This has to be the most frustrating part of the whole project- this stage right here.
We have a house, with working things in it. The oven is marvellous! Apparently. Sputnik has the capacity to heat both the water and the radiators. We have the beginnings of solar tubes on the roof. Big Seymour has installed disco lights under the pelmets on the kitchen cupboards (priorities..?), and we are playing house with the furniture. What goes where? What hasn’t survived the building apocalypse? And what do I have to get rid of, on the basis that IT IS ACTUALLY HORRIBLE AND WHAT WAS I THINKING? I mean, a Marily Monroe canvas? Where did I ever intend to put that, in my new and improved, stylish dwelling?
Buffoon.
Yet, as close as we are, there are still many many niggles which are currently preventing us from daring to actually move in wholeheartedly. The Shed is clinging onto us, and we it, for as long as possible. But why?
Well, the worktops, for one. The blooming worktops have been nothing but hassle. They’re here – and they’re on – but the upstands are not. They’re cut and they are almost fitted, but they aren’t exactly secure as yet. If truth be told, the distributor of said worktop is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, and if Sharon at International Decorative Services thinks that it is acceptable for four weeks to elapse between worktop and rest of worktop arriving, she has another think coming! I am waiting with bated breath to see if the other bits do actually show up on Friday, as we have been promised, or if, in fact, they have disappeared into the ether altogether.
Once the worktop is in, then the tap can go in, and once the tap is in, you might say we will be cooking with gas!
For the one other thing that was tying us to The Shed is no longer an issue. The Wifi – that magical fairydust communications pathway that facilitates easy googling and movie watching is now… IN THE FUNNY LITTLE BUNGALOW! This is major. I wasn’t actually ready for it, but Big Seymour arranged for a nice chap from Sky to come round on Monday and fiddle with tellies, so that we can have proper programmes in there, too. And the recordable box, and the pause and rewind facility. By God, do you miss those when they are not there. (As I am now realising in The Shed.)
So, dear reader, we are on a countdown. The televison and the Wifi have decreed it. The Funny Little Bungalow beckons, and The Shed (worktop permitting) will be vacant soon enough. The last thing to come up from said Shed, on the big day, will be our bed. Bed, telly, Wifi. Sounds simple, really, doesn’t it.
But I am still daunted. What of carpet? Where will I put my 1933 Blitz-surviving sideboard? How will I keep the enormous floor clean? And will it just all feel too weird…? I haven’t lived in a house for such a long time, I may have forgotten how.
I guess only time will tell.
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