Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget - 2021

phoebe1989seb

Today's champagne moments -

Well, in the first instance, no more mice 😉

Secondly, I've been hunting for a budget friendly antique chest of drawers for the guest room and have found a beauty! We need this to accommodate overspill knitwear etc that there's no space for in our room 🙄 I so miss all the original built-in storage at our last house, especially the floor-to-ceiling linen press!

I knew exactly the style we were looking for and - having narrowed it down to about half a dozen on eBay - now think I've found *the one* 😉 I knew the price of brown furniture isn't what it was, but nonetheless I've been pleasantly surprised at the prices of those I'd shortlisted!

In an ideal world we'd be buying one locally, but our favourite antiques dealers don't have anything suitable, and, typically the eBay one I've chosen doesn't offer a delivery option.

So looks like I'll be getting courier quotes. Not a problem as we've used them before. It's always interesting to see how far the quotes drop after the initial flurry, lol, last time - in November when we had to get the kitchen sofa from Kent to Carmarthenshire - the initial quotes came in at £300+, but eventually dropped to £54 🙄

The chest of drawers isn't as far away so I'm expecting to pay £50 max to get it here. Even adding that to the purchase price it's still a good deal!

As long as I can get it here by early-mid Feb, I'll be happy 😁

MrsPorridge

Pheobe, glad your mice have gone!  Hope you can get a decent price for the courier for your chest of drawers.

helensbiggestfan

Interesting about courier quotes, I have never bought furniture off eBay because of the shipping issues, but there do seem to be some real bargains sometimes.  

My champagne moment......EA came round yesterday, to give me a valuation.  Wahoo. 💃💃. All my hard work and sacrifices have paid off.  This house has been a right old money pit, everything I've tried to do has taken longer and cost more.....I know that's usually the case but I think covid hasn't helped, delays, increased prices for materials etc.  

Anyway just waiting for my little man to come tomorrow, to talk about the last few final tweaks and then hopefully are can be ready for launch in March.  I'm sooooo excited.  I do like this house but I'm ready for pastures new.  I feel like I need a fresh start and a completely different way of living.  

I've started looking on RM but I'm not going to be panicked.  I can always rent for a few months until I find "the one". Finding the right house is a bit like finding the right husband, there's a lot of dross out there and you can't rush the process.  You know when you find the right one. 

When I bought this house she was sadly neglected. She was fossilised in time, but with some dodgy "modern" 70s/80s decor. In fact it looked as if Miss Haversham had lived here.  But I could see beyond the clutter and the cobwebs and the overgrown jungle. The house had "good bones" and has scrubbed up well. The EA certainly liked it, it was the same agents who handled proceedings when I bought it and she said she was thrilled to see the transformation.  So hopefully it should sell relatively easily and I can walk away with a bit of profit.  

Onwards and upwards, or in my case downwards.  The next one will not be quite so big and certainly less garden.   

MrsPorridge

My champagne moment today - discovering that my sewing machine has an overlocking/overcasting foot.  I've had the machine for 3 years and use it almost every day!!  So pleased, I have managed to alter a few scarves.  They were quite bulky so I have chopped them in half, used the overcast foot and made them smaller.

helensbiggestfan

Mrs P. That's great.  Very MSE. 

My other champagne moment today.  Picked up nine DVDs from the chazzer, 10p each.  That'll keep me quiet for a while.  😂

phoebe1989seb

Sounds like you've been very productive, Mrs P 😉

Great to hear you've had the EA round, Helen! It's all sounding very positive for you and as if your hard work will have paid off when the time comes 😄

I'm strange in that I actually love the whole selling process - or rather, I did till last time which turned into a bit of a *mare* 🙄 I think we'd always been extremely fortunate to sell quickly and have the process go through in the blink of an eye...and, tbh, even that horrific last sale only took five months from the date the house went on the market to completion day (it was just all the other aggro along the way...).

I'm sure that your lovely home will fly off the shelf and hopefully - as you are prepared to go into rented to break the chain - finding somewhere new will be a piece of cake!

Back to couriers - when we first began buying (and selling) on eBay about twenty years ago, there was a courier we regularly used, but they no longer seem to be in business, so more recently we've used Shiply when purchasing from private sellers. This has worked out well, although as I previously mentioned when the initial quotes come in, they can be rather off-putting! If buying from someone relatively local, it can pay to search out a local, small remover/man with van...possibly via the likes of faceache???

