Living the Dream Ludlow style

Singlespeeder

Why Ludlow? A long time Poet Laureate probably says it better than ever I could ... " Ludlow....is probably the loveliest town in England with its hill of Georgian houses ascending from the river Teme to the great tower of the cross-shaped church, rising behind a classic market building." - John Betjeman, 1943 
Personally I've seen myself ending up in the Shropshire / Herefordshire area for a long time and Ludlow is the jewel in that particular crown.
I've had a bit of a self made rocky road to get here. A long time board reader and occasional contributor I've gone from happily married spendthrift, the epitome of a spendthrift tbh and as a family we racked up about £50k of debt living a life we couldn't really afford.
This took its toll and I've then been through a costly (for me) but mostly amicable divorce, leaving the ex and adult kids with their home and no debts, and myself with no home and £45k of debt.
After a while of renting, I met a wonderful lady, who's similar enough to make us compatible but different enough to keep me on my toes ... and who's much better with money than I am, and cautiously accepted me and my debt.
With her guidance I worked through the Debt Free Wannabe board, a great place with excellent advice and people. I chipped away and changed my ways. I now have no debt, no credit cards, a 2k Emergency Fund and a totally different relationship with money. 
We sadly lost  my partners mother in October '20 and had little reason to stay in Northampton so we started looking at other places and quickly settled on Ludlow.
We found a fabulous place, out of our price range slightly, but the benchmark to compare all other houses to.
Nothing else came close.
Then just before New Year the vendors dropped the asking price by £35k which brought it within our range ! Our offer was accepted and so I worked through the House buying and renting board.... 
We got the keys to our dream house on March 31 and so this diary begins .....

Singlespeeder

I have a bit of catching up to do  -
Where are we now?  6 weeks in. We're loving it ! We can look out the front windows and see the Mortimer Forest and hills. 
We didn't have a removal company move us as I drive a VW T5 Transporter van so we did the move in 8  x 200mile round trips over 4 weeks. No real hardship and a gentle way to move.
We've painted the 3 living rooms, the kitchen and one of the bedrooms.
I've painted the front door.
We realised the patio doors on the back (2 sets of ) were both frankly cr4p, one had a missing pane of glass so was single glazed and could easily be lifted out, the other had a single hook as a lock ... they had to go. As we'd saved £3k on not paying stamp duty this went on replacement patio doors... one sliding, the other inwards opening French. Quite how Ted Moult's Fit the Best  company survive I don't know as they quoted £12,000 which they discounted to a mere £7k instantly  !! Still over double what we paid, and I know we could have got it cheaper ( but with a MUCH longer lead time) ... hey ho.

Frith

Waves from up the road. 

Singlespeeder

More catching up  ... and another Ludlow quote ... 
" Has there ever been a visitor to Ludlow who hasn’t wished they lived there? " - Jeremy Paxman, 2009
We REALLY wanted a log burner, and we have one ! But we can't use it as the chimney is in a poor state of repair. We knew this, it was in the survey. The top 7 courses needed removing and rebuilding. 
A bit of history regarding neighbourly disputes, and serendipity .... you might want to get a cup of tea ...
We're #15 and attached to #16, semi detached as it were.
#16 has no direct access to their back garden other than through their house, so they have a Right of Way around the side and back of ours - I really don't have an issue with this ....
#16 uses a set of steps in our garden to access their garden.... I don't know why, they could just build some steps in theirs ...
On the other hand WE own, and have a RoW to, an outdoor privvy physically attached to the back of #16. 
The previous inhabitants of our house, we'll call the Mr & Mrs Thorn, didn't get on with anyone, including our other neighbours in #14 who had numerous ridiculous 'run in's with them. The old fella in #16 was also a cantankerous old wotsit and would deliberately rile the Thorns, exercising his right to the RoW whenever the Thorns were enjoying breakfast on the patio, barging through with a wheelbarrow for no purpose other than annoyance .... nowt as queer as folk !
Now we're a little different, all for the easy life and karma, treat people how you'd like to be treated, more flies caught on honey.. (though I think that should be 'more wasps caught on honey' tbh ) so  we just want to sort all this out.
The cantankerous wotsit in #16 died on 27th Dec '20, 3 days before we viewed #15.
The Beneficiary of the Estate of #16 is his Niece and her husband who, as I've discovered, is a pretty good builder, so we'll call him Bob, is also for the easy life and also just wants to get this stuff sorted.
Mr & Mrs Bob just want to sell #16. It needs A LOT of work, gutting tbh, new windows & doors, roof & chimney, rewire , replaster, new kitchen & bathroom and new central heating ... though other than that it's fine !
We've had a number of very amicable discussions with Mr & Mrs Bob and we're in agreement on everything.
We'll give them the privvy (which we don't want anyway), they will build some steps to access their garden. We'll turn the RoW into a Permissive RoW. Job done.
Bob knows the chimney needs doing so we've agreed to share the cost.
Turns out he's happy to do the work FoC !! So the scaffolding is up, the chimney is down and now back up and I've done the labouring. I'm not used to labouring, I work in IT from home, I have soft hands and feeble muscles. Pulling a bucket of cement up to above roof level using a pulley and a thin rope when you're more used to typing and googling is a tough wake up call!
Anyway the chimney is mostly rebuilt, it just needs the pots going on and repointing. Then we're installing a new liner for the wood burner and we should be ready to stay warm ! We might put a liner in the front room too but need to investigate that further.
While the scaffold is there I'm going to replace the guttering on that section of the house too. I've repainted the stone windowsill and headers. And we've removed 3 defunct TV aerials from the roof / chimney too.
No rest for the wicked !

