Saturday saw Gabs and Co. en route to Chelmsford for the second chapter in the Great House Hunt. We had four to view which Himself had arranged with various estate agents in and around the area.
The first house was beautiful, the garden was amazing, it was in our price range and very close to the station. The catch, you ask? A distinct lack of storage space, I reply. Where would my shoes live??? We moved on to the next.
It was a milk carton. Square, white, oddly arranged inside (a window in the front coat closet?) and smelled of rental property. Someone else's food, you know what I mean. On to the next.
The third was quite large, three bedrooms of which one would more than suffice for my in-house craftiness, utility room, garage, huge garden, in pretty decent decorative nick. Very nice kitchen, and the stove would be left for us. Right in our price range, and Himself reckons we might even be able to talk them down by £5k or so. Very promising, on to the next.
The fourth house was HUGE. Separate garage, wendy house in the garden with carpet and electricity, three bedrooms of which one was a loft and perfect for my Etsy business. Issues there are that there was rather a lot of mainly decorative work that needed doing, and it's thirty grand more than the other three which puts it over the threshold for stamp duty (another 3% of the entire purchase price paid to the government, for those of you not in the know). It also needed a new kitchen and none of the appliances would be left so would need to buy all new, and the garage door needed replacing. Himself thought he might could get them to knock off a decent amount of cash, but still wasn't enthused about embarking upon such a massive project.
End result is that we both agree that the first house was too small, the second too weird, the fourth too big of a project, and the third might be our "just right". He's arranging for us to view it a second time this week, will take my camera for those of you who care to see what it looks like.
As for yours truly, I'm trying to wrap my head around no longer living in London. It's going to be very, very weird. However, as Anne and LM Montgomery seem to feel, it'll all work out if we find our little House of Dreams. x
The first house was beautiful, the garden was amazing, it was in our price range and very close to the station. The catch, you ask? A distinct lack of storage space, I reply. Where would my shoes live??? We moved on to the next.
It was a milk carton. Square, white, oddly arranged inside (a window in the front coat closet?) and smelled of rental property. Someone else's food, you know what I mean. On to the next.
The third was quite large, three bedrooms of which one would more than suffice for my in-house craftiness, utility room, garage, huge garden, in pretty decent decorative nick. Very nice kitchen, and the stove would be left for us. Right in our price range, and Himself reckons we might even be able to talk them down by £5k or so. Very promising, on to the next.
The fourth house was HUGE. Separate garage, wendy house in the garden with carpet and electricity, three bedrooms of which one was a loft and perfect for my Etsy business. Issues there are that there was rather a lot of mainly decorative work that needed doing, and it's thirty grand more than the other three which puts it over the threshold for stamp duty (another 3% of the entire purchase price paid to the government, for those of you not in the know). It also needed a new kitchen and none of the appliances would be left so would need to buy all new, and the garage door needed replacing. Himself thought he might could get them to knock off a decent amount of cash, but still wasn't enthused about embarking upon such a massive project.
End result is that we both agree that the first house was too small, the second too weird, the fourth too big of a project, and the third might be our "just right". He's arranging for us to view it a second time this week, will take my camera for those of you who care to see what it looks like.
As for yours truly, I'm trying to wrap my head around no longer living in London. It's going to be very, very weird. However, as Anne and LM Montgomery seem to feel, it'll all work out if we find our little House of Dreams. x
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