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........