New year, new house...

I have not blogged for such a long time. I'm just a bit rubbish. Here's a short update! I finished C25k and can run for 30 mins. Nanas house sold quite quickly, and as soon as we knew we had a buyer, we went out looking for a house for us, which we found and put an offer on in November. I started a new zumba class with my old friend Wendy, taken by the lovely Anna, and am once again addicted and started doing 3 sessions a week. Nanas house sale completed in December. I reached my final slimming world target on 19th December. We went on a christmas cruise on the Red Sea. I started a new job role in the new year (taking on a long term role in playgroup in the new afternoon sessions with my own key children) and yesterday we completed on our house purchase and I picked up the keys..... and of course today is my birthday!

So yes - right now I need to keep a journal of new houseness and so this is it!

The house is 1930's end terraced pair of flats converted into a single house. I knew as soon as I went in I wanted it. The rooms are not huge, but there's plenty of them. It has no garden but does have a yard with some mature shrubs and trees. The layout of the rooms is so good - whoever converted it did a terrific job. Downstairs there is a living room to the front, an L shaped dining room (was 2 rooms knocked into one), and a long galley kitchen extension to the rear. There are 2 good size double bedrooms and a smaller bedroom (workroom!!) on the first floor, plus a sizeable bathroom over the kitchen. Ultimately however - the selling point for all of us was the loft room. It runs the length and width of the house, is in 2 sections with an arch between, 2 velux windows and a proper staircase. It will be the most wonderful room for Tom.

I have had my camera in my bag all day and was too busy thinking up plans to take any photos so that will have to wait till Thursday morning now! (edited to add - photos now taken and added to post!)

Jamie and his pal Chris went down there tonight and pulled up the carpets in the living room, bathroom, front bedroom and loft, plus the warped laminate from the back bedroom. They also removed the wall shelving from my workroom, and carried out the very large CRT TV that was left in the loft!! My workroom has laminate flooring, the dining room, hall and kitchen have laminate flooring - all perfectly fine. The stair carpet needs replacing too - that needs pulling up as well, not sure why I decided not to have them do that too tonight, but theres plenty time!

The living room and hall stairs and landing are wallpapered and its fairly new and perfectly ok. The rest of the house needs work. All the bedrooms need painting. The bathroom needs painting and possibly a new loo in.

The living room has a bay window. It has no fireplace on the chimney breast and a plinthy thing that used to have the sky box and DVD on, as the TV was attached to the chimney breast wall. Plinthy thing is bricks, needs knocking out, and I want a fireplace put back in. I may need to remove paper from chimney breast and replace with different paper as the holes from the TV mount are large and high up and not going to be covered by the fireplace.... but thats ok - it can be a 'feature' wall....

In the dining room there is a cubby where the old fireplace was - again the previous owners had a TV on the wall - and the old fire cavity was left as a feature with lights and sockets in and a shelf for the DVD/wii.... It will eventually need the sockets taken out and the hole blocked up and plastered - but that will also require the removal of the (paintable) wallpaper on the chimney breast and thence the whole room needing repapered. For now - I am painting the walls and putting a couple of Ikea Billy bookcases in front of the hole..... problem solved - or at least temporarily hidden from view. In the end of the L shape I have planned 'the nook' - my space to sit with a coffee and a good book.... the flooring in here is a really rather lovely aged wood effect laminate.

The kitchen is an Ikea kitchen. There is and integrated under bench fridge and freezer in the kitchen. There is no room for Doris (our American side by side fridge freezer) - options available were to rip out integrated fridge and freezer and chop bench and put Doris in space, or do away with Doris (eeek!) - neither of which I wanted to do..... LUCKILY the alcove on the dining room side of the kitchen door is big enough to accommodate Doris!  So I now not only have a huge side by side fridge freezer - but a small under bench fridge and freezer as well. There is also an integrated washing machine in the kitchen. I do not need this, the previous owner is coming back for it. He has left me the dishwasher instead! I am very happy!!!

