Sitting at my office desk is about the only thing I am able to do, at the moment. And even typing this text is a bit painful. Why? Well, I pressure washed my entire property…! At the end of next week everything will look like new. Monday my house will get painted. Front and back of my house are wood, and yes, it is some time ago since it was painted. Why painting it now, you would ask. Well, I had my first appointment with a real estate agent. And basically the only comment he had was about the state of the paintwork. So I immediately phoned Piet, who painted it the last time. We first had a bit of misunderstanding. I thought he said it would cost me € 7500, which was a lot more than I was planning to spend. In that case I would do it myself. It’s a horrible job (I’ve done it before) but so be it. Luckily for me it it will cost a lot less, so I told him to do it as soon as possible. He will repair any rotten timber as well.
I also knew I had to do some pressure washing. Especially the balcony desperately needed it. But it would be silly to have the house painted and after two weeks I spoil everything by pressure washing house, balcony and the terraces. So it had to be done before next Monday. Tomorrow I have an appointment with another real estate agent, and in the weekend we’ll get rain. Not a lot of choices left…
I already had the brilliant idea to take my overalls (which usually are in the truck) home with me. With my safety boots on the job wasn’t too bad. Overalls and boots got dirty and wet, not me. The worst part of the job was rolling the hose back on it’s reel. That’s why my fingers are a bit aching. But that could have been caused by removing ivy from the balcony as well. I definitely lost some skin, doing that, since you can’t wear gloves because you need your nails. And the rest of my house is made of a very ‘unfriendly’ kind of stones…
But, as I said, at the end of next week everything will be in pristine state. The people from the second hand shop did take away the windsurfer and my winter tires (plus all the other stuff). And yesterday the council collected the old cabinet and the timber. What is left is some stuff made of iron, which is collected separately from the wood. That will go away next Wednesday. After that I can (kind of) clean the back part of the garage.
Waste wood
The real estate agent also would like to have plans of the three floors. I made them yesterday. The plans made me realize that getting a 58 ft narrowboat will definitely be a big step! My current living space (ground floor, first floor plus basement) in total is 216.5 m². On the boat I will have 32.78 m². That’s 15.14%. In fact, the complete boat will be smaller than my living room now (34.04 m²). And I have to share the 32.78 m² with Lawrance as well…
But cleaning it will definitely be a lot easier. Not to mention the maintaining of the 221 m2 around the house (garden, driveway, woods and terraces). We’ll have C&RT for that.