Half a house

Silence101

We've handed in our notice to the current house. Because it was newly decorated when we moved in it will be pretty obvious how much wear and tear the walls have suffered. We keep trying to teach the children to be careful but they are at a tricky/messy age. Luckily there's no carpet (did I tell you all how much I dislike carpet yet, and yet we will have to carpet the new house ) so getting things clean should be a lot easier. And if we can move the furniture out asap, we'll have a lot more time to do a good job! I might see if we can move all the stuff from the upstairs first, so I can clean rooms one by one.

Poorlittletightgirl

I think marks on paintwork is expected after renting to a family, you just hope that they rent your house long enough to warrant painting after each tenant moves out. Our cream walls look appalling now after two years, luckily it's my sisters house so we won't get charged. But I wouldn't charge the tenants who rent our house, in the likely event it will need painting.

Silence101

Yeah, that's the problem, we usually stay quite a while, but this time we've only been here 9 months. The last place we stayed for 3 years so it wasn't so obvious, and the children were younger and were quite good at keeping away from walls.

Silence101

Today I'm buying exciting stuff like underlay, and pink paint. We're thinking of doing a pink, teal and navy colour scheme. The pink will be quite pastel (I tried to convince Mr Silence that Hot Pink would be great, but I failed miserably ) I might have to get a few tester pots as some look really violet online and we definitely don't want a purple tone. I'm also going to have to practice not getting any on the ceiling!
We still haven't started packing. I guess because there's no flooring there's not much we could move when we first get the keys. One day to go!!

Silence101

Today should be the day!! Mixture of fear and excitement.
We should get the keys this afternoon. And I'll try and sort out online banking asap (I'm not sure when we'll get the paperwork about that.)
We were planning on doing the flooring this weekend, but it looks like we won't be able to. At least it means I can try and find better deals online. I will be painting a wall, and we might be able to put some shelves up in the mean time.

wildesavings

How exciting! Congratulations on your new home xxxxxxxx

wishingthemortgaheaway

I'm excited for you.

I've been thinking about your floors. Do you need flooring straight away? I'm assuming so, so I'm guessing the downstairs is just dusty concrete on the floor?? What about the upstairs? Is that floor boards? Could you leave the upstairs and focus on the downstairs until you've saved up a bit more.
Again, I'm assuming not as I'm sure you would have thought about that.

Silence101

Thanks!
Yes, it's concrete downstairs and mdf (I think) upstairs. We're actually thinking it needs to be the opposite, that the upstairs needs to be done first, as it could get damaged quicker than concrete. The initial plan was to do it all this weekend, but it hasn't worked out, so we'll have another pay day before we need to buy the downstairs stuff, which means we might be able to pull off wooden flooring after all. We keep going in circles at the moment, but I'm sure it'll all work out one way or another. We don't need to have it done desperately as we still have another 3 or 4 weeks here. And if the upstairs is done, we can store the furniture up there (it'll be a pain bringing it all up and down again, but we could do it if necessary).
I think we'll order everything for upstairs tonight, get it delivered next week and put it down next weekend.
My plan for this weekend is to paint the one wall (we're keeping everything else white for the time being) and to plant some bulbs in the garden (I hear now is a good time).
We're also going to buy a fridge (and maybe a dishwasher) from the local charity shop. They sell things at 10/20% of what it would cost new, so we're happy with not having the latest stuff.
Because of the flooring issue we still haven't looked for the beds for the children, but they do have basic beds so it might be a Christmas thing instead.

We have so many costs that I'm planning on only making tiny overpayments the first 3 months, but I do want to put a minimal amount straight away.
If we get our deposit back from this place (we shouldn't lose much of it, if any, but you never know!) we'll have a bit more funds to play with.
As you can see, my head is running wild with all the ideas and options and what needs to be a priority

Silence101

I think I'm going to have to start using headings, as I've just reread my last post and even I found it hard to follow:rotfl:

Silence101

We've got KEYS!! It's actually happened!!