Friday 29 March 2013

We have a house, now what?



It's such an incredible feeling buying a house. People can try and explain how stressful yet rewarding
the process is and give you all the advice in the world but nothing compares to living through it.

We were that crazy couple who had a settlement date of the 19th December. Which meant in the weeks leading up to Christmas when everyone's panicking about what to buy people and wrapping up work before the break we were trying to pack up our lives into boxes. I was still packing boxes as we got the keys, I was still packing boxes the day after we got the keys and I was still packing boxes when Josh's awesome mates turned up with utes, and 4WDs and trailers to haul out all our stuff. We ended up moving in officially on the 21st December, having a whole bunch of family and friends come through the place on the 22nd whilst we were living amongst the boxes. Then we cleaned up our apartment from top to toe on the 23rd, handed the keys in to the real estate agent on the 24th, went scrambling through the boxes to find all the Christmas presents and wrap them and then suddenly it was Christmas. By the time we stopped to really look at what we'd been through we had already lived in our house for a full week.

And that was the point that we looked around at this house full of potential and asked ourselves - now what?

Obviously there was a whole lot of unpacking and deciding where to put all our stuff. But beyond that we walked around the rooms of the house and all through the backyard overwhelmed at the possibilities of how this house could turn into a home.

In the early days we set about fixing up some obvious stuff like changing the locks on the doors since it was tenanted before us. We hit the front garden and backyard really hard because believe it or not this backyard came complete with 10 years worth of weeds. Weeds that had turned into TREES. We also ripped down some floral green wallpaper in our hallway - don't worry I have photos so you won't miss a thing with that!

Which brings us to today. We now have a house that's ready to have work done to it. We're now comfortable enough and settled enough in our work/life routines to be able to dedicate whole weekends to working on the house. So why are we still feeling stuck?

The only thing I can attribute it to is the overwhelming range of choice. Yes choice. Faced with millions of sites full of gorgeous bathrooms and bedrooms and decks and fancy kitchens it's very easy to want to do all of it to your house. But you can't. You need to spend a whole lot of time being selective about what will fit with your style of house, your budget, your aesthetic and ultimately how you're going to live in your house.

So here we are at the start of the long weekend for Easter staring down the barrel of 4 days off, our heads swimming with ideas and asking ourselves now what?

I've got a chalkboard full of things I'd like to achieve and a vague idea of a colour scheme and while I don't have all the answers yet I'm really excited to see how our choices over the next little while settle into place. I can't wait to share it with you!


6 comments:

  1. You've got great bones, and are lucky enough ( by the read of it ) not to need structural work, so .. take your time.

    The most important things for me before planning a renovation, is to live at least a year in the place, noting the seasons, the light, where it's dark, where mould grows, where it's light and love grows .. etc ..

    Just enjoy and research and live with the quirks - they may end up being your greatest asset! x

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    1. That is great advice. We're actually planning to get married in our backyard next year so I guess we're itching to get fixing up the house and the backyard for that.
      But I think it will help to really learn how we live in it as we go so we're aware of what changes are needed.

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  2. We've been in our new home only a little longer than you and we're definitely right there with you regarding the overwhelming choices. Our Easter weekend to-do list looked very similar to yours too. So much sanding and painting! I look forward to seeing your progress.

    Congrats on the new house!!

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    1. Good, I'm glad it's not just me! We've done bits and pieces to the house and backyard so far but nothing has such an impact as new paint in a room. All the sanding and plastering and sanding and cleaning of walls is great but this weekend was the first time it started to look a little bit like it was ours.

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  3. I'm a member of the decorating forum so I wanted to pop over and say hello! It looks like a gorgeous little house! I'm over at http://mydesignethos.blogspot.com since you were looking for other bloggers! :) xx

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! I'll certainly be heading over to check out your blog.

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