Ok. This is feeling harder. The complete lack of space. The requirement to be cleaning every few minutes or we can’t move because of mess. The lack of space to have any privacy or time off. This is not an ideal set up but it was the best I could do in this location. I’m glad my kid was smart and requested only 3 weeks here.
You know that thing where you start catching up on sleep deficit and the magnitude hits you like a brick? Yeah. I’m there. I am so tired I feel half dead. I feel pain in every part of my body. My kids fought all day yesterday and today they woke up fighting. So I arranged for both of them to talk to a friend on video chat. Let’s get those positive hormones going. They both need to be reminded that people like them too. They aren’t just a problem or anxious or fussy. They have people who feel joy at the sight of them. They feel joy when they see their friends.
I am not the center of everything. I am not capable of being your only source of joy.
Today I must get to the post office. Then the grocery store. Also the kid store because we are about out of diapers. I don’t want to but I must. Luckily I woke up to talk to one of my friends too. She says that if we find a place to land where they are capable of following us, she is on the next plane with her brood. They want out of California and they just don’t know where to go. I don’t know if they will be able to follow us out of the country, they aren’t tech workers. But it would be cool. She is someone I’ve kept from the home schooling group. She writes to me often. She asks questions about me; she tells me about her life. She volunteers her love so freely. I feel lucky to know her. Is she a mess in a dress? Sometimes. But she is also loving, giving, accepting, and fun. She cares about me and she shows it in a variety of ways. I feel special to her.
But in the bay I had to drive an hour to see her so we rarely got to spend time together.
I talk to her as much from other countries as I did in the same state. Because distance is funny.
Once I figure out mail stuff a little bit better I am ordering a damn bonnet. Not the historical white person kind–the kind that African American folk use to preserve their braids. I did cool braids yesterday and today I look like a fucking frizz ball and that annoys the crap out of me. I feel bad about the amount of stealing hair advice I get from Black folk, and I feel like white hair advice makes my hair look like shit.
We spent Sunday with Jenny and her kids again. It went really well again
I have spent years kvetching about how much I hate white walls. Do you know what our new house has? White on white on white. With a little bit of pink accenting in the hall and one bathroom is very dark colored.
Hm.
Done did PT today. (Well, I’m mid-way through. I will do half before lunch and half after lunch.)
It is hard doing this for so many reasons but I know it is important. I am trying.
It is hard feeling like no matter how much I try I am going to drop 10 balls and that means I suck.
I am really upset that when I said I was happy about finally getting childcare (in a fucking year and a half) my friend’s first response was, “So you are getting a job?” I do three or more jobs at once. It feels really bad that it is perceived that I am a failure if I drop down to one or two jobs at once.
I am hanging out on Pinterest because I’m building vision boards for the new house. I won’t buy 99.9% of the stuff I’m pinning. That’s not the point.
I’m trying to not think about all the things I can’t control. My friendships. My kids. How fast the visa process happens. Whether Noah gets to keep this (ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AMAZING) job. The things I can’t control are kind of cock blocking the things I can control. I can’t make a whole series of plans until some stuff moves that is out of my hands. Like getting an actual quote for moving our shit.
I have a whole bunch of potential quotes in my inbox about shipping right now. I genuinely can’t go respond to them. I will cry. I don’t want to cry right now.
And I’m on day 29? of my cycle so hormones are fun and all that.
It will all get done. Mostly I’ve been hanging together with pluck and good cheer. Tonight… I stress.
But there are an awful lot of things I will never say. I shouldn’t even think about them.
Sleeping pill kicked in.
“I am hypocritical and inconsistent.”
That’s the book on being a parent.
We leave here in 6 days. (Less than that because our flight is early.) Luckily the airport here is tiny so for a 10:55am flight I think we should arrive by 9. It’s less than a 20 minute drive so we’ll be out of here at 8:30. Not bad at all. It’ll be about 22.5 hours of travel door to door. And I get to drive on the far side after installing a car seat. Festive!
