What I've learned since buying a house

Since buying a house and having to decorate it I've learned a lot about how it feels to be a home ower as well as about DIY. Here are a few things I've learnt in the last two weeks.

• When painting a room work from the top down. Do the ceiling and coving followed by walls then skirting boards.
• You have to gloss a skirting board (no emulsion allowed) and there's lots of sanding involved
• Buy good value gloss that dries quickly
• We need a drill
• I like cleaning a house I own
• Owning a house is exhausting
• Wired networks are exciting
• I like black feature walls and lots of grey
• I LOVE cooking
• I'm better at glossing skirting boards than Ben is
• Painting is much easier when the parents visit and all I have to do is make tea and lunch

Guest Post: Time to move on

Friend and fellow moving-house-a-week-before-Christmas-nutcase Ali Bunn shares her experiences of the house buying process. 
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I moved into my horrid little council flat in March 2010. My husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) had been living there with his daughter for just over two years. It's your typical council flat - two damp bedrooms, a damp bathroom (with no bath!), a long damp lounge/diner, a small damp kitchen and no garden. The wardrobe in the master bedroom has been converted into a production studio and there's barely room to swing a rat. The first thing I did when I moved in was paint the lime-green lounge deep chocolate and coffee, but that's where the alterations ended. I couldn't envisage myself living there for long, it has never felt like my place and I hate it. Still, I've been there 21 months. 21 long, horrible months.

I'm lucky enough (if you can call it that?) to have inherited a share of a house in Windsor, which I subsequently sold to one of the other shareholders. This put my husband and I in an unusual position. We had (just) enough money to buy ourselves a house outright, no mortgage, no huge debt. We started looking in September and it was the second house we saw that we fell for. Big kitchen, three bedrooms (one for all the husband's studio stuff) and even a shed in the garden. The kid's favourite part of the house was the glittery toilet seat, I like that it has a bath.

You'd have thought being cash buyers would make things quick and simple. There's no chain either side, we have the cash in the bank, they have somewhere to move to, the survey was fine, the searches were fine, everything seems so easy and simple. No such luck. Our offer was accepted at the end of September, we get the keys on 15th December. A staggering 12 weeks. 

So why the delay? Our solicitors kept saying "We''re waiting for things from the vendor's solicitor". I'm sure the vendor is being told the same thing. It's not to make more money, they get a flat fee for dealing with conveyancing. Maybe they just want their boss to think they're busy?

Still, the end is in sight. We've paid our deposit and on Wednesday the HUGE balance of £112,500 will be transferred and we will be the proud owners of Number 12. We've got our insurance ready to kick in the moment we get the keys (can you imagine not getting it sorted? Sods law says the second you get the keys, the house burns down and all that money would be lost), Sky is booked to install a dish, utilities transferred, council informed, Christmas cards with change of address included have been sent. Totally, utterly, completely prepared.

Oh no, should I start packing?!

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You can read more from Ali over at http://bunnthebaker.blogspot.com

The average age of a first time buyer is 38-44

I came across a granny blog that was talking about how older couples were being pushed out of their homes to make way for young families. Read the post if you are interested because the part that caught my eye was the average age of a first time buyer.

I'm 23 and my boyfriend is 26. We've just bought our first home.

I can't think what would push the average up to 38-44. Is it that young people are so in debt that they can't afford to save, does no one see the merits of buying a house until that late in life, do people have better things to save for?

Welcome

I'll go more into this at a later date but for now, welcome! Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm in the process of buying a house. It's scary, wonderful and exciting.

We've finally exchanged contracts so all of this is set in stone unless someone in the chain decides to pull out. We should get the keys on December 16th. It seems so far away.

It was the end of September when we first put an offer in on The House. Once we get to the end of December it will have been 12 weeks to get everything sorted.

Your estate agent might tell you things typically take six to eight weeks. Just be prepared that it might be a bit longer than that.