Wednesday 5 May 2010

New house!!

Hello!

Well, hello and goodbye really... or more like 'so long for now', 'see you soon' etc :-)

Granted I've not been the most prolific of posters... in fact I've been a rather pathetic excuse for a blogger of late but I do think my excuses reasons are justified!

So, today we completed on the purchase of the house I never thought we'd get. Given that we put in an offer on 22nd December 2009 and actually LOST the house on 15th February 2010... this has definitely been a rollercoaster ride of emotions... and I do believe the fun has only just begun!

So, here's our house:



I admit that it's nothing spectacular to look at... we don't even have a bay window as I think the property sustained fire or perhaps bomb damage a while ago! But I really like it and the exterior of a property is always something you can change/brighten up :-)

To be fair, there's less that needs to be done to the outside than the inside as this place was used pretty much as a bedsit! The (now previous!) owner rented out every single room (yes, including the living AND dining rooms!) to various families and he basically neglected the place from the outset... the house has been very unloved, the poor thing!

We've definitely got our work cut out for us and Joe and I have got the rest of the week, plus next week, off to decorate as we're trying to make savings where we can as we're going to be pretty broke for a while to come now...

It'll be worth it in the end but for now I thought I'd share a few of the marvels that we have to contend with in our quest to turn this property into the house of our dreams...

Firstly... here's the rather gorgeous luxury bathroom we have in place on the first floor ;-)



Fortunately replacing this is *not* one of the things we have to do ourselves as we've managed to budget to have that done and while it's being refurbished we'll be able to use the bathroom on the ground floor (which will be ripped out afterwards to make a utility room just off the kitchen).

Here's another rather gorgeous feature, check out this fireplace - hubba hubba!



I think the fire-safe doors and exit signs will need to go huh?



Now, surely nobody can argue that this carpet is 'something else'! Just what 'something' it is I'm yet to work out!



The staircase going up leads to my son's new bedroom... yes, he's got a room on his very own floor - how lucky is he?! Basically he's got his own little bacheolor pad of a room to himself, I'm quite jealous, my shoebox bedroom growing up wasn't big enough to fit a wardrobe and chest of drawers in... I had to have a cabin bed to get everything underneath!



If you turn round instead of going up to the smelly teenager's room you are faced with this rather 'interesting' wall feature...



I'm wondering first "Why?!" and secondly if the guy left us the attractive clock that matches the woodwork on the filled-in windows.

Bizarre.

Also we are faced with certain oddities like pipes that start somewhere...



...but go nowhere!!



Hmm, I'm sure we'll work it out and our surveyor said the building is sound... just 'quirky' I reckon!

Last but not least we find out new beautiful gigantic (*cough*) elegantly landscaped (*cough* *cough*) garden :-D



Aside from the obvious ground work and fence repair... the beast of a tree *has* to go... it's a sort of mad hybrid tree/bush/ivy plant!!



*Shudder*

So there you go, that's what we've got to contend with, I think we have our hands full!!

For obvious reasons I won't be able to blog for a little while to come... despite having our broadband and Sky+ HD installed tomorrow (priorities, priorities!! :-D), but rest assured that I am still training hard and watching what I eat - I even managed to resist tucking into the celebratory Krispy Kreme donuts I bought for everyone earlier and I can safely say I've never been stronger before in my life - it's all good!

Any of my Twitter friends will know that I do tweet quite a bit (and quite often add random pictures to TwitPic), so if you would like to stay updated, please do follow my twitter account or catch up with me on facebook (though I do update that less and haven't uploaded pics to it for almost a year!!).

Right, better get on now and go home to finish off the packing and get some sleep as early start tomorrow to move boxes and pick up floor sander and lots of tins of varnish and paint!

I hope everyone's well and to catch up soon.

TJx

4 comments:

  1. Woohoooooooooooooo so happy it finally went through, you must be ecstatic!

    Can't wait to see the house as you do it up nicely.

    Really happy for you mate and looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks *mwah*

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  2. Thank you sweetie!

    It's stress central at the mo and FAME is looking doubtful but I can't wait for the expo and to finally meet up with you too! xx

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  3. Congrats on the house buy, we bought ours about 4 years ago and there is still loads we want to chnage but at least it is "ours" xx

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  4. I love your blog! Are you going to do an update on the fitness competition you entered? Would love to hear how it went :)

    Vicki

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