Maybe. We’ll see. Emailed buddies to ask for help with the car seat. We’ll see if they agree.
We’ll see. That’s kind of my life mantra right now. How will things work out? We’ll see!
5.75 days until we leave. We all feel so sick. This is going to be… something. Ugh. I feel like a horrible person for getting on a plane within a week of feeling this bad but I don’t see what our other option is. We won’t have a place to sleep if we just stay here until we feel better. Changing the flights would be horrifically expensive. We will wear masks.
And wash hands. And use hand sanitizer. The world is a horrible germ infested place.
As bad as I feel about all the things I haven’t gotten done yet… we are getting an absolute ton done.
And the kids agreed to the reading/exercise challenge for the summer. And they like the idea of planning, doing, and reflecting as their writing.
Ok. I’ve got a few months planned. Now just do the things.
Of course I will need to reflect later.
Can you tell I am absolutely simmering with anxiety? Next on the agenda: order some pot to be delivered to my friend in Portland.
142 days until we will come back and do the beginnings of setting up house and paperwork and all that fuss.
The road trip was 167 days and we were so done with that. To the best of my knowledge we will only be separated from Noah for a 3 week stretch and a 4 day stretch. So 25 days alone with the kids in that 142 days. That’s not so bad.
Looks like the former owners are not up for the fuss of renting temporarily from us. They have a lot going on and that makes a lot of sense. They want 8-10 months in one rental without more issues. I totally understand.
That means that we will try to have our stuff shipped directly to the UK from California because we will take possession of the keys (our solicitor will at least) and when we have to come to the UK to handle paperwork in October we will spend a month starting to set up house. I won’t cry about this. (Really 3.5 weeks.)
207 days until we get to move into our house permanently and we won’t be traveling for quite some time.
We will get to go see Pam and her family in Taiwan for a month at the end of traveling there.
So many things keep changing. I feel like keeping track of the plan is hard. That’s because the plan keeps changing.
Luckily, when we go to Taiwan we will only need to bring the bare minimum of stuff we need for a month in warm weather. Golly that sounds so restful and light.
The plan has changed a lot as we have had to look at the realities of dealing with laws and visas and processes we don’t control. I’m a bit sad that we aren’t going to be traveling for the 18-24ish months I had hoped for.
I AM NOT THE TINIEST BIT SAD MY CHILDREN WILL BE ENTERING SCHOOL A LITTLE EARLIER THAN PLANNED.
I mean, things have gone ok for the past couple of weeks. And we have set up a summer full of Outschool classes that will mean I don’t feel like I need to do almost anything for their academics for a solid two months. I won’t be on vacation but I will have a reduced load. Ahhhhhh.
They have a bunch of classes set up in Minecraft where they will be doing a variety of learning activities through the game (it’s actually incredibly well done, we have tried such classes before and they learn a lot) as well as classes on healthy boundaries in relationships, being savvy consumers and ad aware, how to socialize with new people (kiddo said he really wanted this class–ok), and cyber safety. The kids will keep up with their Duolingo too because they like it and that’s on the list of chores they earn money for and they really like that part.
Middle Child never has more than one class scheduled in a day and Eldest Child only has two classes scheduled on a day for a couple of the weeks. I told them that I want them writing notes for the classes as their academic writing for the summer. What do you plan to do, then after the class write up how it went, what you changed, and what you think you might like to change in the future. Then get up and try again with the next day.
Plan, do, reflect.
And they have unlimited time on their kindles so they will hopefully go through a lot of books. I bet I could do some sort of reading challenge to encourage them to each be reading more. (EC doesn’t really need the push, but MC might benefit. He’s a fairly standard little boy–he’d much rather be doing than reading.)
MC will be receiving a pedometer watch when we get to Portland. It’s already arrived.
