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.