When you take the keys to your first property the excitement level is unbelievable.  There is the furniture to get in – that sofa handed over by Granny and the spare sideboard from down the road.  It’s so easy to get swept up in a whirl of activity of curtain hanging and furniture placement that simple things can sometimes get left aside.

When my family moved from an older house into a brand new one in the 1960s, there was much the same euphoria – this time though we had fitted carpets and central heating – oh such treats.   Although the houses were of different generations and the latter was very up to date with lots of ‘mod cons’ the need for constant home maintenance didn’t change much.  The guttering still needed regular checking.   Some of these are still regular bugbears even today but there are agencies that will come on a regular basis to sort these out – for a reasonable fee.

Needing to find out what the suspcious banging and scraping noise was down the side of my house after the latest of a series of storms, I found to my horror that part of the guttering had detached itself and was swinging listlessly.   I look around the rest of the house at all levels, but especially up at gutter height.  The old & unused satellite dish was still clinging firm, despite being precariously located.  I made a note of other possible problems areas and came on line to the property maintenance gang   They had been inundated with calls for help.  Being an old customer of theirs, I was offered a slot fairly swiftly.   Access is limited but negotiations with my neighbour for the erection of the ladder round his side meant a quick reinstallation of the gutter took place by someone who really knew what he was doing and he checked the rest of the guttering.  Phew!

How we manage our property is an individual matter of organisation and expenditure.  When there is a stock of properties to manage, say a whole raft of ‘buy to let’ in a portfolio, the only sensible way to maanage the constant demands of property upkeep, repairs, decorating and legal safety affairs is to use a property management agency.  They have the expertise, resources and manpower to carry out the work in fixed phases so that each property has the basics seen to on a very regular basis and the extras, such as decoratorating and refurbishment, on a more programmed approach.

The trouble with leasing out property is the variable nature of tenants.  Soe are fantastic, caring for your property as if it was their own, others tend to be far less kind and almost because they are paying rent, sometimes in a bad situation, they won’t think twice about trashing your proudly owned flat or house.

Our modern houses are so much simpler to plan and construct than the huge family homes of the 1700s.  I take that period as an example here because I’ve recently revisited a well established heritage house where I’ve volunteered as room steward for several seasons.  for that task there is obviously a certain amount of history to be learned by heart – in the hope that we may engage the interest of visitors.   The Hall I’m referring to replaced a tudor family estate house – shame they were so rich, the owners just replaced it and pulled the old one down!  The palladian hall is perfectly proportioned with exactly the right number of windows either side of the front door.  The entrance hall is painted in Lancaster Pink, sounds strange, suggesting at first theshade of ladies’ corsets, but it is deliciously warm and very inviting to the visitor.   The amount of work needed to keep the Hall from deteriorating is a full time job in planning, funding and  orchestrating for the Trust’s team – calling on experts at every step of the way.

I have an elderly friend who has been used to living in some rather nice houses over the years.  Her husand was a jobbing builder when they married and he then formed  small building company with his brother and cousin.  It helped that another older cousin was already a successful local architect.   There’s a world of difference in being a builder if you have to pay a huge amount to engage an architect.  Having one in the family can bring much greater success in that there’s a natural family understanding and a combining of thoughts.  Very often siblings work very well together too – in design and decor, there is a general appreciation of the project finer points and it’s as if they work with one mind.   Again with projects one can concentrate on the design side and the other on the build requirements or one can design a thme and the other will be good at procuring the actual product to bring it to fruition.

Here are a few tips for best results if you’re contemplating decorating your office space.

Pick out features.  If you have a period office, perhaps in an old building, you’ll want to pick out some nice features in the room to make a cool statement!  Fireplaces (even if not used anymore) are super cool to have as a central focus, and draws the eye of visitors to create a great talking piece.  You might have beams or even really high ceilings, in which case, use them to your advantage!

Choose high quality tools – you will thank us once it’s done!  If you decide to use cheap paint or cheap tools, not only will the end result not look as good, it certainly won’t last as long.  High quality paints are formulated to last and usually have a stronger pigment, meaning you don’t need to slap on layers and layers of paint to get an even finish.  Best plan:  Get a professional in.  If in doubt about your decorating ablities – always get a pro in to do the hard work!

I’ve been trying desperately to get some inspiration for having my house redecorated.  It’s jolly hard as the job won’t be started until at leastMarch, a good 5 months away.  The decorator lives abroad but he comes back to UK every winter to volunteer his decorating and restoration skills  at various heritage properties and he’s allocating an additional 2 weeks of his valuable time to be available to help me.  One job that desperately needs seeing to is the bannister and stair rails – they are now a mixture of coffee and cream colour because the top coat has started wearing off and I don’t have the strength in my hands to rub down the gloss work – a professional does that sort of thing in a trice.  When he decorated the rest of my house a few years ago, I was amazed at how quickly the preparations were carried out – all the doors off and rubbed down in the time it would take me to find the sand paper!

In the years immediately following the last war, the severe shortage of  housing – through years of bombing raids by the enemy, made it a tremendous challenge to try and rehouse all the displaced families.  The main thrust of the housing campaign was by way of corporation or local council housing – great swathes of land were compulsorily purchased from landowners and councils to allow for a new housing to go up in village and small town locations.  These ‘council’ houses were necessarily built in a great hurry and as economically as was allowed. Consequently they were ugly afffairs.    When it became obvious that houses could not be built quickly enough or when land acquisition became bogged down, temporary land was taken and fantastic little prefabricated homes were put up by the thousand.  These were supposed to be temporary, slightly more than a static caravan and sited with full plumbing and electricity, they were fantastic little places for the smaller family.