The title of this post should probably be ‘six months in Ely’ or ‘six months in our new home’ but nope, six months of DIY is the most accurate of the bunch.
So yes, we have lived in our house for six months. Six months of painting and planning and ordering, six months of joy and FRUSTRATION, six months of WHY IS THIS TAKING SO LONG and DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY NEW CUSHIONS. It’s been a hoot.
And we’re not done. But we are – as I constantly remind myself – getting there.
I was unprepared for how time and money consuming doing up the house would be, and how many other aspects of life would be neglected as a result or how little exploring we would do of our new area because every weekend would be dominated by tackling the to-do list, pushing through so that we don’t still have unpainted rooms and unpacked boxes in 2032.
Most rooms are now painted with furniture. We have renovated the master bedroom. The kitchen renovation is booked for February. I long for the day where I can start putting prints up because that means we’ve reached the minor details; that everything else is done. I mean obviously, house-related admin is never really done, it’ll be the garden afterwards and we’re casually ignoring the fact that when it’s windy out, the blinds flap even when the windows are closed. But done enough to not be the main focus of our lives.
I’ve learned that painting a wall requires technique if you’re going to avoid a patchy effect, that my husband is a right dab-hand at DIY (he literally built the fitted wardrobe from scratch) and finding blinds that don’t have an offensive pattern is surprisingly difficult.
Here’s to six months owning a house, and to putting down the paintbrushes and actually leaving said house at some point in the next six months.
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