Saturday, June 23, 2018

House Hunting

I have been house hunting since the start of the year, knowing that come Easter we'd be officially Welshies...originally we were looking at Bridgend, but having lived in Gorseinon for a month we decided that we'd stay around Abertawe.

Looking for houses online is like online dating - you have a look at them, decide if there is potential, choose whether you want to go on a viewing (a date), once there you judge the house on the area, feel, mood and then you opt to either take it further or sack it off.
Although, when you are in a couple you do all of this with your partner and have numerous arguments, etc about whether you should or shouldn't go further in the process - which makes it even more fun.

At the start of June, I spotted this crazy looking house in Gendros which has 5 bedrooms. It wasn't the area we had looked at before but we weren't opposed to it. We had hoped to be countryside based but it was stated by Ro and I that we were seeing the house "because of the house and garden not the area". We booked a viewing for the next day.

Once there it felt good, the house had loads of potential, a really warm feel and we could move in immediately without doing any work.

We put an offer in, knowing it wouldn't be accepted and assuming that the house would go for more than our budget could afford...two days later we were counter offered and after some tooing and froing we offered the asking price, as long as it was removed from the market - within one hour it was accepted and removed.

Our mortgage application is in, our solicitors are in place, now we just need everything to be green lit and hopefully we will be in by the end of July.

It has had lots of love before, but we can give more to it. In time we'd like to landscape the garden (adding a vegetable patch and knocking the shed down). We would like to knock the walls between the kitchen and dining room through - if possible (it'll take a couple of RSJs, a builder and a lot of money) but it'll add so much to the house.

As you can see, we've been dreaming a lot. In addition, I'd like to convert the attic, making one of the rooms into an en-suite & walk in closet, I'd like to remove the doors from the cupboards in the front bedroom, making them into shelves. Ro can't wait to fit his own home-made kitchen, I want to build shelves into the TV room to frame the sofa...our plans are endless.

But it is all in the air and who knows what will happen. The building may not be safe or have major issues, the bank may refuse our application, you just don't know but for now, I'm going to dream and dream and dream and just enjoy it.

We had planned to initially move for five to ten years and then find out homestead and move, but if we get this house I know we'll stay for at least 15 years.

Like I said, it's just like dating, some times you think it'll only last for a few fun years and then find yourself married with children.

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