I think our summer challenges will be: whoever has the highest step count for the week gets to pick a family movie over the weekend. And for reading…. maybe for every 10 books you read I will add… £20 to your start of room budget? (I was going to give each kid £500 to start with for furnishing their rooms.)
We’ll talk about it at lunch.
Every. Single. Appointment. In. My. Calendar. Requires. A. Timezone.
This is hard.
This is a sick house. Which means so much laundry I am losing my marbles. The tiny washing machine can wash a twin sheet + a twin comforter cover or a twin sheet + 2 towels. Or about a day of everyone’s clothing at a time. This means I am doing 2-3 loads every day right now. Each load takes about 5 hours. But when folks are having to wash bedding nearly every day + going through a week of bottoms in a day… it adds up fast.
I am trying to feel gratitude that my kids got sick like this with over a week to go before we left. Now we are at 6 days to go until we fly and I am biting my nails with worry. Oh, and I’m on day 28 of my cycle. Cheers. Just waiting until my malaise turns into bleeding. Just my luck that is when I will get my turn to start vomiting with terrible diarrhea at the same time. Two thumbs up, would bitch about again.
My kids are trying to maintain a positive attitude, but feeling like this sucks. We haven’t had a proper fall-like-dominoes illness in a very long time so I guess we were due. I think one way or another we are traveling with breathing masks on so we don’t infect other people. Ugh. ALL THE HAND SANITIZER (in addition to washing our hands hourly). I am hoping Her Sweetness misses the worst of it. But I ordered carpet cleaner from Tesco because she had a diaper leak because she’s not in a perfect place right now in terms of her functions. I think this is her first poop diaper leak… maybe ever? My older kids had them but she’s been so normal and regulated it just hasn’t been an issue. Illness sucks.
I caught up on ancient emails from my inbox. I’m down to 10 emails and the oldest one is from May. Huzzah! I feel embarrassed about how far behind I get, but that’s life.
I am so glad I mostly packed stuff up already. I feel like a wound down clock. I’m still ticking but its coming slower and slower. Being sick sucks. I don’t have a fever, but I’m weary and depleted. At this moment our household stuff bag is around 40 lbs (a little bit more will go in here, like the laundry basket) and I think it will absolutely max out at 45 lbs. Maybe even more like 42 lbs. My personal checked bag is 33 lbs and I only have a little left, I think it will be around 35/36 lbs. Noah’s bag is sitting at 33ish lbs too. Eldest Child’s bag is about 25 lbs. Middle Child’s first carry on bag is under 20 lbs. Her Sweetness’ carry on suitcase is under 20 lbs. Noah’s backpack is greatly reduced in weight/objects but I haven’t checked it yet. I suspect it is going to be in the 15 lb range. My back pack is still going to be annoyingly close to 20 lbs (I have all the kid electronics). Middle Child’s rolling backpack is practically empty, it weighs under 5 lbs. Eldest Child is just carrying a purse onto the plane. I am shoving my purse in Middle Child’s backpack for the sake of not carrying anything more than necessary in my hands. And we have a stuffed diaper bag.
THAT’S SO MUCH LESS STUFF. Thank you for the loan of your garage, Jenny. This will be so much easier. Also: we will have room to get some stuff in the States where prices are lower. Yayyyyy. Such as: the thigh seam in my long johns gave up on me last week. I have been wearing them for like three years almost constantly. We picked up some Keen walking/waterproof sandals through the REI sale because walking in Bangkok in monsoon season is going to be festive. (My leather sandals hurt like a motherfucker in the wet.) I should probably leave them here to wear on the handful of days when they will work out. Ok, maybe I’m going to find another backpack worth of stuff to leave. I am trying as hard as I can go lighten the load. Every ounce counts, yo. 3.5 months of maxing out the weight limits has gotten stressful. Now I will KNOW that I don’t have to spend time frantically crying trying to rearrange where everything goes. I have space. I have 10-20 lbs of space left in a bunch of bags. That’s so easy!
