What Next for Our New House?

With the sale of our old place finally settled, it’s time to shift our attention to what’s next for our new house.

I think I’ve mentioned before, that it’s a former rental that wasn’t very well maintained (and the price we paid reflected that), so it needs a whole lot of lovin’ …

So far, we have:

• had the inside of the house painted – walls, ceilings, cornices, architraves, doors;
• laid new carpet upstairs and in the downstairs media room;
• installed air con;
• added block out curtains in our bedroom, as well as venetians in some of the windows;
• replaced the old fashioned door handles;
• and enclosed the downstairs patio with catnet.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Hubby and I have lots of dreams and ideas, though I’m not sure how many of them are practical, feasible, or will actually eventuate. See what you think – here’s the wishlist so far:

Insulation – Unbelievably for a relatively modern construction, there is absolutely no insulation in the ceiling which makes the upstairs area unbearably hot during the day – but at least we are coming into the cooler months so can put it off for a little while.

Roof repairs – We know that several of the roof tiles (particularly over the garage) are damaged and leak during heavy rain so roof repairs, while boring, must be done urgently!

Kitchen – I loathe the pull out pantry – it’s not practical at all – once you have your groceries in there, it’s too heavy to pull out easily, so that will be the first thing to fix.

Other than that, the kitchen is pretty basic considering the size of the house; there are no fancy features like granite benchtops. It definitely wouldn’t be over capitalising if we were to give it a total makeover; a butler’s pantry, or even a walk in fridge, are on my “lust have” list!

Painting the exterior – It’s a weird pale pink colour, and it’s flaking in places so yes, this is on the “as soon as possible” list. We’re just having trouble deciding on a new exterior colour scheme.

External stairs – At the moment, we can only access our gorgeous deck via the internal stairs. At some stage we would love to have some outside stairs built as well though it’s probably not a huge priority.

Light fittings – There are still bare bulbs in places – like in the stairwell – it’s just crying out for a dramatic pendant light of some sort ….

Master bedroom – Currently a walk through wardrobe leads to a tiny ensuite, we want to transform it into a large and luxurious bathroom as befits a master suite. Our bedroom opens out onto the enormous deck (8m x 4m) so we are going to steal a bit of the space for a new walk in wardrobe!

Tiling – It’s a relatively small job in the scheme of things, but tiling the front porch would really make a huge difference to the entry. However we are wondering if we should tile the cat patio out the back at the same time?

Office Fitout – Regular readers would know that I work from home and I have great plans for my new office fitout – although at the moment it looks more like this …

I blame the decorating shows on TV – they make us feel so much pressure to move into a new home and “transform” it in a week – and I’m here to tell ya, that’s not how things operate in the real world! I was moaning to somebody not long after we’d moved in, about what a long slow process it is, and they wisely told me that it usually takes about a year to really settle in … now that sounds much more realistic.

Although Miss Fleur looks like she’s quite at home already …

How long do you think it takes to really turn a house into your home?!