Unloved and Unclean

Well the project is underway! Positive progress and some before/after photos are coming. Meanwhile, chaos ensues. 

We picked January as the ideal time to take off the roof. Which coincided with the week we moved the boiler. Obviously.

Oh, and we got a dog. Because.... Hang on, I've got this... Ok, no good reason, but we do love him.

After reading the wonderful "Squash and a Squeeze" by Julia Donaldson to the kids every day for several years, I found myself muttering, "what a curious plan!" at various professionals who have all manner of bizarre and often outlandish ideas about the project. 

When the scaffolders, builders, plumbers, carpenter, architect, au pair, children, dog and husband all wanted a Piece of Lisa before 9am on a Monday morning, my mutterings of "Glory be" turned into the below....

Ex-boiler site...

Unloved and Unclean. 

Adapted from Julia Donaldson's "Squash and a Sqeeze"

Lisa and family lived in an old house, 

With a table and chairs and occasional mouse.

A man from the council heard her grumble and grouse, "There's not enough style in my house. Council man, won't you help me, please? My house is unloved and unclean."

"Take in some Trades," said the Council  Man. 

"Take in some Trades? What a curious plan."

Well the architect sighed at the sight of the building, and drew some strange plans that couldn't be lived in.

The unhappy lady cried, “what shall i do? It wanted a project not a hullabaloo!

My kitchen has mould and there's a leak in the roof. 

My house is unloved and unclean."

And she said, "Husband, dear,  won't you help me, please? Our house is unloved and unclean "
"Rescue a dog," said the Husband Dear.
"Rescue a dog? What a curious plan!"

Well, the dog peed on the carpets and slept on their beds, then ate all the food and continued to beg.

The sad lady cried, "Glory be! It was messy before and now it's covered in wee!  The leaks are all worse and the dog's got fleas. My house is unloved and unclean.”

Our discombobulated dog

And she said, "oh Building Team, won't you help me, please? My house is unloved and unclean”.

"Take off the roof" said the Building Team
"Take off the roof! What a curious plan."

So she ordered the scaffold and along came a man - who sucked at his teeth and then hid in his van.

The weary lady cried, "Stop, I implore! It’s now starting to freeze, and my foot’s gone through the floor.  Even our cleaner (who's polite) agrees, our house is unloved and unclean.”

And she said, "Husband dear, won't you help me, please? Our house is unloved and unclean"
"Let's start on the bathroom," said the Husband Dear
"Start on the bathroom, what a curious plan."

Well, Hubby took one look and charged straight at the job, he ripped off the plaster, the sink and the bog.

The overwhelmed lady cried, "Heavens alive! There's a loo in the lounge, and mess I can barely describe!
I'm tearing my hair out, I'm down on my knees. My house is unloved and unclean."

Watch this space.  Just like we're watching space.  From our bedroom.  Through the open roof.

127 days later

127 hours.

That was a film.  You might have seen it.  it involved a man chewing off his own arm, or some equally unpleasant thing, borne of desperation and a fear that he would lose his life.  I can identify.

127 days (DAYS not hours....DAYS!) after that fateful viewing. After who knows how many hours spent on the telephone, asking the same question repeatedly, of different people, in increasingly desperate tones, we have reached an agreement: SOLD.  I am feeling confident that we have made the right choice. 

OHMYJESUSCHRISTINHELLALIVEWHATHAVEWEDONE?

My mental state is oscillating wildly.  Cheerful to giddy, on to terrified, giddy again, then subsumed by a level of anxiety reserved for those owing more to the bank than could be repaid if you sold your kidneys and left leg.  

Today I went to the house to start measuring (a task I have discovered can only be done in approximations as nothing is square, or even consistently wiggly).  I discovered the first job to be done:  change the locks.  Not for fear of burglary, but because I locked myself and the children in.  After  10 mins of shouting out to passers by through the letter box without success, calling my husband who assured me there was nothing he could do, I grudgingly called the estate agents to come and release me.  They were extremely gracious.   

Revisiting the house has allowed a bleeding of reality into my rose tinted view of the house, cultivated and maintained by months of careful pouring over the Estate Agent's glossy brochure and delighting over period features.  Let's see some examples, yes?

the back of our beautiful new house!

Rose tinted gorgeousness

ENTER REALITY.....

Reality

Lovely damp, shown here.  Seems likely this has come from having external concrete render over a building which essentially needs to breathe (see? I've been learning all kinds of stuff). We may also need an alternative to nailing lighting fixtures to the windowsill. #justsayin'.  

more reality:  the water  is clearly getting in somehow.... daren't look too closely in case i see daylight through the hole.

unexpectedly discovered polystyrene ...?

