My Victorian Home Renovation - The journey from rented, to our first owned home
Growing up, many young girls fantasise about their perfect fairytale wedding day; the dress, the cake, the venue… but my dream was always to own my own home, actually, it was to own a Victorian home with beautiful period features. As a thirty-six year old - that tricky bracket between millennial and Gen X, fulfilling what I thought was quite an attainable goal when I was young, wasn’t quite the walk in the park that I’d imagined.
Google defines my age bracket as; ’approaching the middle of their working careers and potential peak-earning years’ - but this all depends on the career path you’ve taken and the decisions you’ve made in your life. I was a late saver, because in my younger years I was on a low salary for quite some time, which meant the first rung of that property ladder was not within my search area criteria.
The Dream Victorian Home on keys day
How did we do it?
In 2017, I moved in with my partner and I promptly set up a Help To Buy ISA with an immediate direct debit so we had no choice but to save money. Moving in with my partner meant that our savings were doubled by default, again, something that I couldn’t do earlier as it wasn’t applicable to my relationship status (which is a whole separate conversation about the lack of affordable housing.)
Three years later, we found ourselves in a pandemic. Luckily, I was on furlough for seven months (I say lucky, as it was much better than the alternative of being made redundant) and although my earnings were cut by 20%, I put practically all of my salary, bar the food shop, into savings. Its not like I had to pay the unfortunate amount on the monthly train fare from Macclesfield to Manchester, and obviously we’re weren’t going out, so no spending there.
April 2021, and just over six months into an arduous, Covid-19 stricken process of buying our home, the end was in sight, three days before our mortgage offer was about to expire. Stressful much? Yes, but finally it had happened, my fairytale-Victorian-home-dream had come true, and I haven’t stopped smiling since.
I took two weeks off work over the Easter period to pack up and go. Easter Sunday, I pulled my back. In fact it turns out that I slipped a disc. I couldn’t walk for 4 days, let alone pack a box! And we had a lot of boxes to pack… 50 in fact, plus bags, suitcases, and even more bags on removal day when we noticed many ‘lose items’ that’d been hiding. The process was frustrating, debilitating and painful, but knowing that we were heading towards a brighter future got me through the pain, that, and cancelling the standing order to the landlord for rent!
Gold prize for Moving Day Realness - the Macclesfield rental where we were very happy
Fortunately we had help from our parents when it came to the practicalities. They helped us with the packing and the tip runs. I don’t know what we’ve had done without them.
Although my back has recovered a tiny bit from the heavy box trauma, the physiotherapist says it will take up to six weeks to heal. Naturally, the unpacking process has also been quite slow! Again, help has been received, and I’ve been allowing myself lots of rest between de-bubble wrapping and un-newspapering each individual item. The house is now full with recycling! More tips runs needed!
Happy times, but they didn’t come easily
Owning my own home has been my life’s dream. A dream that we’ve made come true through working really hard, saving really hard and manifesting HARD via interior design! No fairy dust involved, just hard graft and planning. The experience has been an amazing and proud one, despite the pandemic, lockdowns and a slipped disc. The dream didn’t happen quite as expected, but since we moved in seven days ago (which seems like so much longer as we feel so settled) I’ve been sleeping like a baby (apart from when I need to turn over - ouch!), I have a permanent smile on my face, and I’m so excited about what the future holds here.
My desperation for painting walls and selecting beautiful wallpaper and fabrics will have to wait though, until we get the ‘important work’ done, and until my back heals. I’m trying to do things in the right order (which I’m still figuring out.) We had a combi boiler installed within the two week overlap between houses, which meant all of that loud and messy work was done before we moved in. The boiler we inherited is what’s known as a ‘back boiler’, (see photos above of the beast!) meaning it was in fact built into the chimney breast behind the gas fire in the living room, who knew?! This, and two huge water tanks made space for a modern, easy to use system, fitted by the great gas man that I’ve known for a long time.
What’s next on the agenda?
Next for the Victorian home renovation comes some minor building work, including new guttering (how glam), mending slipped roof tiles, insulating the loft - so that the new combi boiler can be at its most efficient - and sorting out the ‘pointless electrics’. There’s no use painting a wall all fancy if you need to make new holes and fill old ones, right? See below for some of the fun pointless electrics we’ll soon ne dealing with… very excited to remove that alien looking wire!
After only having the keys for three weeks, we’ve already had to make important decisions. For instance, I’ve always wanted beautiful column radiators in place of modern ones, but, given the price tag vs. the other jobs that need to be done in the house, this isn’t going to be feasible right now. Super efficient modern ones are just fine, and will be a hell of an improvement to the flaky ones we inherited. See below for the new shiny ones.
Compromise is something that will happen with most decisions. This is our first owned home, and we know that not everything will go quite as planned, or happen quickly, but that’s fine by me as I’m very much looking forward to learning from the process. I am however, on a mission to reinstate as many of the original Victorian features as possible.
This Victorian renovation will be all about the Slow Movement. Working at a slow pace will enable us to continue saving, but more importantly, to live in the property for a while to understand what furniture needs to be swapped around or sold, what extra storage is needed, and how the light moves around the rooms throughout the day. I’m very excited about the ideas I have for some beautiful bespoke storage, but we need to evaluate how much is needed before we take the plunge. This is so important before any decorating begins
I can hardly contain myslef
I’m SO excited to put all the tips and tricks by some of my favourite bloggers and interior designers into action, including (from top left going anti-clockwise in the images below) the fluted cupboard door hack by fabulous Emma Jane Palin, applying wall panelling to as many rooms as possible following Melanie Lissack’s tutorial, absorbing all the colour palette inspo from one of my all time favourite interior designers Em Gurner and playing eeny meeny miny moe with the Farrow & Ball colour palette, amongst many other palettes!
The moral of this story is that your dreams don’t always play out as advertised in fairytales (or social media), but this is real life, and that’s so much better. Follow my Instagram stories for regular home renovation updates!
