We decided to drive there, so got to spend a (rather late and boozy) night in Wagga at my sister's new place. We then hit the ten hour drive across south western NSW, across Victoria and to the Barossa. A huge storm hit for the last few hours and it was some rather scary travelling. For cry babies like me, anyway.
We'd heard from the real estate agent who will be managing the property that a bit of work was needed. We weren't sure what this meant and didn't want to make any plans prior to seeing it, so the night of the arrival was also inspection night. In the middle of the night, with tired travel eyes, it was hard to know what to think. Lots of the rooms had bad walls (never actually finished, in one case) and due to the type of board they were made of, looked a lot like one would imagine scary asbestos to look like. As it happens, the internal walls weren't asbestos - that's just the entire outside.
So come daylight, we got working. Three rooms, three sandbacks, re-plaster and fill, paint and in one room, stain the floors.
It may look like Tim did all the work, but I would like to point out that the staining he appears to be doing is token only. I did that room. Stain is all over my iPhone as proof.
We worked super mega hard (not just physically - the trauma of my grandparents moving out for the first time ever is a whole other story). After the fifth day we looked around and were happy - the rooms looked fresh and not dicey and with a good clean we thought it'd be AOK. So much so we took ourselves out to a local winery for dinner and got liquored. Well and truly, soused, liqoured.
The next morning the real estate agent turned up and through the blaze of our hangovers inspected the house. She was very happy with the inside but then, calmly, advised us to paint the outside because although not dangerous, it 'looked too much like asbestos'. Sigh. We tossed it up and (through my gritted teeth and only a few tantrums) decided to paint the outside.
In deference to my grandparents, I asked my grandfather what colour he thought we should paint it. 'Asbestos colour' was the gruff reply. Sigh.
Man oh man. We got the front of the house done that afternoon, and had no choice but to finish it the next day as we had to drive all the way back to Sydney for work on Monday. It got done although I don't think I have ever been so sore or tired. The quality of the outside job was also, ahem, slightly dubious. Especially by the last side. Sadly exhaustion and time poverty had turned us into shonky landlords.
Anyhoo, it was a week of ups and downs. Mainly downs. Downs and pain. But it is done; and the great news is we got a tenant in a few weeks later. My grandparents wasted no time in dropping in to pick up 'something they forgot' (they are the sweetest looking people in the world - for years I had no idea how wily they are!) and it turns out he is a relative. Insert yet another sigh.
