Thursday, February 12, 2004
S's Super Saturday has come to little, although she reportedly saw a kitchen she liked with a W4 postcode. Not sure about the lounge but you could probably convince the Chiswick education authorities the kids slept on the hob if needs be. She was scheduled for an unprecedented six viewings but only got through four, including one in a council block that was so rancid she turned around before actually reaching the property. The remaining couple were cut off because of a street protest about the impending closing of Uxbridge Road for the building of the new tram system. The thought of getting to work quicker triggers pound signs to rotate in eyeballs.
We're starting to get a solid idea of what is available around the £170k mark: reception and bedroom slightly smaller than we'd like; communal garden if any; bath if you're lucky. Any more and there's something else wrong, either the quality of the area or the distance from transport or, as with Quirky by the Broadway, it has no proper windows and an underground pit for a bedroom. Either we need to look elsewhere or scale back our want list.
Records for walls
In an effort to broaden horizons area-wise I embark on a tube trip to Caledonia Road after seeing an estate agent's photo of a vast-lounged one-bed flat with a small garden to itself. Things don't start well – it's on a busy corner, opposite a massive council block and when slick Bollywood-wannabe opens the front door there's a distinct smell of wee.
Once inside, it soon becomes apparent why the lounge looks so big. Current incumbent has taken out the bedroom wall and replaced it with a bookcase full of 33rpm records. It's a studio flat of his own making. Kitchen is a building site ("We told him the new owner would want to do their own thing," SBW explains amidst the plasterboard) and back yard is small and grotty.
Nice idea, bad execution
Fortunately the trip is not completely wasted. SBW has another place just down the road, where the cars that have blazed around the corner have slowed to a more respectable pace. First floor, two beds, no lounge, massive kitchen, shower room that requires standing sideways to enter.
Sound odd? It is, although the sentiment is a good one. The owner has converted the original large bathroom into a second bed, and nabbed half the entrance hall for a shower room. He could have stopped there, but he then put a kitchen around the chimney butt in the largest room – the fitted cooker juts out into the middle of the room.
There are a couple of choices here:
1.Put a sofa into the kitchen and put up with the cooker intruding, and the noise of washing machine etc. Have a spare bedroom.
2.Turn the larger of the two bedrooms into the lounge, maybe even make an arch from dining kitchen into that room, and use the smaller room to sleep in. Trouble is there wouldn't be wardrobe space in the smaller bedroom.
It's got size, but the proportions are all wrong, and I'd soon lose patience with the miniscule shower/washing/loo space.
Spinster lime
Just downstairs from Bachelor-pad pink in that purpose-built block backing onto the railway line in Acton in a flat the same size with an asking price £10k higher. We decided it was worth a look to find out what we could do with the cheaper version upstairs once the crap was removed, the walls were scrubbed and the carpet shampooed. I'm visiting with a different estate agent, so this is a test of ingenuity as I express surprise at the amount of off-road parking and make the same joke about the sticking front door as I made on the last visit with PSB a couple of weeks ago.
First the estate agent, then the flat: He's driving a Ford Ka, a women's car, he says, because he smashed his other one reversing into a woman driver. He's not used to small cars, apparently. Until a couple of months ago he was in the States, driving a Lexus, bought for him by his rich wife, with whom it didn't work out. Now he's working for peanuts in West London and frightened stiff by his tyrannical female boss. I get all this before we even arrive at aforementioned Ka, and I surmised the last bit after observing office etiquette.
The radio is on, but the flat is empty. The previous resident has exited, leaving only her stereo, a leopard-print scarf and hat and some little post-it notes for the estate agent reminding them to switch off the lights. In a furnished house a stereo might work to fool would-be thieves that you've just nipped to the loo, but when the stereo is the only thing in the house it's pretty obvious, in my opinion, that you haven't.
Nicer, less smelly and apparently ready to take an offer. Not terribly big but a possible and – a new discovery on my second visit – West Acton tube is a short stroll away.
Click
We're getting dangerously close to North Acton as we stop at the next place. In fact, as I look out of the front window I can see the buildings surrounding the tube station, to which I used to trek every morning from my old place, before S moved south. She joined me there for three days before declaring she couldn't stand it past the weekend.
North Acton is a mass of (mainly) industrial estate and council houses (rather than blocks) bordered on one side by the A40 and on another by the vast railway yards around Willesden Junction.
This place is at least on the other side of the A40, though, and once inside there is no hint of the nearby traffic. It's cosy, with a larger than average lounge, complete with an iron fireplace, and the first kitchen I have seen with enough room for a table. The current occupants have the largest double bed I've ever seen, dwarfing the bedroom, which is perhaps a little small but has fitted wardrobes.
Outside, facing south, is a communal garden with a decent lawn and a park bench. There's an allocated parking spot out front. There are four flats but only two share our front door.
There are a few nice touches but there really isn't anything massive that stands out from the other places we have looked at. The extras – size of living rooms, bath, cosiness, garden – just all add up.
After bidding goodbye to cathartic estate agent, I call S to sort out a second viewing. She suggests the same evening, and does well to suppress her anti-North Acton feelings as we meet at the tube and go for a beer at the only mildly dodgy pub round the corner before viewing. Afterwards she says, "I want to live there." Sorted.
