Tagged: House

Destruction is progress

We got the house on Wednesday. The house which we’ve been waiting for for six weeks. It was surreal walking to get the keys, knowing that we now owned this whole house and yet we weren’t going to live there.

Unfortunately J had a work meeting on Wednesday afternoon so we had a really quick look around then off we went. Feeling like we were visiting to decide if to buy again but also talking with real plans for the first time. ‘Tomorrow we’ll…’

Thursday was our first chance to really get our hands on the place. Tools in hand, working clothes on we trotted off to discover and explore what it actually was we’d bought. Starting with peeling back the carpets. Unfortunately one floor is rotten, we think they didn’t vent it properly when they laid an extension slab out the back. Still better to know now…

Otherwise just getting the carpets up and beginning to get rid of some of the dust and actually airing the house! I don’t think the previous owner opened it up quite so much… Or vacuumed. It was a good day with a lot of progress, pulling carpet up is surprisingly satisfying.

By Friday morning the previous day’s exertions were making themselves known, a grizzly back, sore arms, dusty eyes. Thankfully the excitement of finding more and pulling more back was stronger. This time we started at the ceiling, the ceiling in the room where the roof is leaking… And yes it is definitely our roof which is leaking. Leaking roofs are not cheap.

The rest of the weekend has been spent meeting neighbours, pulling wallpaper off, ripping up the garden, we had a 6ft bramble in there along with *a lot* of ivy. Today we burnt a lot of it, I do enjoy a good fire. We also knocked down the odd concrete wall in the back garden with the help of some good friends.

There is so much more to do, but as we progress I need to make sure I remember where we started. And that the key thing now is that ‘destruction is progress’. So destruct we shall.

Next steps

We’re currently trying to buy a house. We said that when we came back to the UK we would buy somewhere that was ours and was somewhere that we wanted to live and we could paint the walls and make it look and feel like *ours*. Then between April and the end of September my work travel went mental again and I was hardly ever around to even try and look for a house.

We kept getting asked about when we were going to buy a house and we kept putting it off. Until one weekend we finally got to go and look and realise what we could afford and what this all actually meant.

Now, we’re beginning down the long journey. Offer accepted, solicitors involved, survey done, ticking things off one by one. I’m learning something new practically every day and having to work out what all this new language is. That and having to spend the most money we’ve ever spent in our lives. It’s going to be a journey. We have very much made it that in our decision to purchase somewhere which is quite the project. Way to take the easy road.

I have a feeling this little corner of mine might become more about house renovations and trials and tribulations of such than anything else. However that will be my (our) life for the next many months so apologies in advance. If, and when, I manage to get to this space I apologise now that it will be considerably focused on houses and DIY.

It is both equally exciting and terrifying to be embarking on this next step.