace the old desk we’d removed. We wanted something special in that spot to spruce up the room. I decided to assemble the new desk in the evening, while watching telly. There were so many pieces to this thing that were almost identical which was confusing. And the instructions could have been written better, but I expect we’ve all been there at some time.

I used to fit accessories to new vehicles. This included anything from installing radios (when they were not a standard car accessory), to fitting towbars, mudflaps and the like. One of the things I quickly learnt was that the manufacturer’s fitting instructions often left a lot to be desired. We would often joke that one of the first things to do when fitting a car accessory is to throw away the instructions. They were often badly written, written in AsianSpeak with incorrect spellings, poor grammar, or sometimes the instructions were plainly incorrect. Thankfully, things are getting better in terms of AsianSpeak, and it's probably due to the number of overseas students who study in English speaking counties who go home with a better command of English than their peers.

I felt capable of assembling the desk, but my intention of completing the job during the evening was a plan that went astray. I pushed the desk into position just as the sun was rising in the morning. Feeling pleased that I'd finbished, but dissappointed in how long I took, I flopped into bed to hear a sleepy voice, “Is it time to get up?” Yeah, right.

Feeling like the Mad Hatter

It was a very busy time and throughout my stay in Melbourne I could see that time was running out. Time just seemed to evaporate. So much to do, so little time.

We bought some ferns to cover a hole in the driveway. There is a wood burning stove in the house. These things can set a nice mood on a cold evening, but wood fires are messy, and the firewood needs to be carried by hand. Woodstoves are hard work, and I won’t miss it. Anyway, the driveway is bitumen, and a firewood delivery truck had one of its wheels put a depression in a corner of the drive that gradually turned into a pothole. Filling it with concrete would have been a solution, or calling in some bitumen repair company would be another solution. An easy alternative solution, since this was in a corner of the driveway that doesn’t get driven over, was to fill the hole with soil and a few plants. Half a dozen ferns of different sizes and shapes from the local nursery transformed an eyesore into a pretty highlight of the garden. Another way of considering what we did was that we didn’t repair the drive, but we did a cover up job, which irks me. But it did look good. So, I’m not feeling so bad.

I must reinforce some advice I’ve mentioned earlier: before moving house, get yourself fit. Make yourself nice and strong. You are going to need those muscles. Spend some time in the gym or do some home exercises to build up your strength in the months beforehand. The following exemplifies how unfit we were.

We shifted a desk from the house into the garage. This was a large desk that I grabbed when one of the places I worked about eight years earlier was doing a clean out. It was going to be dumped. It wasn’t a brilliant looking desk but was very large and functional. It dominated the room and made it look small, but it was a great surface to work. Getting rid of it and putting a smaller desk in its place helped make the room look spacious. Spaciousness is good for the punters.

Anyway, I can remember carrying this desk into the house. It was heavy, but we did it. The two of us, one on each end carried it through the garage, popped it on its side, and up the narrow garage stairs and into the house. The desk was so big it wouldn’t fit through the hallway and into the study. We had to remove the study window glass and lift it through the window.

So, here we are, eight years later, wanting to take this desk out the window and down the stairs and into the garage. That was the plan. You’d think it would be easy, and it might have been for other people; we were going down hill, after all. But we could barley lift it over the window sill. Getting it out the window seemed positively dangerous with it threatening to crush us.

It would have been best to lift it clear of the ground and carry it down the garage steps to prevent it from becoming damaged (just like we did in bringing it up the stairs all those years ago). Concrete steps can be very rough on polished wood. We had no energy, and it got dragged and bumped down those concrete steps. Why was it so heavy, this time? Where had all our muscles gone? It was a surprisingly shocking experience.

We cleaned and painted the decking out the front of the house. The job took a whole day from start to finish, but it looked so good in the end that we didn’t re-clutter it by putting our pot plants back. It was a huge area, all under a covered veranda. With the decking left clear like this, it seemed such a huge expanse. Doing jobs like this and seeing the end result so quickly made me feel like reconsidering selling. The interesting thing here is that I thought the task would have taken a few hours, but no, the whole day was gone.

The bedroom and ensuite and toilet got painted. I was standing on the bed painting the bedroom ceiling. S got tipsy that day, and I became distracted with her lying on the bed and tickling me. So many distractions.

If you are planning to do some work prior to selling, make a reasonable estimate of the time things might take, then double it. You need to rest at times, problems occur, and you get side tracked. No, quadruple the time estimate.