Cheer up, squeaky clean

'Tis the season to be scrubbing, fa la la la, it's still not clean

Oh sure, renovations seem exciting on the surface. Taking an old house and making it all new and special - what a time to be alive! Well, rein in that enthusiasm cowboy, because a good chunk of ‘renovating’ is actually ‘cleaning’. Dusting, wiping, scouring, de-greasing, the lot. I’ve got tennis elbow and I haven’t played tennis since I was eighteen.

Not that I’m complaining, I find a good scrub very cathartic. The only problem is we’re not really cleaning anything, we’re just moving the dirt around from room to room. Eventually we get back to the room we started in and the dirt has re-spawned¹. Dust is being generated faster than our heroic Henry hoover can keep up with and he’s been grafting more than anyone. Still, it’s giving us plenty to do while the heating engineer works out what all the pipes are up to, because surely two tanks and a boiler is a bit overkill for one bathroom.

The kitchen is last on the list to be updated and so first for a deep clean. It was probably also the most in-need, with many signs of very well-used and beloved working space. The wallpaper is peeling and the carpet² is very worn, but the cabinets had been made by hand and repaired over the years with recently refreshed lining paper and secret sneaky drawers. I like the idea that it has looked after the previous family for a good long time and that they have looked after it in return. Unfortunately some of less usable cupboards had to go, which revealed the glorious smoke-stained walls behind and an air vent coated in a half-inch layer of grease. I suspect the chip pan³ was a firm favourite for the old household.

But, in a miraculous example of built-to-last seventies technology, the vent still works! After a thorough soak it’s come up brand-spanking beige and the fan is chugging away with the cheerful impression of something grateful to have narrowly avoided the skip (the brown bidet from the upstairs bathroom wasn’t so lucky). The house will not be too easily defeated. Our second big victory was finding some terrazzo tiles in perfectly reasonable condition under the kitchen carpet, so tonight’s job is likely to involve a mop and bucket.

We’ve reached a compromise, the kitchen and I. To give us a nice, clean work-surface that can be easily moved around and withstand a battering, we’ve decided to go with a boring but relatively cheap stainless steel catering table. It’s probably going to look weird next to the olive green tiles and strawberry wallpaper, but it can take a hot pan and a good scrub like a soldier, and, as I explained to our builder who does not understand many of my interior design choices, I am weird. He could have agreed with a little less enthusiasm on that last point but it’s good for the spirit to be humbled occasionally.

Once the table arrives, we can start unpacking some equipment and maybe even do a proper bit of cooking in there. For now though, it’s toast and microwave rice, and the banana bread our next door neighbour baked to ‘keep us going' even though she's currently on crutches with one arm strapped up. Fair play, Deirdre.

Yours in plaster dust,

Deb

P.S. I hope that we all sung the title to the tune of Daydream Believer, because that’s what it is in my head.

1. Had to ask someone what it’s called why you die and get reborn in a video game because I have no idea.

2. Why? Why carpet?? Carpet in the kitchen, the bathrooms, by the front door - why.

3. I’m basing this entirely on my own experience of my grandma’s house - you couldn’t go within twelve feet of the cooker on fish and chip Fridays lest you get splashed by hot oil from the chip pan. The fishmonger used to sell the fish door-to-door. Your hair smelt like oil for the rest of the weekend, and the pan was otherwise kept by the back door just in case it spontaneously combusted.