Kevin the Canadian wonder plummber stopped by. Some people have implied that my unreserved praise of Kevin may not be motivated by plumming necessities. Heres a summary of our November rendezvous at The Wendy House:
1) 2 weeks ago to fix the hot water hose on my washing machine.
2) 1 week ago to fix the leaking bathroom sink plughole pipe.
3) this week to unblock the bathroom drain.
After unblocking the drain Kevin gave me, for free, his spare set of rods and tuition on how to unblock the drain myself. Awesome, with Kevins thoughtful tution I am gradually learning the basics of how to look after my home. Kevins outstanding full service cost less than the basic call-out charge of any of the online drainage services.
Can you see them? 
Scary!
I’m now officially registered as a resident of the Wendy House in Reading Borough and entitled to vote. Hoorah!
Next year I can re-register by text, free-phone or internet. Very helpful.
The Wendy House kitchen is currently camping under canvas in the September rain, ruthless.
Much to my surprise the self-mutilating builders turned-up. I wasn’t expecting them because there have been more false starts than a particularly rusty old Fiat Panda on a frosty morning.
When spottydog visited the Wendy House I gave her a full 1 minute tour. The full 1 mintue tour is the executive version of the 30 second tour. It is akin to the 15 minute Hamlet only quicker and with less literary credibility. As audience, spottydog’s role was to provide her unique insight into potential lifestyle developments. Half way through the tour, near the end:
Wendy: this is my wardrobe (US = closet. A closet is a place where you keep skeletons, hence the title of this post)
Spottydog: that’s orderly
Wendy: its half empty
Spottydog: its organised by colour and size, even the shoes
Wendy: Errrrrmmmmmmm……. …is that bad?
Spottydog: its not scatty
Lifestyle development suggestions involved, ‘open the beers’ and ‘you need more plants’. Spottydog, spot-on again.
Garden designer guest: it’s not many people that can look straight into their garden when sitting on their toilet
I will have to put something in the line of view to make it a tad more pleasurable than just patio and fence. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been contemplating the garden rather a lot recently…
According to the principles of Feng Shui, I should change the layout of the bathroom, keep this door closed, change the colour scheme from blue and white to red and red then add a few candles or my career will flow into the sewers. Alas, I’m way too busy building my career and going on holiday to bother with arranging and paying for builders to rebuild my bathroom in a Feng Shui approvable layout and colour scheme. Pleasing plants in line of view will have to suffice.
Removing the darkness and the dampness
The helpful builders
when they turn-up*
will replace the original, rotting, leaky, kitchen roof
The roof does provide a home for many forms of damp-loving wildlife, most notably moss, but I’ll be sacrificing thier habitat for a dry kitchen with sky-light.
Luxury!
* an English colleague has informed me that ‘not turning up on schedule’ is the sign of a highly professional English builder.
A castle isn’t complete without a moat.
In April I booked builders to install a moat in June. In mid july I haven’t yet seen them.
Without a moat how can the Wendy House remain defended from being undermined?
Since leaving my parents’ home in the early 1980’s I’ve hankered after a classic wool dressing gown bordered with coloured-chord. Over the years I’ve compromised with fluffy-cotton dressing gowns, Kimonos and stylish smoking jackets. Finally, the exceptional Jackson’s summer sale delivered the real thing. Extra-large mens’ was the smallest size available. The shop assistant said that they had ordered the ‘Lloyd Attree and Smith’ (Gentlemans outfitters since 1857) dressing gowns based on regular requests from customers. Unfortunately, when the dressing gowns arrived the customers were not prepared to pay the full retail price.
Jacksons will not be restocking these Lloyd Attree and Smith 100% wool dressing gowns.
Much to the mature, mens department, shop assistant’s amusement I tried-on the XL dressing gown. It did not trail on the floor though I will have to roll the sleeves up by about 6 inches to keep them out of my breakfast.
I treated myself to the warm stylish, oversized, high quality gown and a couple of white hankerchiefs in readiness for the impending onset of winter… …it really is a wonderful experience in the early dawn, wrapped in wool beneath the dew-covered conservatory with a hot mug of tea.
“how are the cats settling in?”
Thankyou to everyone who inquired after the wellbeing of my darling fluffballs. I am happy to confirm that they have quickly adapted to this Wendy House and are exhibiting a full range of healthy fluff-ball-ee activities, most notable of which is the Monaco-ish, formula-1-ish speed and agility, dangerous-staircase dash.
Dangerous-staircase dash
Starts in the garden where Sampo cues-up Matrix by strutting backward and forward in front of her just out of paws reach. Next, Sampo runs for the front-door gathering sufficient speed to arrive before Matrix, maintaining sufficient control to take the entrance-hall-front-room 90 degrees doorway-bend. Occassionally Sampo misses the bend and ends up in the bathroom where she is cornered by Matrix and has clearly lost the chase. After several months of practice she has the hall-front-room doorway-bend almost fully mastered.
