Moving home and future plans

Sometimes, I still can’t really believe we’ve moved house. We made the decision very quickly and, while it certainly wasn’t a hasty one, it was the right one for us. It just felt like the right time to move, but it’s a hard feeling to explain as it’s both exciting and scary, leaving you wondering ‘Are we doing the right thing?’.

We bought our first home in January 2017, which needed some serious renovations that, luckily, we were able to make while living at our parents’. We ripped the kitchen out within two days, then subsequently had to rip the bathroom out due to a leak. Renovations took longer than expected and more work was required. Isn’t that always the way?

Neither of us really had a plan for how long we would live there. I’d thought maybe up to five years, but it was in an area that we’d mainly picked because it was cheaper than Chester. We ultimately ended up liking the area a lot, but it was still further away than we wanted to be from our families.

One day, during a random car journey to I-don’t-know-where, I mentioned going to see a mortgage advisor and possibly having our house valued. Jay agreed, and that was kind of that. Our decision had been made and we didn’t look back. The house was valued slightly under what we wanted for it, so we put it on the market for a higher price. It sold within 21 days.

Now our home selling journey certainly wasn’t plain sailing – in fact, it was quite the opposite. It was stressful, I was having heart palpitations and chest pains for around two months at the end of the process. There were various moments when we thought our sale was going to fall through, and then it didn’t. At one point, I even put up a story on my Instagram that said it had fallen through. One hour later it was back on. I’ve never experienced a rollercoaster of emotions quite like it.

Obviously we’ve made it through to the other side, but I can still look back and see it as a truly shitty time that we won’t be doing again for a while. I’m sure selling a house in normal circumstances is hard but selling a house in lockdown is not something I would recommend to anyone.

BUT that part of moving home is over and the house is officially ours.

 

Our new home

 

It’s a 4-bedroom detached house with a separate double garage based just outside of Chester. It needs some work but not too much and that was the most important thing for us. We wanted something with potential to extend and that was a bit dated, but not falling apart, about to catch fire from dodgy electrics or riddled with damp.

This house is in very good condition. Even the kitchen, which is the original one from when the house was built, is in fine order. It just needs a lick of paint and some new flooring for now.

One of my main desires was a downstairs loo, a family bathroom and an en-suite. We’re currently using the en-suite room as a guest bed and we’ve got the larger bedroom at the back of the house.

I will be updating the ‘Our current home‘ page to reflect the new house! For a full tour of the house and garden, you can visit my Instagram page and watch my IGTV videos.

 

Future plans

We have big plans for this house. The garden is a jungle that needs a huge amount of work to get it neat and tidy again, but we can do that gradually over time – a little bit each week.

Our big plans involve extensions, knocking walls down and adding bathrooms. This work probably won’t be done for a few years and so for now, I’m taking temporary measures to make the house feel like ours. I’ll be painting walls, wardrobes, kitchens, tiles and more to really modernise the place. It was rented out for a few years, which explains the choice of cream walls and carpets throughout.

You’ll be able to keep up with my journey on this blog or on my Instagram via grid posts, stories and IGTV!