Renovating Our Home: The Back Story

If you’re a follower of this blog then you’ll have heard me talk about our building work from time to time. As someone who’s obsessed with DIY and interiors, I love reading about people making over their homes so it seems only right to share ours. Over the next few months (and years), I’ll be sharing our progress as we finally turn our plans in to a reality and let you in on the building work that’s taking place. But first, let’s start at the very beginning, here’s the story of our home…

The Back Story

In 2014, we finished work on our first home together. We’d taken a run down, 60’s bungalow and gutted it completely; opening it up into an open plan, modern living space. Our final job was to rebuild the front wall and, as we stood surveying it, we agreed to get the house valued. We were about to get married, both in demanding jobs and were in complete agreement that we definitely weren’t moving for a long time. Less than a week later, we’d sold it privately and agreed to purchase the next one.

The house was part of an estate sale, meaning it was already empty. With a lot of luck, we managed to save significantly on the asking price and complete two months later. In November 2014, we moved out of our finished home and in to what we hope will be our forever home.

The House

Built in the early 1980s, our new home had only ever been owned by one family; a couple who’d lived in it for over thirty years. It was pretty apparent from the word go that it had barely been touched in this time; it was like entering a time warp with heavily patterned wallpaper and carpets throughout. Each room had it’s own quirks – a serving hatch between the dining room and kitchen, a swirling brown carpet in the lounge, a blue themed bedroom, a pink themed bedroom and my personal favourite, a shag-pile carpet that has gone brown at the edges.

Aesthetics aside, the house is well built, has barely been touched and has plenty of space for our family to grow in. The upstairs consists of four bedrooms and a bathroom. The downstairs hosts a utility, kitchen, dining room, lounge and toilet. Additionally we also became the proud owners of a double garage (which would inevitably become a dumping ground!) and a leaky conservatory. The key word on everyone’s lips was, and still is, potential. This house has a lot of potential; every room needs work.

With the pressures of a wedding fast approaching, we knew that this was going to be a different story to our last home. There we’d moved in and started ripping out cupboards within 24 hours. This house is a long haul. What’s the rush when you have forever?! As we move through the house and show you our progress I’ll be sure to share more photos of the original before shots so you have a better idea.

The Outside

Having moved from a home with little garden, a huge selling point for us was the size of the grounds. Sitting in the middle of a generous plot, this house has an enclosed front and back garden, both of which are considerable in size. The front garden is gated and enclosed by walls at the side and a front hedge; finally giving us a private driveway that fits multiple cars comfortably.

To the rear, the garden opens into a wide and relatively flat space. It’s clear that the garden hasn’t been maintained which is a huge shame as it was obviously someone’s pride and joy some years ago. Instead, shrubs have been allowed to overgrow and we’ve a huge project to undertake in deforesting it. Two and a half years later, we’re still working our way around removing the overgrowth – it grows back so quickly!

There’s a lot of maintenance to do with the outside in order to keep it under control but nothing pressing. Over time we know we need to replace all of the guttering, give the brickwork some TLC and generally get the garden under control.

Where are we now?

We moved in in November and focussed primarily on our wedding in June 2015. Rather quicker than we intended, we realised there was due to be a new addition shortly after and in May 2016 we welcomed our son. Since then we’ve done work to the nursery, main bedroom and some remedial works to the lounge before embarking on our extension and big plans! Each of these projects I’ll cover in more detail separately but suffice to say, there’s a long way to go.