The subtle curve on the approach to the foot of the stairs occassionally causes loss of footing on the bare floorboards and is invariably accompanied by liberal doses of meowing from both teams. The main course-obstacle is the dangerous-staircase u-turn. The dangerous-staircase u-turn either involves a headlong crash into the front-room wall for those missjudging their momentum, or falling down the first couple of steps for those misjudging their paw-friction. Sampo tends to crash into the wall due to belly-induced-momentum, Matrix tends to slip on the steps. Once past the first few steps, if Sampo is still ahead of Matirx she’s pounces safely to the finish line on the first-floor landing and is ready to start the next round. Fresh water, views of local trees and birds are provided on the landing at the end of the course for the competing kitties.
The cats are regularly able and willing to practice this tricky F1 course on a daily basis often changing chaser-chasee roles and investigating route variations including the dinning room table top, sofa-bends and comfy chair corner.
Ringside tickets are available.
Corporate bookings and sponsorship considered.
One recent Sunday afternoon the neighbours, local Reading celebrities, and a gal from West Sussex dropped by to warm the wendy house over lashings of tea and cake. A jolly civilised affiar with a little bit of dribbling. During the goings-on I discovered many useful facts including:
- a local granny can climb the walls to escape from a locked cemetry after dusk.
- the Wendy House was converted from a garage in 1968 partly explaining the dangerous staircase.
- my nieghbours have lived all over the world - Kenya, Italy, India, Edinburgh before settling in Reading. Excellent company.
- the Readibus preferred gift to welcome a newcomer is a bottle of wine.
- the bath works best for a person under 5ft 2 (as do the stairs).
- house numbers evolve. One person’s home had evolved from without number to number 4 then number 2…
I suspect I missed some real news treats while in the Kitchen warming the pots, I wonder what other goodies these people are going to share with us in the upcoming years….
This weekend I’m moving into the new Wendy House. A stable. This may lead to blogging service interruption as it takes a while to get the Wendyhome up and running with unpacked furniture, services connected and hay out of the corners etc
Hopefully my passport will not get mislaid in the move, there will be no explosions, falls, and the neighbours will not die suddenly and suspiciously. It’s happened before…
New Zealander: are you homesick?
Wendy: Homesick?
New Zealander: 8 years is a long time to live in the US, do you miss it?
Initial repair and maintenance costs will be based on a full structural survey, local and environmental searches, drainage and sewerage reports and finally builders work estimates. Builder estimates will include:
- Replace Kitchen roof: new slate, new pitch, increased overhang.
- Damp-proof-course protection: add the standard building regulation gulley around the conservatory and front of the house, add vertical damp-proof course at the each of the 3 junctions where a garden wall meets the House walls, and internal injection damp-proofing the wall between the kitchen and the hall cupboard.
- Insulation improvements: Increase insulation quilt thickness to 250mm over horizontal ceilings & use high performance insulation slabs or the loft access hatch and over sloping ceilings.
- Replace missing slates on main roof.
- Install humidity sensitive extractor fans in kitchen and bathroom.
A new Wendy House on the horizon, with a new Kitchen roof, it’s all very exciting… …I’ll have a cup of tea while I re-read the survey bacause that’s my idea of fun….
Halifax House names survey 2003 doesn’t include The Wendy House.
Kent Junior School claim that the tradition of naming houses was introduced by Landed gentry and subsequently copied by peasants.
Here are the top 5 names for UK houses according to the Halifax in 2003:
1. The Cottage
2. Rose Cottage
3. The Bungalow
4. The Coach House
5. Orchard House
In the quest for a new Wendy House of my own I have been visiting a variety of Estate agents, one at a time. They all ask:
What’s your current address?
The Wendy Pent-House
Can you see the theme in the replies?
#1 Romans Estate Agent: the big white house?
#2 Carsons Estate Agent: the big white house? I just sold a flat there for 240,000, very nice.
#3: Prospect Estate Agent: the big white house? We have a flat for sale there by Mr. [name], would you like to view it?
Wendy to prospect agent: [family name]?
Agent: Yes, he’s…
Wendy: …a professional football player, the other people living in the building told me about him* he’s currently on loan to [football team, not based in Reading].
Agent: You’ve just missed him by minutes. He came in here, just now, that’s quite a coincidence…
Wendy (oozing insincerity out of every orifice and some pores too): Oh dear, what a shame.
*an unpublishable variety of unflattering names were used by to describe the fellow and descriptions of how he engaged with them.
After one week in Abadair house The Wendy House is temporarily relocating to one of the 4 top floor flats (US = apartment) in this classy Reading townhouse. It’s an extremely cute minature penthouse that has furniture to match. The landlady reliably informs me that all walls and floors are decidedly uneven so I have to take precautions against sea-sickness. Not to worry about the pigeons living in the wall cavity, their coo-ing can be quite cute in the morning. The chap who lives below is called ‘cannabis man’ so I don’t have to worry about disturbing him because he is extremely well chilled. The people in the flat next door are called the little people, and indeed they are, but not pre-adolescent little. Evidently I can see directly into the flats opposite and below, more of that fun nightime activity in a later post…
When I arrive I will be staying in temporary accomodation, in Reading.
Staying in this quaint bed and breakfast until the home I’ll be renting is available, after 7 days. The rented home is also temporary, until I find a mortgage and a property to hang that mortgage on. Temporary for months.