I am happy that I have a waterproof heavier coat, and a warm baby-wearing coat in storage for when we come back. We have a coat that will probably be inherited by Middle Child by then in terms of size. Noah has a mid-weight coat that is not at all good for rain.
Eldest Child, Her Sweetness and I already have lightweight rain coats that are coming with us to monsoon season.
I think we need to acquire: a proper set of rain gear for Noah and Middle Child that is lightweight for the heat. Noah could use a jacket that is a bit heavier that will keep rain off him, but Inverness rarely drops below freezing so he isn’t going to need a super heavy coat almost ever. He’s just not the sort. We will need a slightly heavier water proof coat for Eldest Child for when she comes back. Long johns for everyone except for Her Sweetness? Luckily we have gotten/will get so many more hand me downs from our little cousin that Her Sweetness will mostly be set. I don’t think that will remain an option long term because my children are huge and Jenny’s children are fairly petite. But she hasn’t quite passed up the little cousin yet.
I might look for a pair of serious rain boots in Portland. I suspect my children should wait and get them after we see what size they are come next winter here. When I can talk Noah into wearing shoes at all it is a victory so he will probably not get real boots for walking in the rain. He just likes to leave me things to worry about. He’s kind like that.
I am sorta hoping that buying things off season means I’ll find some deals. *Cross fingers*
A bit less than 7 months until we move into our next forever home. Will this one actually last forever? I don’t know. Jenny is already talking about moving away for retirement. Maybe I’ll have to follow her again. But this is going to be decades of peace and security.
I’m tired. I’m going to go lay down again.
We are all getting sick. I hope this passes soon. Ugh. We need this to pass quickly. We fly in 7 days.
Errr, we are all going to be wearing masks and washing hands a lot.
I have already scheduled appointments with: dentist for Noah and me, chiropractor, haircuts for all four of us, and pediatrician for all three kids. I have emailed and am waiting for responses from the pediatric dentist.
I have requested medical records from everybody and I’ll be picking them up all over the bay.
Check all the boxes.
I need to message massage therapist too, but I’m waiting until some other stuff falls into place first.
We need to find out what day we need to go to San Francisco to start the visa application process. Apparently we must do it inside our home country and that means we have to do it in August. Then we will bebop over to the UK in between Bangkok and Taipei to process documents. We won’t land in our permanent home until January.
Things shift, yo.
Seems wise to do all the basic maintenance stuff in the US with our old providers so that we have a runway of not needing any services for a while as we figure out a GP and all the other providers here.
And more logistics are incoming. Woof.
“Your everything is not your productivity.”
Well, we got the house. And we need to hand over money by August 26th. We literally don’t sign anything. The previous home owner signs it over to us and we pay to have that registered with the government and… they hand us keys and we continue on our merry way. It’s not like California where you need to sign like 37 pages in front of a notary. Like, whoa.
We still have negotiating to do with the home owner. I am not 100% certain they will be out of the house on September 2nd (our official purchase date is our 13th anniversary–that’s so awesome) because they might rent from us for a while. We will be exchanging lots of emails to communicate because that’s how we roll.
I need to sit down with my OmniFocus and write down lists of tasks. Like getting copies of all of our medical records. Oh goody.
But it’ll be great! Do the things! Then we will be free! Free to move to the next stage of life where we live in beautiful Scotland.
I have to write down that Her Sweetness is both saying and signing please.
I LOVE IT
My poor big girl is sick. It’s nasty. 38.7 temperature (about 101.7). That’s not high enough to need a doctor but it’s high enough that she has a nasty headache and she feels terrible. She is having uhhh other symptoms. Let me pretend she has a wee bit of privacy here. She feels just awful. I am trying to push fluids and rest. I have all the food options she could/should possibly have on standby. I may want to walk down to the store again today to get more fizzy juice.
