Beyond My Control: Absence Makes the Home Owner Work Harder

I haven't been around much recently.

Not just here, in blogland, but also here, in my house.

I've been busy. I've been interstate, I've been overseas, I've been - finally, this past weekend, for the first time in way too long, years too long - to the holiday house, I've been social, I've been working, I've been busy.

The benefits of this to my house have been manifest.

I moved in here six months ago, give or take. At the time I moved in I had painted most of the house. Most. I hadn't finished the back room, and a few other places that I don't remember any more.

The back room. Technically the Sun Room. Really the tacked on extra room that used to be the outdoor space next to the then outdoor, now indoor, toilet and laundry. It's quite substantial for a tacked on room and has the same great floorboards as the rest of the house. It is, until such time as I renovate or sell, my dining room/study.

Except that since I moved in it has in fact been the Paint Paraphenalia Repository.

Back before I moved in I'd painted out the greeny-yellow 'feature wall' and most of the rest of the room. But the back wall was losing it's paint because it had just been slapped straight on wood by the previous owners with no primer. So I'd bought primer and left the drop sheets down and used the back room to store all the paint stuff, including the ladder etc.

The dining table remained in the garage.

For months.

Part of this was because the ceiling and then the back wall of the room started to leak when it rained. This was not a surprise; I knew there was a leak when I bought the house. But it started to get worse and worse. Until, on that Friday night several few weeks back when it absolutely pelted down, the back wall became a waterfall while I was out eating 8 courses at Grossi Florentino.

So, back room, drop sheets, ladder, paint stuff, buckets and old towels sopping up rain.

Being away a bit, and knowing I was going away again made me (a) notice this in a bit more urgent manner; and (b) do something about it.

Step one, a few weekends back I climbed up and cleared out the back gutter. At first it seemed not so full and I worried that a blocked gutter was not the cause of the gushing water. Which would have been distressing.

Then I discovered the small tree growing out of the downpipe.

Yep, that baby was blocked, and is now unblocked, and no more leaks.

Also no more excuses for not finishing painting the back room and clearing out the paint crap.

Of course, then I was away for two weekends.

But last weekend when I was home I grabbed half an hour and washed down the walls and applied the primer to the small areas that needed it. I wasn't then sure when I'd have time to actually paint. I was away this weekend, and next weekend, and maybe the weekend after.

Then, today, we came back from the Coast a little early and instead of crashing on the couch, I took the opportunity to finish the painting, and clear out the room, and bring in the dining table.

Having only an expected hour here, or an unplanned hour there, has been so much better for getting things actually finished around here.

Of course, there are still those bits of the house I haven't painted, but as I don't remember specifically what those are, they don't count.

Between doing the back room, and getting the new couch delivered, and buying the barbeque, I can now finally start to have people over and do some of my socialising here instead of elsewhere.

When I'm next home.

In three or four weeks.

Maybe Easter?