Canal Desires

Yikes. Me and the missus have just been to look at a house, that we propose to purchase and live in together. Scary and exciting at the same time, but the fear greatly allayed by the sheer quality of the proposal on offer.

It is a two-bedroom house. It is an 80s build, so pretty darn featureless: it's a box, with a slopey roof, from an apex to the front and rear of the property. There is a well-developed front garden, with a small flint-chip pathway for access for weeding and tending (I can feel the missus getting excited). There is a driveway from the road leading to a side garage. This is currently full of renovations crap and stuff the previous owner didn't want. You could easily get my wheels in here, maybe even the missus' tank, but I wouldn't want to be the one to scrape it in. There is a door from inside the garage directly into the garden, which is locked. Anyway, without either of our cars in the garage, we would be able to fit both of our current cars onto the drive and not be on the road or even the pavement. There are two 'front' doors - one leading to the square of floor at the foot of the stairs/living room door, another into the rearmost kitchen/dining area - so a 'dirty' entrance and a 'tidy' entrance, though this does raise some security issues. Come in, through the tidy entrance. Sorry about the post.

The living room is more spacious than we imagined, though, once you've got a triple-sized double sofa-bed and a twin sofa in there, a coffee table and a telly, you're pretty much maxed out. Nice lights on the wall - aluminium squares and oblongs (lateral, not vertical) with creamy, opaque perspex lenses, plus a central dangling bulb, natch. There is a horrendous gas fire, which would have to go. The windows are newish double-glazed in a slight bay, four panels with the outer two opening, wood-finish to the exterior and white to the interior. The carpet is of a hard-wearing, waffle cut. Through a door into the kitchen: this has clearly been done up. The units are new, the oven still has instructions in plastic wrappers inside it. The washing machine is, if not actually new, very recently new. There is a new, but mildly nasty, lino on the whole floor. There are French doors out into the garden (again, wood-finish to the ext, white to the int), and a window above the sink looking out. There is a larder beneath the stairs that could conceivably fit a full-height fridge-freezer inside, though this would block the rear, shallow part from access. Currently, there are two separate units - chest fridge (door) and chest freezer (lid), with the liddy freezer at the back. Wondering where mops, brooms and hoovers might go.

Upstairs, and the first room you come to is the bathroom, at the rear of the house. Why this room is not on the photos on the website, I don't know, as it is gorgeous. Sure, it's the only toilet, and it's small, but the tiles are this lovely, earthy rough-cut look, and the units - sink, toilet, bath and shower - are clearly all brand new. It's a picture. Once again, the waffle carpet, which followed us up the stairs from the living room and the 'tidy' front door. Next to the bathroom, and also to the rear, is the second bedroom. This would be a spare bedroom with sofa bed/office. This would, in all likelihood, be 'my room', where I can ferret away in the 'editing suite'. You would have to knock and wait for an answer before entering, for definite. To the front of the property is the master bedroom, within which there is (over the floor space above the stairwell) the boiler (hmm, noisy in bedroom? certainly toasty warm) and a recessed storage area, which is where some cupboarding would go. Room for nice big bed with space to walk all the way around, plus side tables with power points and phone line. Throughout, there are the same waffle carpet, save for the kitchen/dining.

Let us go back into the kitchen, and out those French doors into the garden. The garden is neither particularly small, nor particularly large. It's a nice size, what can I say? To the left as you head out, is the locked side entrance to the garage, which we've seen from the other side. Behind the garage, further towards the bottom of the garden, is a garden shed. Mmm. Powertools. And so, the garden.

The garden extends perhaps ten metres, before it comes to an abrupt halt. There is a low, picket fence just before the bottom, and a small rose-gate arch with a little gate. And, just three feet beyond this barrier, lies the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. 'Egret' chugged past as we were there. Bless. On the offside of the canal is the towpath, complete with dog-walkers, cyclists, power-walkers, runners and ne'er-do-wells, and beyond the towpath is a fence, barriering you from the London-Birmingham train line. The garden itself is a bit of a mess: some vague attempt at making a rockery has been planned, only with most of the garden. There is a fishpond, which I like a lot, and means that Pete and Edgy might get a nice big house outdoors, and be like real fish, not realising that just 30 feet away was all the freedom, gunk and predators they could ever want. There is a bird-table, and two nesting boxes attached to silver birch trees at the bottom of the garden. Clearly, the previous owner liked to encourage nature, and I approve of that most heartily. The garden, already great because of the canal, has a lot of potential, given some planning, investment and sweat.

Now all we have to do is get involved with dregs, like estate agents, surveyors and lawyers. That's the only bit I don't like about it.