ALL THE SPRITE AND 7UP HERE HAVE ASPARTAME. UGH.
No.
So fizzy juice it is.
Today will be an ALL THE LAUNDRY sort of day. I started the first load at 4:30am. When this one finishes I am putting Eldest Child in for a long bath and I’m going to boil her sheets like whoa. All the towels need washing.
I was excited to see a full size separate washer and dryer in the house.
I am worried my kids are going to fall like dominoes with illness. Ugh. We leave in 10 days.
So many feelings right now. Gratitude. Trepidation. Worry. Concern. Appreciation.
Noah is absolutely ridiculously wonderful. Most of the visa application stuff falls on his shoulders because it is about selling how awesome he is. He is adding that work to his mountain of work and doing it with a smile.
It’s interesting to me how much my kids have fallen in love with Scotland. They keep telling me how grateful they are that they get to come back. They want this place for their home. Most of the places we visit feel like a stop on the road and it’s nice and all…. but not for us. Scotland feels comfortable.
And by golly we can talk about the weather all day so we’ll do ok.
Art, writing, climbing, walking. We will get used to hill walking. I am excited about the biking opportunities.
So far the whole paying-for-chores thing is going well. My kids are feeling really excited about the link between “I didn’t do much this week so I didn’t earn a lot but last week I worked a ton and I put a bunch into savings.” They are both looking forward to the future where they will want more clothes and toys and they don’t think that a bunch of sweeties are a good plan. We (the grown ups) are still providing two desserts a week and they don’t feel deprived. We also aren’t constantly fighting over candy or crappy food. They have their eye on toys they would like to have in their long-term bedrooms that they can’t have now and they are counting and recounting their growing hoards like Smaug. It’s funny.
They are starting to think hard about how they want to furnish their rooms. We took a quick trip to the charity shop and they were overjoyed by the offerings. And I quote “Even Ikea seems overpriced! I could furnish my whole room for £100 and have money left over for art supplies and toys!”
Our current plan is to start at the charity shop with the absolute minimum we need to get by, get nice mattresses, then just… wait and accumulate money and see if we truly want or need things. After a year or so I will do a lot more evaluation of what I think we need. In my head, putting permanent installation bookshelves from floor to ceiling on one wall of the lounge with a moving ladder would be awesome. (It’s a tall ceiling.)
Apparently futons want replacing in five to ten years depending on weight of the person and how heavily they are used. I am not sure how long Middle Child will continue to want to sleep with us. Eldest Child has said that for the first month or two she might do it half the time then after that she thinks she is ready to just move into her own space. I strongly suspect MC will want to be in the same room as us at night for at least the first year in the new house. I don’t think he has five years of room sharing left in him. Her Sweetness… that’s going to be a longer time.
With five family bedrooms, the annex, and the studio it is interesting thinking about how we will use space. Her Sweetness won’t be big enough for the studio to be a playroom for several years yet. I wouldn’t be comfortable just kicking her out to go play for a solid four years. Maybe until she is much bigger the studio will be the art room?
AND THIS COULD ALL FALL THROUGH AND MY DREAMS MIGHT BE FOR NAUGHT. I get that. But I want to dream anyway. I like this part of the process. I’m not getting my heart set. Just dreaming.
But I feel like all of us big people are going to really benefit from a place where we can make big messy projects that don’t have to be instantly cleaned up because they are in the main living space. EC and I can start experimenting with oil paint. MC wants to try a lot of art mediums that really require being able to leave stuff out for a few days.
Noah is going to turn his office into a video recording room. We will figure out sound stuff and lighting and he won’t have to take it down when he is done for the day. It will make working a lot more simple and relaxed. Fewer steps.
I suspect that the family sleeping room will morph into Her Sweetness’ room over time. That seems like the most logical process. Her toys will start out all over the house, of course. That’s how toddlers roll. Big kid toys will have to live in their rooms because a lot of their toys are things they won’t want to share for many years. They are so far past the toddler stage.
