Since all the work was completed in 2016 we really enjoyed the house that we’d created. We loved the open plan living space and having a separate lounge available so that we don’t always have to watch the same thing on TV (particularly in May when football seems to be on ALL the time!). We loved the connection between the house and the garden and opening up the sliding doors in the sunshine. We loved the Aga and warming up on it after getting cold outside.
We didn’t love everything though – I never ceased to worry that we were much louder than our attached neighbours; lockdown living with both of us working from home and home schooling the kids meant we were fighting over the one desk; and we wished that we lived on a road where we felt safe to let the kids out on their bikes (the 30mph speed limit was routinely ignored and plenty of cars, motorbikes, lorries thundered past at 60ish).
So in summer 2020 we decided to put the house on the market. And yes, this is when the utility room finally got painted! We had the standard torturous experience of the English property market. We accepted an offer quickly and found a house to move to. Our offer was accepted but 8 weeks down the line the vendors decided they didn’t want to move after all. Back to Rightmove we went (although, to be fair, Neil never left Rightmove as his online guilty pleasure of choice) and decided to look around the house we now own – despite having ruled it out initially for being a bedroom short and not having enough garden for playing football. When we looked at it in more detail we realised that half the garden wasn’t shown in the online sales details and that it had 2 offices so the lack of the bedroom wasn’t as much of a problem as we first thought.
Once we had our offer accepted we were full speed ahead to ensure that completion happened to meet the stamp duty reduction deadline at the end of March 2021. If we’re being kind to the solicitors, they were probably inundated with other people who were also wanting to complete purchases by the same deadline. If we’re being honest, we just thought that they were terrible and this was compounded by being unable to get hold of them. We had a few days of stress where it seemed as though the whole chain was about to collapse as agreeing on a completion date seemed beyond everyone. Our buyers and the people behind them in the chain were adamant that we must complete by the 25th Feb; our vendors were equally adamant that anything earlier than 11th March was impossible. Eventually a date was agreed and we were packing up ready to go.
On moving day itself everything went smoothly during the morning (despite the second bout of home schooling meaning that the children were with us and simultaneously over excited and “soooo bored”) and we set off for our new home. After umpteen phone calls, the solicitors finally pulled their finger out and transferred our payment to the vendors. As it was lockdown there was nowhere else to go and this delay meant sitting in the road outside our new house for 4 and a half hours waiting to find out whether we actually owned the house and then for the keys. Thankfully it was an unseasonably warm day for February and unloading the football goals helped keep both the children and the removal men entertained!
