It's all about me - rest

The house - August 2009

One of the biggest results of me being made redundant in June 2009 was us moving to the South Coast of England. It had been our intention to move for a while, but we thought we would ride out the bad economic situation and then move when things got better. Our hand was forced by JC Decaux though and so we moved to a village just outside Portsmouth. We sold up in London and bought what seemed and idyllic 3 bed end of terrace house in a quiet cul-de-sac. The house was bigger than London, but the garden was smaller. However there are areas for the children to play in outside so it had good and bad aspects to it. You should never judge a book by its cover and that has proven very true with our new house. From the start we uncovered problems and over the past couple of years we have spent a lot of time, effort and money making the place safe primarily and in close second nice. It is now in a condition which we’re pretty much happy with, but the house just isn’t built very well and there’s very little we can do about that. However it has had (deep breath) two new bathrooms, been decorated throughout, had wooden flooring put down through the whole downstairs, had a new boiler, the front and back gardens have been landscaped, had new doors, new roof on the shed and recently had solar panels put on the roof (and breathe out). Amusing/worrying things include me opening our bedroom window to let air in on day one and having the window fall out of its brackets nearly taking me with it; discovering that the metal light fittings upstairs we not earthed and had someone touched them they would have been electrocuted; discovering that the previous owner did indeed have a freezer under the stairs, but that it had no power socket in the cupboard and therefore wasn’t used. Nevertheless it is now out home and I think we are pretty happy there.

I am particularly proud of Theresa for doing or supervising so much of the work while I’ve been working. This despite looking after one then two children all day. She is very much the homemaker and left to my own devices I would live a pretty minimalist life I think. Theresa described our London home as a show home when she first moved in and then proceeded to make it cosy. She chose the colour schemes and most of the furniture and equipment we have put in both houses. She is also the one who can accept the chaos that two young children bring and the associated stuff they need. While it does my head in sometimes I can understand that Meg and Joel need their toys around and they are not old enough to understand keeping things tidy. As well as why should they be expected to keep everything neat and put away as this will stymie them from growing and developing. Theresa will hunt online for the best deals and is very focussed on what she wants and likes. We have moved on from buying Ikea grade furniture to more expensive (although not as much more as you’d think) solid wood and leather pieces. These should last us for many years if not our lifetimes I would hope. They also bring a sense of individuality to our home as they are all hand made and beautifully simple and classic in their looks. I guess a good way of summing up where we live is that it has gone from being a house to a home.