Singlespeeder

We have a reasonable size kitchen and it was begging for a nice Farmhouse Kitchen table. We've looked all over and settled on a custom made 5'x3' one at a surprisingly good price. This was duly ordered a few weeks ago and was ready for collection last Friday !! Off we went after work on the drive from Ludlow to Nottinghamshire to collect it. It is BEAUTIFUL.
Installed in the house it's perfect, the right size, it's lovely. 
We're scared to use it.  You just know someone ( probably me) will drop a beetroot or red wine on it..... or I'll write a note and mark the top .... I know this is all part of the life and story of that table and it's there to be used but ....
The patio doors were fitted on Tuesday.
I walked into the kitchen and lovingly gazed at our brand new custom built table and ....WTAF !!!!! I mean WTAF !!!! Four dents in one end of it ... WHAT !!!! "Excuse me.... has something fallen on this table ? "  ..... "er, I leaned the door on it and it fell over, sorry "

And breathe.

Breathe again.

As yet I haven't paid the balance for the doors, I'm waiting to see what their Public Liability Insurance do.
Breathe again.

Singlespeeder

I have a window sill full of Chilli plants and a couple of tomato plants.
We have a garden now, we didn't in Northampton. It's just so nice to get out there listening to the birds, looking at the views, including views of the castle. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up over the next year. Exciting times.

Singlespeeder

Today I've potted on the tomatoes and moved them to the conservatory, and planted half a row of spring onions and 4 courgette plant seeds. They're usually pretty reliable and with having the space now seems daft not to. Runner bean will go in once I've prepared a suitable bed for them, probably this weekend if the weather isn't too bad.
Also prepping for the guttering. I've removed the old cast iron stuff, rubbed the fascia down and given it a coat of primer, should be able to get a 2nd coat on this evening too. 
There's loads of little jobs that need doing so I'm never stuck for things to do.
Hopefully we'll get the old liner out the chimney tomorrow ready for the new one to go in next week. Sounds like a filthy job to me.

Singlespeeder

I realise this is the MFW board and so far we've only made two standard payments.
We do have a plan, and hope to be able to pay off the maximum 10% overpayments each year, fingers crossed, it's ambitious but we think we should be able to do it. We're incredibly frugal, spend not much on anything, unless we NEED it. It's knowing WHEN to pay it off, personally I think the sooner the better, but we're being cautious for these first few months until we've got a better understanding of the costs of running the house.

Sapindus

Inspiring reading, thanks!
Quote: We'll turn the RoW into a Permissive RoW. 
Don't quite understand this bit.  What's the difference, legally?
Quote: We're incredibly frugal, spend not much on anything, unless we NEED it.
Now those are the miilion-dollar capitals, aren't they.  I bet you NEED something I don't, and vice versa! 

hanb2

Ooo will follow! I grew up in Ludlow. Fun fact, I cut the ribbon to declare somerfield open (it the co-op now!)  

Singlespeeder

Sapindus said:

Inspiring reading, thanks!
Quote: We'll turn the RoW into a Permissive RoW. 
Don't quite understand this bit.  What's the difference, legally?
Quote: We're incredibly frugal, spend not much on anything, unless we NEED it.
Now those are the miilion-dollar capitals, aren't they.  I bet you NEED something I don't, and vice versa! 

Currently the neighbour in #16 has a Right of Way, a right to "pass and repass, with or without a wheelbarrow, but no lingering" essentially they can cross back and forth as they see fit. The old fella abused this 'right' but was within his rights to do so.
We get on well with his neice and her husband ( Mr & Mrs Bob). I think they'd be ok with abandoning the RoW completely, they're never going to live there... and we'd be fine with that and perfectly happy to 'allow' access as required appreciating the neighbours may occasionally need to access their garden other than through their house. We'd be ok with that, as long as they're not back and forth all day long. 
Or we could hopefully turn it into a Permissive RoW, where they're allowed to use it unless we say they can't. We'd have the power to withdraw the permission if they start taking the pish.
In reality it hopefully wouldn't be needed but it's a caveat that may be useful and would maybe keep their use of it in check.

One persons NEED is definitely different to an others  ! I guess if I can't get by without it, I NEED a brush to paint the door, a ladder is pretty essential then we'll buy it, but apparently I don't NEED a new mountain bike  .... I think I do
TBH we're cheap, we enjoy shopping at Aldi ( and we have a nice one in Ludlow), I really enjoy yellow ticket shopping , though haven't had the opportunity in 15 months   We don't NEED much, and we've budgeted for most things we do.