Friday, 10 May 2024

Awful house but to others perfect!

 This is one of my favourite programmes and we watch it quite often, usually on iplayer. How Dh suffers watching it with me I wonder as I comment on most things.. the last one we watched Mantel was wearing a lacy type dress.

Me.. Her dress looks like a  lace curtain and she's wearing boots? I like her hair, I wonder if that colour is her own?

Criky, Does he think his hedgehog hair style makes him look younger??

Hasn't Dion a lovely smile, he always looks super.



And this is before they even show a house.
Some people must love what they do, as some of the houses that have been empty a while and have leaked rain must stink.. So a fair job to take on and when they show the finished house, they are gorgeous, if you like everything grey!

But when I bought my last house in Billericay, it wasn't wonderful when I moved in. But it had something that appealed to me. It had a biggish entrance  hall and a fair sized garden for a three bedroomed semi-detached house and I loved it right away.

One of my friends, who came to see it a few days after I moved in, burst into tears because she thought it was so awful. It did smell of animal pee, but I pulled up the carpet and that got rid of the smell, except I was left with broken the Marley tiles.
The previous owners had stuck beams on the walls and between them was deep artexing  almost like sea waves. The kitchen was small with only one wall cupboard and a couple of base units and it was dirty!

It had taken all my money to get rid of the mortgage on the house, I bought after my divorce so there wasn't a lot of spare cash and I had resigned from my job. I hated that job, the Head Teacher was never there. I had enough and decided to do Supply work. I had more work than I wanted and kept to 4 days, so I could have the time to sort out this little house, it was 2001. I hadn't reached retirement age so I had to work.
My son helped, the first things to go were the beams, artexing, old flooring. Then over time I had everything new starting with the windows and doors.. then new kitchen extension, a new downstairs loo put in and new bathroom, garage and I loved it all.
Friends helped me with the garden and it was perfect for me. 
I met my Dh in 2004 and we married in 2006.

When I sold that house after the 14 years I had lived there, the value had tripled.. we moved to that beautiful Victorian Villa in Suffolk and were just getting used to the area and surrounding villages and then .....lockdown. It was so quiet there, I really didn't like it and Wales was calling to me.. so here we are and we've had everything done here too to make our lives comfortable and we love it!
So I understand people buying what looks like an awful house, because I did!
Chrisxx

6 comments:

Margaret said...

I can fully understand why Wales called. You. It’s a beautiful place. Little Sister and I thoroughly enjoyed our three days in North Wales.

Mari said...

We have similar shows here that I like to watch.
Our first home was pretty awful, but we did so much work on it and made a nice profit when we moved!

Marie Smith said...

The home improvement journey is full of adventures. You were brave to take on your previous home! Enjoy your new place!

Live and Learn said...

It takes a lot of vision, hard work, and money to redo a dilapidated house. But it seems to be a favorite thing to do on the home makeover shows.

Fun60 said...

I could never see myself buying a house that needed so much renovation yet whenever possible I watch that programme. There's something quite addictive about it.

Back2OurSmallCorner said...

I love seeing some of those doer up houses but I think they are firmly in my dreams now and not reality. I don't think hubby and I want that kind of upheaval now. You have a lovely place in Wales now though x