It may still only be February, and it may or may not still be snowing today (…let’s not talk about that), but I’m already thinking about spring. It doesn’t help that my job means I’m working a couple of months ahead at least at all times on campaign ideas, and that pretty much all I’ve thought about over the past few months is our wedding in May.
As proper grown up homeowners (I’m still not sure how this happened), there are a few things we have to do to get ready for spring and summer. While I pretty much despise all cleaning, I kind of enjoy the time of year when we get to sort everything out for summer – I think because it means warmer weather is coming and we can have a proper clear out. Last year, we did this around the bank holiday in mid-April, but this year Easter is earlier so it’ll be the end of March. And considering that all my weekends are booked up at the moment with wedding meetings (yes, I’m kind of stressed about this – can you tell?!), I’m thinking about how we’ll spend that bank holiday weekend already!
Garage work
We go through phases with our garage where it’s really tidy and where it’s an absolute tip. It’s become our Easter weekend tradition to go through it, chuck out a load of stuff, send some to charity, and just generally get it cleared out. So at the moment, it’s kind of a mess. To be fair, there isn’t a lot of stuff to get rid of except for a few big pieces, like a metal framed single bed we bought secondhand off Facebook that didn’t actually work in the room we wanted it for. It’s mostly things that have been left out of their places in there over the winter because it’s too cold in there to spend the time putting them away, the barbecue taking up space and washing stuff (because our washing machine and tumble dryer are in there).
Garden
Speaking of the barbecue, as soon as the weather is looking up, we’ll get that out of the garage and back in the garden. Last year we used it to cook with a lot, especially after we came up with a Neapolitan BBQ pizza recipe! We used it at least once a week, often two or three times, and we’re looking forward to doing the same this year. I’m wanting to do a few more veggie BBQ recipes, maybe try something like these cauliflower burger buns for something quite different. Hopefully we get some good weather to do so!
We can also get the lawnmower dragged out of hibernation from the garage as soon as the weather starts looking up. I’m never quite sure when to stop mowing the lawn over winter, but I do it as soon as possible – too much effort! But once it turns back to summer, I love the smell of the freshly cut grass again, so I’m happy for that to come out.
We’ll also soon be getting our vegetables decided for this summer to grow. Last year we just had tomatoes and potatoes, thanks to an incident with the cats knocking over our salad table – the rocket and lettuce had a few issues after that! This year, we want to do tomatoes again, like we always do, and also potatoes, as they were far easier than we expected. We’re also thinking about doing some beans or peas too in addition to the salads. Ideally we want to get working on choosing these and getting them planted and sprouting soon.
Garden room
Our garden room is similar to one of these style Victorian conservatories where it has solid walls but a full glass roof, lots of windows and big French doors. While I love it during the summer, I’m not so much of a fan of it during the winter. It didn’t have any heating installed when we moved in, so we bought a solid stone radiator and attached it to the wall, but the amount of glass means it’s pretty freezing in there over the winter. Essentially, it’s a cat corridor from October to March – their cat flap is in there! – and nothing else. So when we head back in there in the spring, the roof and drainpipes are pretty filthy. I’m expecting that to be even worse this year as we’ve had a lot of snow, ice and high winds so stuff will have gathered on it. Plus that errant roof tile that went astray during a storm which needs to be collected up somehow!
What other things would you recommend we do to refresh our home for spring?