The kitchen

If i think about it too hard, restoration feels like an insurmountable task.   ALL of it requiring listed building consent, which takes months.  Our plans so far include, rewire, new lights, floors, ceilings, taking the 1960s out of the building, refurb'ed bathrooms, moving the kitchen, reinstating fires........ I  could go on.    I love this house.  I fully intend to languish in the land of delusion for as long as i can - probably  until the builders arrive next Monday.  The tinted glasses are  going back on:

Some non-polystyrene loveliness

mmmmmmm  panellng.

And this?  This is Bernard.

For the love of.....

Argh! This is a small post I am writing purely as a rant - a relatively safe means of expressing my feelings of rage currently elicited by the people /persons/institutions/economic climate/global recession responsible for the EXCESSIVE account of time, money and number phone calls needed to get a mortgage agreed.

Apparently telling them how much we spend on coffee (ahem), Andy's favourite sock colour and the direction of the wind was insufficient. They need blood. Perhaps we should offer them our first born too? Bank of Hades, Satan, Beelzebub & Cowell......

Feeling better already.

So. This is not an "informative" blog, but to give you some idea of what feelings the word "survey " now elicits in me, this is what we've had to arrange so far:

Homeowner survey
Structural engineer survey
Survey for building quotes
Damp and timber survey
Electrical survey
Architectural survey

Not all at once, mind. No, in teeth pulling, slow as grass growing, wrath incurring expensive increments. Yes, you 16 yr old only-seen-a-new-build-before work experience mortgage valuer THE WALLS AREN'T STRAIGHT AND THE KITCHEN IS CRAP: IT'S A 500 YEAR BUILDING USED AS OFFICES!

Today is d-day. Will they, won't they let us have a mortgage? Guess this will be my "last post" if not, eh?

Someone suggested more pictures in the blog. This is my face now:




Yes, I know, my hair is bad. It's raining out.

Why I should not be left unattended with a computer

Welcome!

Whether you know us or not, come along for the ride...This blog is, I guess, a record of the process behind buying and restoring a listed building. We dont have a George or a Kevin.

I can, with some certainty, predict blood, sweat and tears as this narrative progresses. I promise you are unlikely to feel alienated by our epic skills or distanced by the way we seamlessly problem solve and project manage.

No. We're reasonably normal. Ish. Our project is either going to be the best thing we ever did. Or it's going to end in divorce. I'm Lisa, I'm a psychologist. My husband, Andy, does something in IT (his job is similar to that of Chandler from Friends - nobody has any real idea what he does). We have two small boys.

We're buying a silly house.

I probably should explain.

Andy goes to the pub. What to do whilst he's out? Property Porn beat Food Porn, or just eating cheese from the block. From my position of Armchair Estate Agent, I idle through Rightmove's offerings.  Just as the block of cheese beckons, I mean, after all we're only just 98% "done" with our current London Victorian and we don't need to move, I see the house.

Now, it is perhaps fair at this point to highlight that in my interactions with the world, I *might* behave somewhat impatiently. (Case in point: before moving to the Victorian house, I put our house on the market whilst Andy was still painting the front door and I was 3m pregnant.) So, when Andy got up the next morning, I had a viewing booked for the house (2hr away from our current house) and a cost spreadsheet underway.

As I'm writing this about the project it is, I hope, patently obvious that the offer was ultimately accepted.  I will forever wonder if my behaviour during our one joint viewing with other potential buyers helped, "This wouldn't be suitable for young children. And on a main road! Woodworm here! Oh, and this room makes me feel positively claustrophobic!" Such viewing skills were honed through watching my mother in law in action - brutally ripping fixings from walls while declaring,"shoddy, poor workmanship " at the stunned estate agent. I'm also competitive. Very competitive. We were not losing this house.

Back to the house. A 17th century coach house. An active pub until early 20 century. Then a butchers, estate agency, satellite communication company office and so on. Not a home. Not residential.  Two previous sales were aborted due to restoration-cost-related-cold-feet. One viewing and 48 hrs after Andy let for the pub, we're embarking on an unplanned and unexpected move 2 hours north, out of London and away from family and friends. Shares in our local curry house have dropped.

Carried by momentum and an easy romantic delusion, mortgages were applied for and I began Doing Research (aka Googling).  Here's what we learned: it is a listed building (grade II), in a conservation area, shares a boundary with a Historic Monument, and is a site of archaeological interest. Quardruple whammy. Who cares, I thought. It'll be fine, I thought. Totes doeable, I thought. I found pictures on the internet of the house in earlier times. It was the housing equivalent of finding cute cat pictures, Helped me wade further into the Sea of Denial. #naive.

Come on in..... The water's lovely........