Here again!

OK so nearly 4 months later... It turns out the reason the purchase of our new house took ages was because our spectacular mortgage adviser lost our paperwork, or probably put it under their copy of 'Hello' magazine and forgot about it.  Despite it all going through 8 months after seeing the house, he will still get his nice commission chunk.  Which is a shame for the world.

A lot has happened since the new year, the worst part being around completion time my sister passed away at the age of 40.  She was such an amazing person who did everything, went everywhere and saw everyone, cared so much for others and she will always stay in the forefront of my mind.  It has already been ten weeks and a day since she died but our pain is never going to go away, we still think about her all the time and to be taken at such an early age is so infuriating.  I am dedicating this blog and the modernising of our house to her.  RIP my wonderful sister.  We miss you more than you would ever know.

I also turned 30 towards the end of January and by then hadn't completed the purchase thus successfully failing in my lifetime ambition to own a house before turning that ripe age... But... YAY we now have a house!!  Thankfully we have everything moved which was a pain, we're away from the crazy psycho lezza formerly-next-door and we have damp!  Our very own damp!!  Not much to celebrate I know but I don't care!

Upon completing the house sale we had to get everything from just down the road out of our tiny rented house and transport it to the new one.  Thankfully I have a large-ish car so most of it was transportable in there, however our sofa (which I have no idea how we got in there) had to be removed by force... Breaking up a sofa is one of the most exhilarating things ever!!  If you have never done it before I highly recommend it, make sure you don't need it though as putting it back together could pose a few issues!  Transporting in plank-by-plank to the dump and cleaning up after mass destruction however is not exhilarating at all.

We're in anyways, after all that!  Ready with the tips to enlighten all the wonderful folk in BlogWorld!

Problem no. 1: If the previous owner was a dog-lover, check the living room and bedroom carpets for signs of doggy pee-pee.  If tests confirm the prescence of said pee-pee, firstly check what's underneath the carpet.  If the carpet turns out to be sitting on a layer of felt/fibreglass stuff which in turn sits on a layer of 2 or 3mm plywood which is nailed into the floorboards, DO NOT hire a Rug Doctor and midlessly attempt to clean the carpet for hours.  This will lead to the aforementioned under-carpet produce becoming wet which will take days to dry, and because it's porous will absorb said pee-pee and not actually wash it out, it will just make the smell worse.  Many complaints from accompanying Mrs and the strong desire to vomit after every sniff will ensue.

Solution no. 1: Wait until you can afford new carpet and underlay.  If it's going to be the unforseeable future, borrow a couple of hundred quid, from a nearest and dearest!  Make friends with a carpet fitter (in this case, the father-in-law).  Purchase carpet and underlay (any will do, as long as it doesn't have 'hint of ammonia' essence).  Request the pleasure of said carpet fitter's company for an afternoon.  Introduce said fitter to said room and new carpet and underlay... and Hey Presto, new carpet smelling living room!

I have done several little jobs since we have been there (almost 6 weeks of occupancy now) but that was in hindsight one of the first things I should have done.  Along with that we have:

• Painted the living room and 'furniturised' it.
• Scraped the woodchip paper off the dining room (ouch... more on that later)
• Changed the lock on the back door to one that actually uses a key!!
• Removed several violent-looking hooks and umpteen metres of telephone extension, TV Aerial and doorbell cable (why do old people feel the need to put so many telephone extensions in without removing when cordless comes along?) - see hooks to the right, don't they look evil?!
• Removed and re-seated some skirting in the 2nd bedroom (ours) upstairs which for some reason looked like a step!
• Attached a shower head bracket and new shower head into the bathroom - electric showers aren't my cup of tea so may invest in those taps that run a shower off the combi boiler supply.
• Found the front cover of a newspaper from 1949 underneath a carpet upstairs.
• Ripped off (accidentally... whoops!!) the curtain rail in the dining room.
• Started scraping woodchip from the utility room, and got bored and a bit demotivated when I saw the damp.
• Painted the kid's bedroom (just plain white at the moment).
• Sanded down the wooden wall in the dining room which took 18-ish hours (God only knows what's underneath it, but I'm too scared to rip it out!)... and here it is, pic taken about halfway:

It's looking OK at the moment... sort of... the grand plan is to have the popular open-plan kitchen diner put in, but that won't be for a couple of years yet I don't think.  Not least until we have paid nearly £8,000 for the windows and doors to be replaced!!  OK that is only one quote but I wasn't expecting that much!

I'm also concerned about the damp in the utility room quite a bit, I have no idea how to deal with damp but it may be due to the roof on the utility extension needing replacing.  It just so happens the gentleman next door is a roofer which will come in handy, he has already replaced a couple of slates for me so will see what he says about getting that roof done.

Anyway this is a lot, I will embellish further later.  And promise more updates (with pictures) more frequently.

Back to the grind!

Well I know it's been a while since anything happened on here (nearly five months... i thought it was longer!!) - things have dramatically moved on.

After declining to make another offer on the house which needed knocking down and replacing, I then went to see another house in the same-ish area which was on for about the same price as the previous one. This time it was much more pleasing to the eye! None of the rooms looked like the exterior of a boat, decent yet 70's/80's decor and a nice layout that can be worked with and down a nice quiet cul-de-sac, perfect for the kid!

To cut a long story short, after an offer, acceptance, survey then further negotiations we got it for about twelve per cent less than the asking price!! This all happened by the end of September, since then everything has been with solicitors and mortgage advisor.

Unfortunately, solicitors aren't the easiest of people to deal with: firstly they take a big chunk of the agreed price for the whole job; then they give you a world of 'checking' forms to fill in where you are verified as a human, a sane person, a person who has money, a person who is who they say they are and most of all, a person who can afford their services; lastly, not only do you have to do this for yourselves, but for EVERY PERSON who is gifting you money for the deposit too! So everyone has transferred their chunk of deposit, I am going to tell them that I raised the money for the deposit myself, it's in my bank, hurry the fudge up retards! Oh and I'm expected to pay £95 plus VAT for this 'Service'. Kiss my ass!

To make matters worse, the psycho woman who used to rent the house next door to us (whose tenure culminated in us making a police complaint about her mother's threatening behaviour) has only gone and bought it from the owners and is moving in on 6th of February... get me the hell out of this place quickly!!!!