A House Update: Progress?

Well, here’s a post I have been dreading committing to the blog. Mostly because I’ll have to admit to myself that the house isn’t any where as nearly ‘done’ as I’d have liked it to be. This last year has been a whole big learning curve about matching my ambitions and my skills to reality! 


So I should start by telling you that all but one of the rooms are furnished and use-able which has to be a plus right? They all serve their purpose – they just don’t all look like I want them to. And why is this? Well, it’s three fold really. 
  1. Money. As in we don’t have copious amounts of it. We have some. But not nearly enough to do everything in the house we want and have, say, the holidays we want and some things, like snowboarding, have to take priority. 
  2. Time. It’s tough to get a house finished when you’re not home all that much (I would kill for a free weekend at home right now!) and when you are there are more pressing things to do – like cuddle poopzilla or catch up on GOT or something. 
  3. Skill. Neither of us are particularly skilled at DIY. Whilst we’ll try anything – I’m happy to wield a drill and paintbrush any time of day – we don’t know how to do more technical stuff like say plumbing. Or Plastering. Or anything to do with the electrics. And calling in help to do these things costs money. Which goes back to that first issue up there!  
So in an attempt to make me feel like we’ve achieved something since we moved in, here’s what we’ve done*;
  • The living room is my little bit of finished heaven. It’s done and we love it. 
  • The dining room was pink. Two tones of pink to be precise – it has been painted white until we decide if we’re knocking it through into the kitchen. 
  • We’ve replaced the boiler – that was a fun thing to spend a fortune on but we have a 21st century one now!
  • And lopped back a giant tree in the garden that has given us so much more light it’s unbelievable (and will hopefully mean less leaves to clear up in the autumn) 
  • Talking of the garden – it was an overgrown mess but most of the shrubs have been chopped back and it’s loads bigger now. 
  • The hallway is no longer covered in orange woodchip – it’s now bare, peeling, plaster waiting to be skimmed. But the plastered is booked for the end of August! Now I just have to decide how we’re going to paint it! Is greige still ‘in’?
  • The bedroom has had a mini makeover. The built-in wardrobes have had a bit of a facelift, the walls have been decorated with pictures and there are rugs on the floor! It’s now colour coordinated. 
  • The bathroom has been plastered, painted, wallpapered and has a new bath/shower and Jim has tiled it like a star on his first ever tiling attempt. We just need to get someone to fix the lights now (and for me to gloss the window frame. I hate glossing!) 
But that doesn’t look much for a year’s worth of work. Does it? Do making plans count as work? Because I have a crap load of plans in the works; 
  • In the newly cleared space in the garden, we’re preparing the ground to be grassed over to extend the lawn and there are plans to replace the fence when my dad and his friend finishes their seemingly never ending holidays! 
  • Whilst a new kitchen would be the dream – it’s just not going to happen any time soon unless we win the lottery so I’ve got plans to paint the kitchen walls – probably the same sort of colours but it’ll tidy it all up and make it all not so old looking. And maybe new counter tops. But they are pretty costly alone. 
  • Once the hallway is plastered, we’ll need to figure out painting it (it’s 3 floors of walls and ceilings so that will be fun. And we’re talking about putting an internal door in after the front door to stop Flash getting straight at the post! 
  • Our bedroom will eventually have a big change – this will include ripping out the current built in wardrobes and replacing them with new ones, and mostly ridding the room of the many shades of green that currently furnish it! 
  • In our heads we’re trying to decide whether knocking the dining room through to the kitchen would work but the kitchen is an off-shot so it might mean knocking through some of the hallway too – I am sure this is the sort of thing a builder ought to be consulted on! 
  • Create a guest haven in the spare room – I would love for it to be a really calming space for guests to stay in. For the last few months it’s been housing a bathroom suite but now that’s in the bathroom we can get started on it. And it will also mean that we can switch into that room and it be nice, when we do ours in the future.  
  • Dig out the weedlike plants in the front garden and install some easy to care for plants and figure out how to hide the wheely bins. They’re so unsightly.  
Fingers crossed once the bathroom is fully finished and the hallway plastered we’ll feel like we’ve actually achieved something. But we’ve made progress right? Please say we have!




*Some of this ‘we’ is the royal (parental) ‘we’ – but they are retired so it just makes sense for them to do it doesn’t it. 

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