1583: Imminent New Digs

So, this time tomorrow we should be officially moved in to our new house. We almost certainly won’t have everything unpacked by then — though I guess you never know! — but we will be in there. Which will be nice.

This all seems to have rolled around rather quickly and surprisingly smoothly. You hear all sorts of horror stories about people buying houses (particularly their first house) that are full of stupid words like “gazumping” and this has just been… well, pretty straightforward, really, and we haven’t had to do nearly as much faffing around as I thought we’d have to. It was pretty much a case of going in to the estate agents, saying “we want to buy this house”, answering a few questions and then, a couple of months later, taking possession of our new house.

That’s an oversimplification, of course, though not by much; the people we were buying the place from didn’t dick around, and even the lawyers didn’t seem to spend too much time arguing with one another, though there was a little of that. The process was so smooth and straightforward that the act of handing over a not-insignificant amount of money for the deposit felt no more “serious” than just paying a bill or something. And now here we are; one sleep away from moving in.

While I was working last week, Andie and her mother spent a lot of time doing the new place up — painting, hanging curtains, cleaning, that sort of thing. I helped with a bit of the painting, but I stayed out of the way for most of it largely because I was busy, but also because I don’t trust myself an inch with DIY. As a homeowner I’m supposed to start caring about this stuff now, I think, but I’ve never been particularly fussy about what colour my walls are or if they match the ceiling; generally speaking, so long as I have walls around me and a roof that doesn’t leak above me, I’m fine. (Oh, and it should preferably be a comfortable temperature, too; warm when it’s cold outside, cool when it’s hot outside.)

I’m interested to see what it will look like with our stuff in it. It’s been a little hard to picture so far, but I’m sure it’s going to look good. I’m looking forward to having my own downstairs study for working — though with my current employment situation, it remains to be seen how much use it will be getting on a professional basis — and having an actual spare bedroom. We have a brand new bed, too, which I’m hoping is going to be significantly more comfortable than our current one.

There are still acquisitions to make before it will feel “finished” — though I’m aware once you own a house it’s never truly “finished”. We need a big-ass dining table for our extension out the back — big enough to fit sprawling board games, specifically — and we’re getting a dishwasher and tumble dryer, too. The dishwasher in particular is something I’m looking forward to; there are few chores I hate more than washing up. I’m not sure why, but my mind has always somehow equated dirty plates with being utterly disgusting — even if you’ve only just finished eating off them — and thus sticking my hands into a bowl of water with them has never been especially appealing. If you can get a magic box to wash them for you, then great; having our own place gives us the freedom to do just that which you just don’t get in most rental properties.

Oh, and we’re probably going to get a dog, too. We both quite wanted a cat, but we feel that would probably be foolish while we still have the rats Clover and Socks. Neither of them are big fans of coming out of the cage — except to climb up it and get into their Lego house that we usually put on top of it — so it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but I still feel it’s probably best not to risk having them in the house with an animal that might want to eat them. A dog, I feel, is less likely to want to munch on them — plus it’s a good excuse to go out and about and get some exercise by giving it walks every day.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical for now, but it’s not long until it becomes reality. Pretty exciting — though to be perfectly honest I’m looking forward to the “exciting” bit being over and just being able to get down to some serious and much-needed relaxation.