Leaving Leander Road?

We have decided, for a variety of reasons (I miss the countryside and being able to walk in fields/woods, and grow my own veggies, and high-density living is becoming less enjoyable as we spend more time in France and go out in London less), to put our flat on the market.

I did all the decorating APART from the dining room before Christmas, but since then have just got "stuck" about finishing the one remaining room...

Finally (with the massive help of a kick-up-the-butt letter & surveyor's appointment this Tuesday), I have overcome the hurdle that was preventing me completing the work...

[It's going to sound really weedy, but there was an odd (totally illogical?) train of thought: if I finish the decorating, we can put the flat on the market, then it might sell, and we would have to move, and I would lose my one remaining link to my sadly-missed father (who built the extension and fitted the kitchen, bathroom & heating). It was as though I was preventing myself from having to leave?]

So, after getting back from France at midnight on Monday, I started painting the (black ash) shelves.

Tuesday to Friday I managed to give both sides of all four shelves two coats of undercoat and three coats of eggshell.

And the brackets and metal rails, obviously!

The only way to do it was painting a second coat after dinner (and one day I managed a third coat starting at midnight!).

Finally got them done and then painted the bathroom door (a long saga of poor lighting/wrong paint choices causing runs & other horrors!) on both sides, and the inside of the flat door (a casualty of wrong paint choice [Dulux quick-drying gloss peels off like sunburnt skin when you try to flat it down for a second coat!] and a sink-dropping incident leaving a gouge!).

7 or 8 hours stripping off lacquer from door handles, polishing and re-lacquering, and then we were ready to Spring clean & reassemble the flat.

It took ages to get everywhere clean and tidy, but when (at 10.30 Monday evening) we had a flat that looked like a home, it all became worth it!

The surveyor said it was one of the cleanest and tidiest homes he had ever seen (and I still haven't Spring cleaned the kitchen!), and the best decorated place he had ever seen.

That really made my day!

I've had to lower my standards (a little) to be able to finish without driving myself potty, but it still looks lovely, and made the week-and-a-bit of 12+ hour days worthwhile!

I thought I'd lost the ability to start work before 5am and still be going after 10pm, but I managed it a couple of times, so that's also a bonus!

I just need to re-stain the outside of the common door (I do NOT want pictures of the house with a [very] slightly tatty door when everything else is neatly done), and put the remaining bark on the garden/scrub the patio & path...

And, reluctantly, I've decided I need to iron the duvet covers!!

I popped into an estate agents on the way back from the picture framers, and the very helpful lady was keen to book in their valuer, so I now have another [helpful] deadline to get everything finished to my satisfaction, then we shall see...

How much of the conversation was spin, I don't know, but Mitra said they had clients looking for two bed flats...

If you know anyone who would like to buy a 2-bed Victorian conversion garden flat in the nicest part of Brixton ("original features, secluded patio garden, gch, etc, etc"), please get in touch!