The stuff we've bought always seems to be on the other side of the country, lol! And it's not been unheard of for us to take road trips to collect *smaller* items (Essex to Yorkshire for a Smallbone butcher's block, Hampshire to Staffs for an Art Nouveau style Esse heater, Essex to Wales for a large granite slab etc etc)

We once drove from Wilts to Cornwall for another piece of granite to use as an island top, only to find DH had mis-measured the boot space in our vehicle and couldn't get the blooming thing in 😂😂😂 I'm afraid that wasn't very MSE at all - the granite only cost £23 (and it was about 1.5 x 1.5m), but we had the fuel cost, then had to pay our courier to collect...only it blew over and smashed in their yard before they got round to delivering it to us! They were extremely apologetic and refunded the cost of both delivery and granite, but the piece we eventually bought cost £700 😮

Anyway, today's champagne moment was getting outside in the garden and chopping down a few small trees (actually overgrown laurel hedging) along our front boundary and moving some primroses to a better location. I didn't manage to make much impression on the trees (only spindly ones, but some are 20'+ high!), but it was lovely to be out in the sunshine 😊 

I'm getting so excited at the prospect of spending more time improving the garden this year! Just waiting expectantly to see what's survived the winter is always so thrilling, imho 😆

sugarbaby125

My Champagne moment on Wednesday was going to the discussion group at Blackfriars Settlement. It was lovely to see the expression on the 2 women's faces when I gave them their birthday presents and their cards. They were so pleased. The man who also had his birthday was not present in the building so I left his birthday present and card with one of the facilitators. The centre provided some lovely cake and soft drinks for us to enjoy in the way of a small celebration. We also planned a group visit for 2 weeks time to the Tate Modern. 

Yesterday afternoon, my son-in-law and my older daughter came to collect all of the alcohol for my Great grandson's 1st birthday party. I am glad to see it all gone as I had no use for it, as even though my daughter and son drink alcohol in restaurants with meals, they do not drink alcohol at home, so I did not want almost £500 of alcohol to go to waste. I had a lovely visit with my daughter and son-in-law in the courtyard of my housing association estate, as she cannot gain access to my maisonette home. 

Yesterday evening I went to Theatre Peckham for a Poetry Open Mic event. This is also run in conjuction with Poetic Unity but is a free event. There were so many poets that I had never seen or heard before, so it was a night of revelations for me, listening to writers who were new to me. I had a really enjoyable evening.

My younger son who lives with me has an online job interview this afternoon 

phoebe1989seb

You're so incredibly thoughtful and kind, Sugarbaby...your family and friends are very fortunate to have you 😄

Today's champagne moment - last night DH installed my new plug-in wall light in the bedroom reading nook and this afternoon I've been using it to read by as it's dull and drizzly in Carmarthenshire today.

It was a fab bargain, reduced from £50 to £25, although till it arrived on Tuesday I was a little concerned I'd made a mistake and that the fringe colour (described as 'green' on the website, when I was hoping for teal as per the pics) would turn out to be wrong.

Like the rest of our home, our bedroom is extremely eclectic - 'Moorish maximalist meets Oriental boho mash up' probably best describes it, lol (huge hand painted peacock mural in unexpected colours, contemporary kilim rug, original art nouveau wardrobe and dressing table, lots of cushions, books, art and interesting textiles!), so I chose a light with a gold metal shade and shaggy fringing 😉

Luckily I love it!!! The colour is perfect, it fits right in with the eclectic vibe and I'm delighted with what it brings to the overall look 😀😀😀

Plug-in wall lights are such an ingenious idea too - if you haven't got wiring in place for the real thing, it's no problem, as you just need a nearby socket (plus drill etc to fit it) and away you go!

Eventually I hope to have even more space for books/reading/writing in the extension, but for now I'm so glad that Mrs P inspired me to move things around in our bedroom and create a cosy reading nook... thanks, Mrs P 😄💐

The space is transformed and at relatively little expense (about £115) 😁

phoebe1989seb

Here's a quick couple of pics (please excuse awful photo quality and unplastered wall - where there was a door previously, lol 😂)....

MrsPorridge

Phoebe, that is a lovely reading nook.  I use mine all the time.  Enjoy.