8 Denby Lane

Heaton Chapel

empty house (2009) ◊ moving in (2009) ◊ winter (2009) ◊ furnished (2010) ◊ gardening (2010) ◊ decorating (2010) ◊ decorating (2010 to 2014) ◊ gardening (2011 & 2012) ◊ landscaping (2012 & 2013) ◊ gardening (2013 & 2014)

Moving in (2009)

Having got the keys on the Friday, we set about moving our stuff from the flat and from storage to the house, which involved many trips around the M60.  The furniture was delivered on the Wednesday and it started to feel more like our own.  However, with the house much bigger than the flat, there was definitely a furniture shortfall and so the photos of the house with furniture can wait until it looks more complete.

Due to various weekend activities (stag do and wedding), we didn't move into the house until Tuesday 6th October, by which time we were thoroughly impatient to do so.  On the following Saturday, we hired a Ford Transit (with Matt driving).  Anyone want some removing doing?

Seriously, though, would you trust these two?  Our tasks involved taking the last of the large items from the flat, fetching a washing machine from Caroline's and retrieving our old snooker table from Boothstown.

In the meantime, just over three weeks after completion, it was time for the asbestos to be removed.  The asbestos removal people cordoned off our hallway, unfortunately rendering the downstairs toilet, the alarm and the central heating controls collectively out of bounds.  It was all a bit ET-esque.

They left this on our driveway, not, it turned out, to serve the workmen with hot spuds throughout the day, but as a shower unit to wash off any excess asbestos before heading home.

Here it is from the other side, providing a free advertisement for ACT (Asbestos Control & Treatment).

The view from the stairs, on top of the hallway no-go zone, showed the big, grey worm.

Proliferating the ET theme, I managed to snap a shot of one of the "azzy" removal guys in full gear.  They had to go through a myriad of costume changes in the twin interests of health and safety.

This is a still from a short video taken underground by one of the asbestos removers.  He was meant to take a few photos, but evidently I had left it on video mode and he couldn't figure out how to change it.  Ah well.

A couple of weeks later and it was time to battle with the leaves.  They were relentless.  The cat on the shed watched with mild amusement (probably: it's hard to tell).

Look: mild amusement, I tells ya.

And you can see why - this is what the large trees in the garden behind had done to the allotment.

Clearing up the leaves was very much an exercise in futility.  No sooner had I cleared them up than the wind blew and dislodged another motherload of leaves into our back garden.  The swines.

Anyway, it's not long until we get the furniture delivered and there will be more photos then.

I've not really done any furniture pictures yet, but I have taken lots of photos of Denby Lane in the winter, when we were in the icy grip of mother nature.