The bathroom was a sticky point. It was carpeted. Not only was it carpeted on the floor, but up the side of the large raised corner bath, and on the steps that take you up to the bath *shudder* carpets in bathrooms - no! It has of course now been pulled up - tomorrow the floor will be attacked with lots of cleaner and a fair whack of bleach to remove the smell you always get under a carpet round a loo where blokes live.... The walls are an interesting colour. If I'm being kind I'd call it 'nutmeg brown' if I'm not, well its very apt for a room containing a toilet is all Im saying...

The main front bedroom has a bay window that echos the bay in the living room. There are also built in wardrobes to the alcove and completely covering the chimney breast with an area to put the bed between the wardrobes. I wasn't too sure about them in the dark last night and wanted them out. A better look today and Im actually ok with them - its the spare room not our room - but the insides need a coat of white paint on the internal walls as they are not lined and I want them brightened and made cleaner inside - they will be USED wardrobes for the long items such as my long dresses, and also Petes many suits and shoes for his 'other job'. There is a drawer/cupboard unit built into the bay. This is lined and is fab. A coat of paint and a new carpet and a bit of repair to the blinds in here and we have a comfy and attractive guest room and somewhere to keep Petes singing equipment too! and a ready made huffy bed for those times when its needed..... *ahem*

The back bedroom is actually a little smaller than the front but its just a whole lot nicer. It was a smaller room but has has a good 3-4 foot extra added to it in the remodelling when the flats were converted originally. So now it has 2 windows, and they face south, so a warm and light and sunny room! Slight issue - the ivy that covers one end of the house is encroaching on one of the windows - and even worse its coming in through the air brick - eeeek! triffid!! The ivy is being removed asap.... *shudder* The walls will be painted, a nice new carpet will be laid and the bedroom door replaced as its got glass panels in it and that's no good for Peter who hates even a tiny light glow from a socket.... and this will be our room.

The small room is actually not that small, you could fit a double bed in, but not much else. Its also an L shape - and better still behind the door there is plenty of space for shelving so no inch of the room will be wasted. It is the ONLY room in the house that retains the original picture rail for which I'm both sad (they are all gone *sob*) and glad (its MY room and I've got the rail woohoo!) It has perfectly ok laminate flooring already in, but it hasn't seen a paintbrush for many a long year. With some scrubbing, TLC, a shed load of filler and lots of fresh paint it will be the PERFECT workroom. I have planned it to the last centimetre.

And so we come to the loft. Its big. Its currently an alarming shade of deep pinky red that makes you feel you are inside a large mouth about to be swallowed. With added graffiti in black marker (predominantly Oasis song lyrics.....) and a hand painted silhouette image of the Beatles. Its an oblong room divided across the middle by an archway, thus separating the 'sleeping' side of the room from the 'living' side of the room. Tom is having a sofa bed and a couple of bean bags so he can chill with his pals and watch his TV and play on the xbox in his living side, and a bed and wardrobe in the sleeping side (and also his desk and PC for homework!). It needs a scrub, new flooring (still undecided on carpet or laminate....) and a bloody good coat of paint or 5.

The hall has the same laminate down as in the dining room. The hall is long and narrow but perfectly formed. There are 2 apertures to the front as once there were 2 front doors. one is filled with a panel, one a door. It is planned for some time in the future to remove the panel, brick up the old door frame and make it into a small window, plus put in a new super smart front door and a canopy over the door, and railings on the top of the small wall. For now - a colourful striped rug and a couple of ikea shoe cabinets will look wonderful. There is a large understair cupboard which is the only cupboard in the house apart from the airing cupboard in the bathroom!!

So that's my initial thoughts on the house after owning it for one day. I'm pretty sure they wont change further (maybe slightly, but nothing VASTLY different now) - they have varied many times today until coming to settle on the above. Now: the hard work starts....