The Ongoing Saga of Ruby Trying to Own A Home

ruby_eskimo

No more wallpaper stripping, but the bathroom was completely stripped out yesterday along with the wall that needed to come down 🤯  All done by lunch time, but woke up to a massive puddle in our utility room where the plumber hadn't tightened a nut properly and it had leaked through the floor and down the wall.  Foreman came out early to sort it all out 👍

Front room being plastered now, office should be done by the end of the day and then tomorrow they're going to start on our bedroom.  Which means trying to find places to put all the bedroom stuff tonight (that isn't already taken up with living room, office and bathroom stuff 😂)

On the money front, I've had to start a sinking fund for a friend's hen party next year - she's having one in the UK and one abroad and the only one I can make is the abroad one.  Should be fun but I'm sure it will be pretty expensive too (looks like a few days in Portugal) so trying to start saving now while I can and spread the costs out so I don't just put it all on the credit card.  Oh and DH has had a) his annual pay rise confirmed and b) a temporary promotion confirmed too.  The extra money is all just going into the house pot towards the kitchen renovation next year (hopefully if we have enough money left over!).  I'm also getting a pay rise this month with back pay to April so the extra cash is going to be split between my LISA and the house fund.  Which reminds me I need to start paying the extra money into my S&S ISA.  I'm also going to look at getting an individual life insurance policy to give us a little more protection as it's DH who's supposedly stopping us from getting a decent policy together.

ruby_eskimo

And because I'm just astounded at how much progress they made, here's a picture of what will be our new bathroom:

debtfreewannabe321

haha at the bathroom! That is bringing back memories of ours two summers ago only we did it ourselves so ours stayed looking like that for WEEKS! Hope you get a nice finished lovely bathroom to relax in soon I can't believe how much you have achieved already, the house will be completely done before you know it!

ruby_eskimo

Thanks @debtfreewannabe321 - when we offered on the house we worked backwards from a price we were happy paying for the house and took off the costs of all the things that needed doing straight away (the bathroom being one of them) and made an offer based on the bottom number we came to.  Which I was surprised they actually accepted but it meant we paid a fair price for the house and then knew we had money left over to do some of the work straight away.  Luckily we also had a little buffer to pay for the unexpected like re-plastering walls and a new ceiling in another room that wasn't planned.  

Once all this work is done then it's just painting till after Christmas while we save up for the kitchen replacement which will be the next big task.  Once the kitchen is done then we can save to have the floors refinished and new carpet and then we should have a lovely house with then the big garden project to do after that.  

Doesn't sound a lot when I write it like that but it really is and I don't really want to know how much money it's all going to cost 😩🙈

ruby_eskimo

And just like that, the ceiling in our bedroom is now down 🤣  While the plasterer has to finish off the downstairs tomorrow (he's on another job today), I said to DH that if it was raining, then I bet the garden guys will be back to take the ceiling down, and sure enough...  Plus they apparently brought our friend's old shed with them to chuck in our skip 🤣  Wonder if I can get our mate to share some of the cost of the work if we're taking all his rubbish in the skip we've paid for? 🤔😆

I'm in the office today so DH is the one dealing with all the noise and mess.  Has a really good conversation with my boss about my role and looks like my promotion will still be going ahead, if only because they need me to manage a super important project that I've already done before in a previous organisation.  Not going to lie, I've been daydreaming about the pay rise it will give me and it will just make things a lot easier financially and I'll hopefully be able to stop stressing about making sure we have enough in savings.

Sugarplump

That picture of your bathroom takes me back to earlier in the year when we had ours renovated and they had to wait for the doors, so we had a lovely new bathroom with a bed sheet covering the doorway for a few days. If you were on the toilet and heard someone coming up the stairs you had to announce you were in the bathroom so they didn't walk in on you.

ruby_eskimo

Sugarplump said:

That picture of your bathroom takes me back to earlier in the year when we had ours renovated and they had to wait for the doors, so we had a lovely new bathroom with a bed sheet covering the doorway for a few days. If you were on the toilet and heard someone coming up the stairs you had to announce you were in the bathroom so they didn't walk in on you.

That's too funny - we're having a door fitted today (as they're building the stud walls) but because I've not decided on handles for the door, we won't be able to close it 😂

ruby_eskimo

Think we were probably the only people in our area that didn't see the northern lights properly last night.  There was a faint green / purple hue to the horizon but couldn't pick anything up on camera 😞  Oh well, just means there's even more of a reason to go to Iceland now 🤣

Spent last night on the spare bed which was actually quite comfortable (which is good news for all the guests who've been sleeping on it since we bought it a few years ago 🤣).  Plasterer is back this morning to finish off downstairs so we might be able to get a bit of our kitchen back over the weekend or we might just leave it a few more days and get the painting done whilst everything is out of there.  

Stud walls are being built for the new bathroom this morning as well as some first fix plumbing so that's all going ahead relatively well and should hopefully all be done before we go away for a few days at the end of the month.  They have 17 days to get it done 🤞

This weekend we need to get door handles for all the doors, even though we're not replacing all of them right now, I just want to make sure that the bathroom door handles match all the other handles in the house 😂  Also need to get a light for the bathroom too and decide on some paint for the living room.  

ruby_eskimo

We're going to be living in chaos a little bit longer as DH has decided we're going to spend all next weekend painting downstairs...so this weekend was spent buying paint and all the supplies as apparently that was the one thing he forgot to get out of the shed when we moved 🙄

Plaster is here and has put a new ceiling up in our bedroom so that's good and apparently the plumber should be here tomorrow to put radiators back on walls so we can actually have some heating again 🥶

Ebay buyer finally collected the drawers they bought after a lot of back and forward and the money has gone straight into paying for the paint we ordered for the living room / my office.  

Have also booked some flights this morning for a friend's hen do next year, which I got a bit cheaper because I'm flying with a different airline to most people, out of an airport that's close to my parents so I don't have to pay for parking (dad's taxi will drop me off / pick me up).  Although looks like I'll be spending the first night on my own as the dates have now changed (after we spent weeks agreeing them...).  Never flown on my own before so a little bit scared but also excited at putting my big girl pants on and doing something on my own.  Had already started setting some money aside to budget for the trip so will use that to cover what I've spent on flights this month and then we don't have to pay for the accommodation till a bit closer to the date 👍

South_coast

You can spend the first day/night of the hen familiarising yourself with the place and then roll your eyes at the others from then onwards for their complete lack of knowledge and your obvious superiority 😀😀😀