A Reflection on Two Years of Home Ownership
Two years has flown by so quickly. If you've been here since the beginning, then you might well remember me announcing that we had bought our home on here in a blog post called 'The Day We Became Home Owners'. About a week after that, I reflected on the first week in our new home, and here I am now reflecting on the last two years. How quickly has that gone? I feel as though it's just flown by and I couldn't be happier with everything we have done to the place in such a short amount of time.
So here's everything I have to say about the last two years of owning our first home. Number one, it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. Harder in the sense that mortgages are a minefield, even more so now, and we needed to do a lot of work to our house before we managed to get it to how it looks today. We still need to do the kitchen, the dining room and our bedroom, but we've actually completed renovated about two thirds, if not more, of our home so far.
It has been a struggle. There were ups and downs throughout the process and it does get stressful. Not only is it stressful because the house is always a mess while work is being done, but you're always anticipating the next big project and it can stop you from properly relaxing. I feel more at ease now that the majority of the house is done, but I'm still dreading the fact that we have a kitchen to rip out and refit because I know it will be difficult, but it will be so worth it. But that's all in the future, so let's stop and look back on the last two years.
Within a year: the living room, the WC & a new boiler
The first thing we did was renovate the living room. That was a huge job. The plaster in there was old and there were layers upon layers of wallpaper dating back to at least the 70's. We stripped it all off and replastered the walls ourselves and salvaged the rest of it. We put in a whole new central heating system, replacing the radiators and the pipes for new ones and moving them from wall to the next, burying the pipes behind the skirting boards.
We put a new hearth in, put a door on where there wasn't one before, out brand new skirting boards and architraves on and we had to restore the entire ceiling. We also restored the original wooden windowsill that was covered with a plastic shelf. There was so much that needed doing, and we did it all ourselves. The only thing we didn't do ourselves was replace the 27-year-old boiler. If you want to read about our living room renovation in more detail, together with some before and after pictures, then take a look at this blog post :)
Whilst we were doing our living room, we were also renovating our downstairs toilet. We redid all of the pipework and put them in the wall because the pipes for everything, even the outdoor tap, was on the outside, with no attempt to hid them with trunking. It looked unsightly and the tiles were polystyrene that were just stuck on top of old ceramic tiles.
The room was also half-wallpapered, so we got rid of all of that and took all of the tiles off. Unfortunately, taking the tiles off also ripped off most of the plaster, so we plastered all of that ourselves and managed to salvaged the walls.
We also built a new fake wall for the new toilet to sit on whilst replacing the sink for a sleek corner model. We ripped out the plastic window sill and put a wooden one in instead. We also put a new door on with a lock and gave the room a splash of colour! If you want some more details, together with some before and after pictures, then take a look at this blog post!
After our first year, we started 2023 by renovating the hallway, replacing the bathroom & putting decking down in the garden
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