My bedroom will be by invitation only and mostly kids just can’t come in. I’m sure that when we are transitioning out of Her Sweetness’ room it will be complicated and involve some sneaking into my room.
I think that it’s going to be interesting having a dynamic with Noah where it isn’t our room. But I seriously don’t want it to be. I mean, I am sure he will sleep in there with me the vast majority of the time. But that will be because I want to invite him in not because that is simply his place.
This feels so achingly important to me. His office will need to have a place where he can sleep. He could potentially sleep in the annex sometimes if he doesn’t want to be in his office and I need space. We have years before Her Sweetness will want to be alone.
I. Will. Have. A. Space. For. ME.
When I am being a grumpy bitch I will have somewhere to go so I don’t feel like I am a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to be in a family. I am part of a family. And sometimes I need to be alone in a room because I’m overstimulated as fuck. I won’t have to ask anyone to leave a space that is theirs in order to get room for me. My room is going to be so completely and totally off fucking limits.
I don’t have any real idea how I want to decorate it or use it yet. I want to spend a year just… waiting for the room to speak to me. I don’t want to get started quickly.
I don’t want to do almost any serious long-term work quickly. I want to have the picture fully formed in my head before I do anything. Like my tattoo. I dreamed about it for years before I got started. I’m impulsive and I’m not.
Like, the opposite wall in the lounge from where I think the bookshelves will ultimately go… the wall with the tree I think that one will be a mural wall. I am certain there will be trees involved to go with the trees that are already in the house. I am interested in having another tree bookcase possibly. But the size and shape and details are going to take a long time to percolate in my brain. I am going to do a lot of sketches. I won’t get started for a year or three.
I don’t want to put a single plant in the ground until I have been there for a year and I see how the light hits the ground. I want to learn how much care the current plants already take.
Sleep, creep, leap. I anticipate years three through five being very busy with projects.
In five years Eldest Child will be 16. Oh golly. Middle Child will be turning 14. Her Sweetness will be 6.
Hey USians, did you know that in Scotland 16 is when you are allowed to move out and be independent without emancipation? Holee shit. University students here can start at 16. It is utterly terrifying that my baby is five years away from adulthood. My baby isn’t such a baby anymore. I can’t wait to see how her art has progressed in that time. She is so much better than I was as a child. MC is better than I was too. They are both all of a sudden getting into drawing on the iPad. I am really excited to see their work. I will not permit unfettered access to video games. Drawing? Yes. Even on a screen.
I’m such a fucking control freak.
It’s not that they can’t play games at all! There is value in games! But balance, yo.
I need to stop typing. My fingers hurt. I have so many more thoughts though.
I CAN’T TELL YOU ANY OF THESE DETAILS BUT HOLY FUCKING SHIT THINGS ARE HAPPENING.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING.
The thing about depression is it casts a pall on everything. I am excited only I’m not. I’m happy only I’m not. I feel kind of dead inside only I will absolutely keep marching forward. I miss pot. Pot allows me to feel more in touch with feelings of happiness instead of viewing them through a screen.
Just keep swimming. Fake it till you make it. It’s not about how you feel it is about what you do.
I want this house. I want this house for a bajillion reasons. Are there things that I would do differently if I were building a house from the ground up? Probably. But this house is quite lovely and will be a great canvas for all of our needs.
If we rent out the annex for a couple of years to students at the local university we could get them to pay 2/3 of our mortgage. Noah has mentioned that he might talk to his parents about helping with the mortgage. (I have mixed feelings about this, but them helping us with a mortgage on another continent means I definitely won’t have to spend time with them to thank them.) If Noah can keep his California job (looks quite probable) and we keep paying our California rent we can have this house paid off in less than 6 years. If his parents helped… we could be mortgage free quite quickly. Then it wouldn’t be such a big deal for him to work.
I would really like for him to not have to work for rent money.
