And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Beanie and Cheery - it feels incredible in one way to think we've lived there a whole month - but the opposite side is "how have we only been there a month?!" it felt so much like home pretty much straight away! we were determined that the boxes weren't going to linger - when we moved in to the flat we did the same thing - just blitz through them as otherwise you end up feeling a bit demotivated to do it I think because you're "over" the whole moving house thing. I think from memory we have 5 not unpacked now - three which are MrEH's stuff for the beer festival, one of Christmas decorations, and I can't recall what the other is - possibly MrEH's spare rugby stuff. 

Dreaming we've been fortunate that firstly the house was already done so nicely - although obviously we paid for the privilege there - well worth it not to have any major work to be done mind! Secondly that where we needed things bought etc I had that pot of money from my Aunt & Uncle to provide. So far I've not raided that as much as I thought I might either although there are a few more bits to come from it, and the furniture renovation too. When we moved in to the flat one of the first things we said was that the carpets would need replacing - 20 years on we moved out again with most of the self-same carpets in place so it sounds like you're making substantially better progress than we did!
Our bedroom has laminate - I wasn't keen at first having always had carpet but it's a doddle to keep clean at least and we've solved the "cold underfoot" issue with the addition of a bathmat in the relevant colour on each side of the bed - they're in a style that just looks like a small rug too and do the job perfectly! 

I've just taken the plunge and emailed the furniture restoration people, and MrEH has heard back from the chap at the land of 0ak Furniture to say they can deliver on the 13th so all good there too!

I did forget to declare one bit of personal spendiness from the weekend - we had gone into M&S to see how much they wanted for fitted sheets, and I happened to notice that they do slippers with "secret support" in the arches - tried a pair on and they were super-comfy so decided to go for them in spite of the £19.50 (eek!) price tag! They're definitely an improvement on the cheap ones I've had before though - and they've got decent soles too. The best bit was that I still had money left in my personal spends from September so I used that and was able to feel as though they were almost free! I've been promising myself decent slippers for years - I wear them all the time indoors so something with a bit of support built in will be far better for my feet I suspect. 

jwil

I can't believe you've been in a month already.

The slippers sound interesting, I'll have a look as I want to replace mine and the support sounds good.

foxgloves

That's a good price for arch-support slippers, @EssexHebridean. If you knew how much I paid for mine, I think Mr EH would have to be called upon to administer a cardiac massage.
F

Sun_Addict

Ooh I love slippers with decent soles 🙂 Furniture wise I can highly recommend C0tswold C0mpany, really good quality and not that expensive. Most of our furniture is from there. Best of all it’s fully assembled. 

rtandon27

Eeek! EH - where has that month gone!!!

savingholmes

That month has flown. Glad you are feeling so settled. The decoration sounds positive too. 

PennysIntoPounds

Happy first new mortgage payment!
The rich blue wall sounds lush 

beanielou

My hall has just been painted in a lovely lush blue. 

I love it so so much. 

I had this colour in the hall years ago & loved it then. 

Had to have it mixed but I am worth it!! 

EssexHebridean

The month really HAS flown hasn't it! jwil I definitely like the eMandeSs slippers so far - although it will be interesting to see if they do what most seem to and stretch to a point where they're falling off over time. I think these will be going back if they do! Foxgloves I think those are definitely at my limit for cost! SA one of the reasons for wanting them is that I do have a tendency to "just pop out" to the garden and while the others do have plastic soles they're shallower than the new ones so I was finding I occasionally got damp feet! 
RT and SH - it really has flown by hasn't it! 

We did look at the Gloucestershire based furniture company and they had some lovely looking stuff but it came down to just not being able to easily go and look - although annoyingly I have just discovered that they have a store at the next big town across from us! Pah! THAT didn't come up when I searched before! Oh well - we may trundle there at some stage as there are still a couple of bits we want for the house going forward. 

Got our first month's bill from the Octopods - pretty much as expected which isn't surprising allowing for the smart meters I guess! The numbers all tie up too so the meters are sending correct readings which is good to confirm - going forwards I'll check that every couple of months, or if anything looks a bit unexpected. At the moment though we will be adding to our credit a little this month, and I have already tweaked next month's payment to increase by another £10 - the intention is to do that until we get to £105 I think for a start then see where we need to go from there. At the moment it's not looking like a massive increase on the levels of cost from the flat in the summer moths at least which is reassuring - we were a little concerned about the additional running costs of things like the big fridge freezer, and also that so many lights in the house are on sensors so just come on and off automatically. There are also outside lights which are on through the evenings at the moment - we need to establish what the score is on whether the one at the front is light sensitive or on some kind of timer - and the ones in the back garden we may just deactivate over the winter as there is little point in having them on when curtains are likely to be closed anyway. 

MSE Stuff:
- More CC money shuffling completed - the bits bought at the weekend have come straight from my account
- I found a stray £10 sitting in the account we use for voluntary role expenses too so that's been transferred against the cost of the hotel for the upcoming meeting trip - albeit the overnight stay is a cost for us rather than to be reclaimed. The next task is to work out where we might be able to park as it would be better all round for us to take the car rather than using the train. Cheaper for the organisation and definitely easier for us. 
- Banks checked and all as expected. A small sum swept across to the VSP
- Had a good discussion about the multicooker options last night and I think we are both agreed that we are going to order the one we've been looking at all along and if it won't fit on the main worktop then we'll opt for putting it on the island instead. Much as I'm trying (and mostly failing!) to keep the island free of clutter I do think that would be a good use of space on there, and it's more logical to buy the thing we really want rather than making a compromise on the basis of size/aesthetics. 
- Furniture restoration chap replied last night asking for photos. I suspect he's going to quote me a price that will mean I have to consider quite how much I want the work done, but we'll see. It may be also that he's able to make the bureau in particular look a lot better with a smaller amount of work while not doing a "complete job" as it were. 
- My fixed rate ISA should convert over to a "normal" one today and the interest paid on it too - and once that's happened I'll organise getting it transferred to the current year's one to make life easier. I might then consider moving the lot to another fixed rate one at some stage. 

Food last night was a prawn stir fry, and I'm going to do couscous for this evening I think with sauteed veg and probably halloumi. Tomorrow we'll have butternut squash & chickpea curry with rice (from my batch cook on sunday) , and Thursday will probably be sausage and mushroom pasta. As always that is mostly open to interpretation as yet though! Mr EH is WFH for the rest of the week as things stand - he was planning to go to the office tomorrow but I believe the wretched train strikes will make that impossible (as well as also almost certainly making my commute more hellish even than usual!) so that's him in the home office right through. The plus side on this is it does mean an earlier return home for me which is always an advantage. 

LadyWithAPlan

All sounds very fabulous and how fun to look at kitchen design. I use my multicooker every day - so even though I have a cupboard space for it it rarely is in there more than overnight.