We had an early morning considering our fairly late night, but quickly gathered a pile of cleaning supplies, painting bits and pieces and a bag of linen and clothes and jumped on the train. When we got to the new place, we had a quick chat to Tim (the old owner) and he gave us a bit of a walk through, but he was still cleaning so we headed around to the corner to grab a coffee and pick up the spare keys from the real estate agent. The coffee shop was really cute, and it was nice to see the owners greeting most of the customers by name – very different to anywhere in our current part of London! After we’d had an interesting chat to the real estate agent and he’d given us some tips on which paint to get, we dropped past Homebase and had a look at all the paint colours and chose one which we thought would be good – and picked up a little plant friend at the same time.

At about this time, Tim messaged to say he’d be back at about 11 so we headed back to the house and he gave us the rest of the walk through, telling us the tips on funny door handles and showing us which keys belonged to what. He then packed up the last bits and pieces in his car and left, leaving us in the new home! After taking a few obligatory photos, we sat and sorted out all the keys and then walked up the road to get some lunch, as I was absolutely starving. One of the places they’d recommended was a sushi place down the road so we ordered a couple of bento boxes and walked back up to Homebase while we waited for them to be cooked. We picked up a few tins of paint and other painting supplies before picking up lunch and coming back to the house.

We ate a delicious meal – very authentic Japanese – on the floor of the living room while Peter sorted out the wifi and we made a plan for painting. Then it was upstairs to the bedrooms and laying out the sheets and taping the edges, ready to start whenever Lee arrived. After giving him the grand tour, we got straight into the painting, starting with the main bedroom and then doing the spare room (which is actually bigger as it doesn’t have built in storage) and the office. Our other friend Justin arrived at about 5 and that was really helpful to have another pair of hands. Lee was indispensable because he’s so tall – he removed the curtain rods and while we rolled up to where we could reach, he finished all the top bits up to the roof and around the window sills. Great team work! At about 7 we all needed to start getting moving, as Lee was going to a gallery show and we needed to get some dinner before Peter started work at 9. Justin, Peter and I ended up stopping at the pub by the station and having a fantastic dinner of burgers before we all went our separate ways to head home.