Taking the plunge...

Renovation house images

The first thing that I want to say as I sit down to write this is that this is not by any means where I actually planned to end up. We had been trying to buy a house for four years...FOUR YEARS... I never, ever imagined that it would take that long, not by any stretch of the imagination or any uncertain circumstances but the more I talk to people, the more I hear stories that are so similar to my own, and the trouble is, as time passes, life goes on and needs change so what you started dreaming of isn't in any way practical by the time you are halfway through the process but whilst stumbling around in the dark with no actual end in sight, you have no idea that you are in fact only halfway through in the first place. Then the inflation is constant, so the prices that you were looking at become more and more unrealistic, the government makes changes, other people's governments make changes that seem to affect our housing market, we have pandemics, for the love of god, a pandemic!? I have never seen so many houses thrown onto the market, withdrawn, put back on, withdrawn again, only to creep back on several hundred thousand more expensive. If I'd have told my child self that a million-pound house wouldn't even have off-street parking let alone swimming pools and a pony I think I would have had a very different relationship with my therapist. Still, as it stands, the feeling of falling into insanity, thinly veiled by online reviews and social media is, in fact, a very large reality of the process of buying a house. I still wake up every morning asking myself what the hell I've done and will it actually be ok!? I remember being stunned at the words my mortgage advisor gave me as another house was pulled off the market weeks after our offer was accepted, again! NEVER BUY A HOUSE THAT YOU LOVE -Like, I'm sorry, what? You want me to go through all this, spend this amount of money, on a house that I don't even like??? why??? - Because you won't care so much that you can't be practical, you can walk away if the deal is bad, won't be devastated if the deal falls through, BUY A HOUSE THAT YOU CAN TURN IN TO A HOUSE THAT YOU LOVE! - and after four years of dashed hopes and heartbreak, that's exactly what we did... and finally, it worked, finally, astoundingly, we weren't outbid, gazumped, the sale didn't fall through, the property wasn't taken off the market, it took another four months longer than it should have which was an excruciating wait, every day expecting a call from the estate agents to say how sorry they were, every day, week, month that went passed doubting, keeping an eye on the market (which I still do for some reason, just in case?) waiting for it to fall through but it didn't and one day, delayed by another four days but still one day, I was actually allowed to go and pick up the keys. The level of surreal and bizarre shock was in some way sublime; my feet wouldn't quite touch the floor when I was walking to the estate agents, they were all beaming and celebrating on my behalf and I couldn't quite process after four years, actually walking out with keys, I felt like an imposter, like someone should be stopping me from stealing the keys, I didn't feel like I really had permission to just open the door and walk in, to somebody else's house!? I swear the whole first week was just shock, a bizarre feeling that actually really slowed down the process of getting started with the renovations and took a long time to dissipate.

As I mentioned renovations before, the little sketch of a house there might actually be slightly more accurate than some would believe, until they read the surveyors report! Don't get me wrong, this house is amazing and it has been thoroughly loved over the years and the work and effort that the previous owners put in showed how much they loved it BUT... the house has only been sold four times since 1895 which means it has skipped a few upgrades over the years and beloved as it is, the notion that we finally manage to buy a house because we found one that no one else wanted did fleetingly cross my mind and although that might be true, I am so eternally grateful to everyone that didn't see what I can because I absolutely love it and I'm honoured to be the next owners!