I suspect that our food costs will be similar in terms of money, despite translation. So our CA dollars won’t go as far. One good thing about not having a car: eating out all the time is more work than cooking. Also, having four people in the house who are competent to make food really changes the dynamic. When one person isn’t in the mood to cook… someone else probably is. We will definitely need to figure out where we can put a big freezer. There isn’t a ton of space for that. It might have to live in the kitchen where they currently have the table. I might want to have an island in the middle with the freezer against the wall, then we will have more space for working and setting stuff that is in transit. I don’t think there will be room for a chest freezer in the utility room and we won’t have a garage. (EC saw the reference to a big freezer. She says: “It will be important for our ice cream tastings!)
I wonder how water proof the outdoor shed is. Hm. It looked snug enough.
Of course when we did a walk through Middle Child declared that the room he wants is the master bedroom. Offfff course. It’s 2.23 sq m bigger than the next largest bedroom on that floor. (Master (has bathroom): 14.4, son room (no bathroom): 12.23, additional bedroom (has bathroom): 11.18 , daughter room (no bathroom): 10.34, downstairs (with bathroom): 20.62, annex (has bathroom): 11.38)
I think the very smallest bedroom is bigger than the master we had in Fremont. That’s funny.
Son bedroom and smaller upstairs room with bathroom overlook the burn. Master and smallest upstairs room overlook the road/city. You can see all the way out to the firth (Moray).
(I’m just calling them son/daughter room because of current inhabitants. I am not sure I need to assign them to my kids to keep up the tradition.)
The burn is kind of southwest. The firth is mostly northeast. I think if we manage to move in during January it would be fun to have a year of charting where the sun hits different parts of the yard before I start planting anything. I would like to grow some food, but getting used to doing so in this climate will be tricky.
Now we have appointments with mortgage brokers. Eeep.
Questions for the current owners: is the shed waterproof? Where do you store your holiday decorations?
Gosh. Today is going to be lovely.
The house was better than it looked in pictures. The grounds aren’t extensive… but that is probably for the best. Yes, there are a fair number of stairs but there is also a self contained apartment with a wheelchair ramp and wide doors. There are so many ways this house will be configured over time. The bedrooms are much larger than the ones we had in Fremont. THERE ARE 6 TOILETS. *swoon* 5 showers! A bathtub I could share with Noah! There is an exterior studio room that was SOUND PROOFED FOR A DRUM SET. I could scream in there and nobody would notice.
There is so much light. It’s a very bright, happy house. The ceilings are much higher than almost any others I’ve seen in this area. There is a tree in the corner of the lounge. There are beach logs used as the barrier next to the staircase.
It’s really nice. The yard is very private. The yard has decent borders and lots of central space where I can plant a really nice cottage garden.
It’s going to be important for us to replace the fence next to the burn (a small creek). We will have a small creek as the border of our property. (Insert heart eyes emoji) We will need to change the entry gate so that it is less easy for a toddler to climb right over. There are a couple of sections of fence that we will want to make a bit taller. Possibly trellis with plants?
I won’t need to do anything to this house for years. But when I want to, I have small easy to compartmentalize projects.
The current owners need to sell the house, then wait a while so their next house can be built. They are getting a modular place put together. It will take around six months. We asked about the possibility of them selling to us then renting it back from us so they don’t have to move twice in a year. The lady had never considered such an option and her eyes got about as wide as dinner plates. That would make her life a lot easier.
So tomorrow… we contact a mortgage company. Then call the solicitor back.
I love the utility room. There is a great shed for gardening tools and bikes. There’s plenty of storage for holiday stuff.
I LOVE THIS HOUSE.
The outside studio could easily be for classes of 4-8 people.
I think that I wouldn’t have there be a lounge next to the kitchen. I think I would just use that as a dining room.
So many thoughts. I loved the house. It is so versatile.
Eeeeeeeek.