Thursday, December 17, 2009

No fixed address.

Well, a few months ago now we bought our first home. *sigh* It was with much delight and excitement that we picked up our keys and downed a little champagne in celebration. But, since that great day the sheer fear of renovating as loomed towards us like a quickly blackening cloud. Buying a house that's a hundred years old may just be the craziest thing we have ever done. Officially.

After tearing up floors and ripping off plasterboard, we noticed that all the walls were bowed. In carpenters terms that means the walls are wonky and need to be straightened before the plasterer can come and do his thang. This is no mean feat. It has taken us just a couple of weeks to wrangle a few straight walls here and there while we juggle babies and work committments and family and friends. I think the party has started but no one is having fun yet.

We also discovered that our floors are rotting. Not good. Ben checked a few of the beautiful baltic boards and noticed a little bora. And no, I'm not talking a shiny new VW under the boards. Some will need to be replaced and others relocated (bedrooms will be carpet so all 'good, slightly less bora' boards will be salvaged for hallway and living room).

Add to this the fact that our roof needs straightening (thank you 19th century knob -end who thought a lean-to would be the 'next big thing') our windows need replacing, and we have no wardrobes, and you have yourself quiet the project to finish before Jan 4th. Yep. Our plasterer arrives early new year to start giving us walls and sanity.

Thankfully we are staying with Bens parents at the moment who have been nothing short of terrific. Ben is working out of home at the moment which means we also get to spend a little fam time together first thing in the morning. Here is just a little look at our early morning 'exercise Maggie, drink coffee, entertain baby' walks.







When Ben is busy inside, Annie and I occupy ourselves in the new garden. I did lots of weeding and placing plants so they looked pretty, and Annie just tried to look adorable. I think we both succeeded.





2 comments:

Vic said...

If all goes well, we too should be the proud owners of a 100 year old "cottage" quite soon... way to freak me out! ;)

Hope everything that needs to get done quick, get's done quick, and everything that needs to be done full stop, gets done... full stop!

Lisa said...

So it may take a little longer than first exepected, so what - I know it's going to be just georgeous.