House And Home

Hello Dear Readers!

“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

This week! ah, this week! Seven days; days that have left your friendly neighbourhood seated person a terrified, happy, excited, joyous mess of a man and no, it’s not just because my wheelchair is once again on three wheels (see Thee Wheels On My Wagon for details of that ongoing saga!) .If I tell you that this lucky dip of emotions follows conversations with three estate agents and the viewing of no less than four different properties then, well you may just guess the rest.

That’s right. Tina and I have bought a house!

Well, okay, no, that’s not quite true.

To be just a touch more factual Tina and I have had an offer accepted on a house. There is still the unbridled joy of dealing with the bank, solicitors, surveys, a no doubt endless amount of paperwork, and of course all the sundry expenses that such wonderful things bring. Nevertheless, with an Offer In Principle sitting snugly in our collective back pocket it is looking like, with a favourable following wind, we will soon have that all important foot on the property ladder.

Our hunt for the lesser spotted house of our dreams commenced in earnest on Tuesday, a day when both Tina and myself had our days off from work. We hit the estate agent’s websites with a vengeance, our previous experience with the ill-fated town house (see New Loo Blues - A Moving Story) having strengthened our resolve and given us the confidence to spread our net just that little bit wider. So it was, that with minds wide open, we looked at a veritable plethora of properties and finally created our own little short list, consisting of perhaps seven or eight likely suspects from this online reconnaissance, and decided that, as there is no time like the present (as they say), we would get right to it and arrange us some viewings.

Despite deciding to not rule out any kind of construction, we still ended up looking at bungalows. Predictable I know, but really, for my needs they are pretty much tailor made, with the lack of my old nemesis the staircase being a real bonus.  The first bungalow was shown to us by the nice lady who owned it and the vieing was progressing nicely, with the place evincing nice big rooms, lot of space in the hallway, and a good sized kitchen to boot... Then we saw the bathroom.

Now, as a wheelchair user it is always nice to have a little space in the smallest room, and to be fair there was a little space. A very little. In fact there was so little room that I couldn’t actually get past the doorway. I’m sure you can see why this would be ever so slightly problematic. Still, there is a positive in everything and this was a lesson learnt. After this the facilities became the first priority to look at in the remaining abodes we viewed.

The remaining three bungalows soon became two as one of the contenders fell to a ridiculous entrance that consisted of a large step up to the door, immediately followed by a further two steps inside the foyer leading to a second, internal, door. Not an ideal set up and one which meant that putting a ramp in place would lead to a gradient not unlike the north face of Everest or, in order to flatten this gradient out, a ramp approximately a quarter of a mile long.

So, we were down to two. Our grand finalists ticked pretty much all the boxes, although the bungalow I will call A was a touch snug in the hallway. This meant an awkward turning circle, and restricted access to some of the rooms. It wasn’t impossible by any means but it was a short taxi ride and a hel of a long walk from ideal. It was also right at the very top of our budget and would leave us nothing to spend on home improvements but then, it was already decorated to a lovely standard. In fact the only thing that really needed to be replaced were the rather plush carpets, which we would preferably look to change to laminate flooring (although this was actually true for all our viewings.)

Price wasn’t an issue that bungalow B had, as it came in significantly cheaper. It did need a hell of a lot of work though. In fact bungalow B needed a new kitchen and bathroom as well as decorating throughout, replacement flooring, and some polystyrene roof tiles knocking out. On the plus side the only thing needed from an access point of view was one door widening and the obligatory ramp putting into place (again this was the same for all properties.)

Decisions, decisions, eh?

In the end it didn’t actually take us too long to make our choice. Can you guess what we plumped for? No? Well, dear readers, let me put you out of your misery. It was in fact…

Bungalow B!


via GIPHY

Yup, we went for the fixer upper. Our reasoning was that it was a better lay out that would make access extremely  easy throughout and with the money we save we can really put our own stamp on the place and make it truly our very own home. Although Bungalow A was lovely it was still somebody else’s style and we would have to learn to live with that or spend money we wouldn’t have to put it in that position.

 It’s going to take work, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take money, but I think we can really put our own stamp on our final choice, make our own style decisions and really turn it into our one and only forever home.

Until next time…