Narrow, with cats
As we're in the neigbourhood, we stop in at a place being sold privately on the web. It's more expensive and a little small, although the bedroom is nice and there is a huge back garden, including a shed. I feel like I'm squeezing down the corridor to a decent dining kitchen. The owner has a cat. She looks like a cat person. After much to-ing and fro-ing she has decided to move, but we won't be buying.
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We're starting to get a solid idea of what is available around the £170k mark: reception and bedroom slightly smaller than we'd like; communal garden if any; bath if you're lucky. Any more and there's something else wrong, either the quality of the area or the distance from transport or, as with Quirky by the Broadway, it has no proper windows and an underground pit for a bedroom. Either we need to look elsewhere or scale back our want list.
Records for walls
In an effort to broaden horizons area-wise I embark on a tube trip to Caledonia Road after seeing an estate agent's photo of a vast-lounged one-bed flat with a small garden to itself. Things don't start well – it's on a busy corner, opposite a massive council block and when slick Bollywood-wannabe opens the front door there's a distinct smell of wee.
Once inside, it soon becomes apparent why the lounge looks so big. Current incumbent has taken out the bedroom wall and replaced it with a bookcase full of 33rpm records. It's a studio flat of his own making. Kitchen is a building site ("We told him the new owner would want to do their own thing," SBW explains amidst the plasterboard) and back yard is small and grotty.
Nice idea, bad execution
Fortunately the trip is not completely wasted. SBW has another place just down the road, where the cars that have blazed around the corner have slowed to a more respectable pace. First floor, two beds, no lounge, massive kitchen, shower room that requires standing sideways to enter.
Sound odd? It is, although the sentiment is a good one. The owner has converted the original large bathroom into a second bed, and nabbed half the entrance hall for a shower room. He could have stopped there, but he then put a kitchen around the chimney butt in the largest room – the fitted cooker juts out into the middle of the room.
There are a couple of choices here:
1.Put a sofa into the kitchen and put up with the cooker intruding, and the noise of washing machine etc. Have a spare bedroom.
2.Turn the larger of the two bedrooms into the lounge, maybe even make an arch from dining kitchen into that room, and use the smaller room to sleep in. Trouble is there wouldn't be wardrobe space in the smaller bedroom.
It's got size, but the proportions are all wrong, and I'd soon lose patience with the miniscule shower/washing/loo space.
Spinster lime
Just downstairs from Bachelor-pad pink in that purpose-built block backing onto the railway line in Acton in a flat the same size with an asking price £10k higher. We decided it was worth a look to find out what we could do with the cheaper version upstairs once the crap was removed, the walls were scrubbed and the carpet shampooed. I'm visiting with a different estate agent, so this is a test of ingenuity as I express surprise at the amount of off-road parking and make the same joke about the sticking front door as I made on the last visit with PSB a couple of weeks ago.
First the estate agent, then the flat: He's driving a Ford Ka, a women's car, he says, because he smashed his other one reversing into a woman driver. He's not used to small cars, apparently. Until a couple of months ago he was in the States, driving a Lexus, bought for him by his rich wife, with whom it didn't work out. Now he's working for peanuts in West London and frightened stiff by his tyrannical female boss. I get all this before we even arrive at aforementioned Ka, and I surmised the last bit after observing office etiquette.
The radio is on, but the flat is empty. The previous resident has exited, leaving only her stereo, a leopard-print scarf and hat and some little post-it notes for the estate agent reminding them to switch off the lights. In a furnished house a stereo might work to fool would-be thieves that you've just nipped to the loo, but when the stereo is the only thing in the house it's pretty obvious, in my opinion, that you haven't.
Nicer, less smelly and apparently ready to take an offer. Not terribly big but a possible and – a new discovery on my second visit – West Acton tube is a short stroll away.
Click
We're getting dangerously close to North Acton as we stop at the next place. In fact, as I look out of the front window I can see the buildings surrounding the tube station, to which I used to trek every morning from my old place, before S moved south. She joined me there for three days before declaring she couldn't stand it past the weekend.
North Acton is a mass of (mainly) industrial estate and council houses (rather than blocks) bordered on one side by the A40 and on another by the vast railway yards around Willesden Junction.
This place is at least on the other side of the A40, though, and once inside there is no hint of the nearby traffic. It's cosy, with a larger than average lounge, complete with an iron fireplace, and the first kitchen I have seen with enough room for a table. The current occupants have the largest double bed I've ever seen, dwarfing the bedroom, which is perhaps a little small but has fitted wardrobes.
Outside, facing south, is a communal garden with a decent lawn and a park bench. There's an allocated parking spot out front. There are four flats but only two share our front door.
There are a few nice touches but there really isn't anything massive that stands out from the other places we have looked at. The extras – size of living rooms, bath, cosiness, garden – just all add up.
After bidding goodbye to cathartic estate agent, I call S to sort out a second viewing. She suggests the same evening, and does well to suppress her anti-North Acton feelings as we meet at the tube and go for a beer at the only mildly dodgy pub round the corner before viewing. Afterwards she says, "I want to live there." Sorted.
Narrow, with cats
As we're in the neigbourhood, we stop in at a place being sold privately on the web. It's more expensive and a little small, although the bedroom is nice and there is a huge back garden, including a shed. I feel like I'm squeezing down the corridor to a decent dining kitchen. The owner has a cat. She looks like a cat person. After much to-ing and fro-ing she has decided to move, but we won't be buying.