Given past trends in my life the mortgaged property will also be temporary. Between 3 and 7 years temporary.
Everything is temporary. Permanent is probably a statement of the difficulty of predicting an end-date.
Luckily the stager didn’t use the infamous circles. I hardly recognize the place, I’m way too scruffy to live here, see!
Maureen Rammell, my realtor, arranged the staging and has been extremely reliable, focussed, and personable in all her dealings with me. Outstanding. Maureen really works for her percentage.
the stager wandered through the Wendy house asking questions like “can we move that into a cupboard where it can’t be seen” and “do you have any throws“, “pack all the books except those about movie stars, the dictionary, and books with classic or high quality covers, pack anything that might provoke speculation about who you are taking their focus off the house“.
I asked her “should I get rid of the plants” and “I expect the religious paintings and angels have to go” to which she replied “I’m glad YOU said that, you’re right”. ”Well religion leads to wars so its probably not good for selling homes“.
In the Wendy House boudoir he Stager chirped enthusiastically about my Kieth Bowen print. This print is in the boudoir because it made house guests squirm. Which apparantly is not a good thing. I love the charcole portrayal of a Swaledale ewe, wool ruffled in the harsh snowdonia winds, suckling her lamb. It’s all mumzie! But this mother-daughter sucky-moment in unpleasant weather isn’t a hit with the masses. We agreed that it should probably be covered-up.
In the garage the Stager encountered my infamous circles and whooped with joy… …they must have some hidden mistical powers… …cetainly they have not been known to offend…. …maybe if you watch them and relax they hypnotize you into wanting to buy the Wendy haose hease house.
<totally serious post warning. High risk of sleep induction>
Realtors are the people that find you a house or sell your house for you. In the UK the nearest equivalent is an Estate agent. In Washington state Realtors are generally self-employed and affiliated to a large agency that provides them with training and infrastructure resources.
How do I find the right Realtor for the Wendy House?
I contacted 3, one recommeded, one showed-up top in a google search for a description of the Wendy house, and one has been putting flyers in my mailbox regularly for years. Each Realtor was affiliated with a different high profile agency, John L. Scott, Coldwell Banker and Windermere. All the Realtors had websites, of varying quality, that I reviewed before interviewing them. I interviewed each Realtor asking them to:
- outline the general home selling process.
- identify what they considered to be their competitive edge over other Realtors.
Their answers to the above 2 questions serve well to illustrate why I picked the Realtor I did without interviewing any more:
Found by his Mailbox-flyer
- home selling process: He produced a seemingly unstructured monolog without using any props. When I tried to ask him specific questions he demonstrated poor conversational management skills. He was difficult to interrupt and he didn’t appear to understand my questions. He made several assumptions about me and my situation. For example, he assumed that I had never owned or sold a home before.
- self-stated competitive edge: He makes very good looking fliers and takes all the photographs himself.
Are glossy goodlooking paper flyers a strong influencing factor in my house-purchasing decision? Um, no.
Found by a Google-search
- home selling process: The discussion was structured around some statistics and graphs (not Excel produced) and clearly conveyed her knowledge of the moving market, tracking mechanisms and social skills. She had visited my home the day before, photographed the outside and made a draft sale-booklet including examples of comparative properties on the market.
- self-stated competitive edge: Trustworthy
Is percieved trustworthiness of the sellers Realtor a significant factor in my home purchasing decision? Um, no.
Found by a Recommendation
- home selling process: talked without prompts in a clear chronological way making it very clear what she did to make my life easy, for example she would hire a company to clean all my carpets, would hire an interior designer to ’stage’ my home etc. She asked good questions about my time-scale and values and she adapted her conversation to suit my questions.
- self-stated competitive edge: She was on the orginal selling team of my Condominium when it was built. She lived in my condominium for 4 years and knows in detail the good quality of the condomium management company. She has sold homes in this conominium at record-breaking prices, specialised in Condominium sales for 10yrs, is married to a builder who can arrange quick fixes cheaply and easily for her without troubling me. Is one of 40 or so Realtors contracted by Microsoft to help find homes for Microsoft employees being relocated to the Redmond headquarters. She also added a long spiel about the training and quality of support provided by her affiliate agency.
Is detailed accurate information about the property and a well-staged layout on a viewing a significant factor in my home purchasing decision? Um, YES!
Can you guess which one I contracted? YES!
You are SO clever.
<serious part over you can WAKE UP now>
The sunrise thrust an orange glow through the undressed window onto the freshly painted brilliant white bedroom walls. A small, sparsely decorated, warm, dry first new home. The bedroom empty, save a matress upon which is scattered a duvet, pillows, sleepy him and I. After unpublishable morning exercise two large mugs of tea joined us in the bedroom.
wendy: this could be the most exquisite, happiest, moment of our whole lives. it’s all downhill from here
him: it’s not far down from a matress on the floor
wendy: lets remember this morning for the rest of our lives…
him: a little more exercise and another cuppa will help secure the memory
wendy: …mmmmmm….. (unpublishable)
