The set-up
It’s a Thursday early May evening at my new home in Highgate. It’s the second evening of the test run stayovers that I’m doing currently as I’m still in transition between my flat in Hertford and Highgate. Miles Davis Blue is Green is on Spotify in the background and I feel happy that I’ve been inspired to write again my beloved blog. It’s been a very long time since my last one, end of August 2020 was my last one, and since then there’s been a lot of physical and emotional walking but I’ve not had the chance to keep up and write about it.
Maybe at some point I will attempt to fill in the gap and put down in words the missing walking steps during this period. Tonight though it is all about the new beginning in my new home. My one bedroom small flat is situated in the Holly Lodge Estate which is located on the grounds of a villa built in 1798 by Sir Henry Tempest on the south-facing slopes of Highgate, adjacent to Highgate Rise, now known as Highgate West Hill. The block of flats that my flat is part of was built in 1924 so quite an old place with quite a bit of history behind it. Apart from the remarkable scenery surrounding it with two lovely parks next to it, it is also next to the famous Highgate Cemetery where Karl Marx is buried so I suspect there might be visits from ghosts occasionally! I hope they walk me through their experiences of new beginnings too.
Walking into a new home
Despite being quite a small flat to walk into, it took a little while to do so as when I first got the keys for it on the 11 January it was quite neglected and needed some TLC to make it my own. Because of covid lockdown measures imposed, arranging for renovations to be done took some time to organise and overview, but eventually they happened and in mid-April my new home had a brand new shiny bathroom, freshly decorated walls, doors and ceiling, a new kitchen sink and tap, a refreshed wooden kitchen top and a brand new fuse box as the previous one was probably the original one from the 20th century.
It is quite a paradox for me to have purchased a place that needed renovations to be done. When I first started my house hunting, I was pretty adamant that I would not take on anything that needed work to be done. I was perhaps willing to consider a bit of decorating but not the extent of the work that I’ve done to this tiny Victorian flat. In reality, one may say that it is not entirely such a big project to have undertaken, but for me it felt like a mountain. Why did I do it? Because from the first minute that I walked into my first viewing of it, my gut instinct told me that it was the one that was destined to be my first home. The huge windows, the beautiful living room, the location and the entire neighbourhood won me over the things that otherwise would make me not consider it at all – the bedroom being on the small side and the bathroom not having a window being a few of these factors.
Transforming my new London pad
As I’m sitting in my sofa looking out from these large windows the beautiful view, I don’t regret it at all. I have learned though quite a lot of things in the process and if I could turn the clock back I would do things a lot better. Let’s start though from the beginning which was finding the right people to do the changes I wanted to make. Even before I took hold of the keys, I was lucky to have secured a trusted plumber who had done two new bathrooms in my brother’s house and knew him well. Although he was not local I felt a sense of security to commission it so someone I knew that would not try to cheat me or overcharge me. The bonus of making this decision was that he also had connections with a decorator and an electrician, and this meant that he could oversee the entire project.
So on that front I felt relieved but the events that followed taught me that no matter what you should always take your time to check a couple of traders, get official quotes, ask to see samples of their work and then decide who to assign it to. As a marketing professional I do this with every project and it should have been a no brainer but I’m afraid that I didn’t follow this rule in the house renovation. Don’t ask me why. Even to this day I cannot come up with a reasonable answer.
Another false assumption that I’ve made was that I could easily combine a full-time very demanding job with overseeing the renovations. Being a total virgin in what it takes to renovate a place, I had no clue that I needed to be close by and at hand to oversee the work done each day. With the distance between Hertford and Highgate being almost an hour and the demanding workload, I did my best to combine and visit as many times as was possible so that I could check the progress, make decisions about the colours and fixtures and ensure that I was happy with the project. It was quite a challenge and I’m internally grateful to my sweet neighbour who gave me shelter when I needed an overnight stay so that I could onsite first thing in the morning or allowed me to work from his place during the day in order to combine with work meetings.
Apart from being on site or able to make decisions, I also had to deal with technical questions about where water mains might be, where main electrical switchboard might be and lots of other details for which there was no manual to refer to. Somehow though I’ve managed to figure out things and a lot of the credit for this goes to my resourceful and savvy plumber.
So the day came when the work was finally completed and I went over to see the final result. I was truly excited and looking forward to seeing how everything came along. I expected everything to be brand new and shiny and I guess I pictured sparkling lights and fireworks going off when I entered through the door!!! As the key went through with my heart full of butterflies, I entered my new London pad and with keen eyes I stepped into it searching for all the new changes.
Hard reality kicked in within the first few minutes of inspecting the final outcome. Of course I was firstly disappointed of not seeing any sparkling lights and fireworks going off!!!. Secondly, I was disappointed as overall the changes were truly lovely but on close inspection I noticed they were roughly done, the mirror on the bathroom was placed way too high, one wall needed total repainting, the bedroom door frame needed and extra hand of paint and a few more bits and pieces which I made into a list and send over to my contractor to fix. Some negotiation took place between us with regards to my expectations against the budget that I had and the usual blurp you get when someone just doesn’t want to admit that they’ve done a quick and dirty job. In the end though remedial touch-up work did take place and the end result came closer to what I had wanted.
Another life lesson earned
As I am always too hard on myself I was quite disappointed for getting quite of lots of things wrong and was very cross with the way I managed this project. As the clock cannot turn back though, I decided to not let it get to me. My sweet neighbour, whose very detailed eye spotted quite a lot of rough edges too, helped me understand that it is not an easy undertaking and that overall I have created a beautiful space and revamped this little Victorian flat to a very good standard. Being a homeowner means a lot of responsibility and it is a journey of a never ending discovery of what could go wrong and how to tackle it. Pretty similar to raising a child some have said. I may have embarked on the journey with a few hick ups but as long as they are not life threatening and have a solution then it should be plain “walking” or as most commonly know plain sailing!
Epilogue
My new Highgate home is perfectly imperfect just like myself. For this reason,a both the flat and myself will need further touches to get us closer to perfection. And this is OK because it will keep us both busy and happily productive. On the back of my mind though I always keep my dad’s precious advice to be aware of….”be careful my darling because the enemy of good is being better”.
Walks and Smiles 