When The Limey and I took the next step in pretending to be adults and bought a house, we did what we were told was the right thing, and bought a house with "good bones" in a good neighbourhood. It was the cheapest place on the block and it needed (needs) lots of mostly cosmetic work, with possibly a bit of minor structural-type changes.
Before we moved in, we repainted the living/dining area and kitchen, and repainted and re-floored our bedroom. We had lots of ideas about the rest of the place: grandiose plans of built-in bookshelves; visions of an artful, useful kitchen; replacing the falling-down lean-to with a conservatory; I demanded an orangerie!; etc.
Well, you all know how this pans out. We've done almost nothing since we've moved in. In fact, the two spare rooms are still filled with boxes yet to be unpacked. We were sensible about getting a mortgage we could afford, so we could save up some money to improve upon the house. Since we've done nothing for months, this little pot is big enough to do one thing. We could re-do the kitchen, dramatically change the garden, get a great bathroom, floor and insulate the loft, put in my orangerie, etc.
One thing.
But we don't know what. Even worse, all those ideas we had? Too vague to price up. And we don't really know what's possible, anyway. And, really, the actual problem is that we don't know what we want. We don't know what kind of kitchen (except "bigger", which, without going into details, is currently not feasible), we don't know whether we really want to spend the money on the bathroom, we don't know whether a conservatory could be used as a kitchen extension...
We basically have no idea. So we are paralyzed with choice and options, afraid to do anything for fear of it being the wrong thing. So we haven't done anything.
What I want is someone to come along, stride purposefully about the house, and say, Do these things! and in this order!
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2 comments:
I know exactly how you feel, we are in the same position. We saved up a pot to get things done, and then got stuck! We finally decided on the bathrooms, and we've just finished them. I have to say I'm glad I did them first, it's great to have a bathroom that you love, and that no-one else has used before you :) We're going to do the kitchen next.
We're moving to our new house in a couple of weeks. The house we bought doesn't really need much work done to it except for the bathroom which is ugly but in completely great condition (so hard to justify replacing). We are going to save a huge pot because our decision will be around knocking the whole thing down and rebuilding a bigger house or massive extensions up and out. Good luck. I'd go with the orangerie!
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