Even now it’s not fashionable
in a Collingwood or Prahran way: it’s not chic. It is desirable, convenient to
much, well served by infrastructure. For my good woman Carnegie is an
investment—she has a thirty per cent share. For me it is the next place I will
live. My Croydon house becomes my investment from 26 April when I move back to
the streets of my childhood.
I suspect that like my purchase
of my house in Croydon, my good woman and I have bought the last affordable
house in Carnegie. It sits in a quiet tree-lined street, surrounded by more
expensive, well-maintained California bungalows. But it has location coming out
of its arse, and location is all.
It’s a project. We begin with a
carport and are looking for one in art deco style. We won’t move any walls but
we’ll remove a window and replace it with a door and window. That door might
eventually open onto a pergola. There is no garden, front or back. Like here at
Croydon, I begin from scratch.
We’ll put small gas heaters in
the useless open fireplaces, double-glaze the windows, restore the exposed
brickwork the previous owners painted over.
And here at Croydon I will do
what every householder does before vacating their existing premises: turn it
into what they always hoped it would be but never got around to. I must replace
the failed vanity in the bathroom. I could replace guttering but probably
won’t. I must get a plumber to fix the drains.
The rest of it is patching,
painting, and plastering. I have no particular plan of attack. I said it would
begin on Boxing Day, so I have a couple of days to firm up the thoughts I have
about how and where to begin. My fear is that I will enjoy the practical work
so much that I will not want to return to my real job.
The irony is that without that
real job, none of it would have happened, and none of it will happen.
Rock on.
No comments:
Post a Comment