New House, New Start

So tomorrow we finally move into our new house from the rental property we've been living in for the past 4 months.

When we moved back to the UK from Australia in August, the last thing on our minds was buying a house. We wanted to wait a year to see how we felt about being back before making such a huge decision. I had my eye on the UK housing market, but nothing too serious. In Australia we had a very large house, as do a lot of Aussies, so I knew that finding a house to suit our new Aussie ways was going to be rather tricky and it was going to take some time to find a suitable property.

However....... I kept driving past a house on the way to school that had a For Sale sign up and I couldn't stop thinking that it looked just perfect for us. It looked big, detached, next to a cemetery (quiet neighbours!! Yes, I've heard that one a few times!) walking distance to High School for my eldest who starts next September and would cut a good seven minutes off my current school run. It was also just a stones throw from the house we were currently renting and we were loving living so close to town.

I googled the house every day for 4 days on the trot, worried that it would be way above our price bracket, but the house didn't actually go onto the internet until 5 days after I initially saw the sign.

As soon as I saw it, I excitedly clicked on the link, dying to see inside the house and was gobsmacked to see that not only was it the perfect house for us, but also that it was within our price bracket, if not way below!!! It also had plans in place for us to do an extension on the back, meaning we could also add value.

Fifteen years of watching Phil and Kirsty obviously didn't go to waste on me!

Before I could stop it, I found myself calling the agent and booking an appointment into seeing the house that very day. The very next day we found ourselves sat in the car speaking to the agent and hearing that our rather cheeky and determined offer of 10k below the asking price had been accepted!!!

Fifteen years of watching Phil and Kirsty REALLY didn't go to waste on me!!!!!

So with a crazy year just about to get even crazier, we set off on the path of purchasing a house after only a month of landing back in the country!

Tomorrow is moving in day and our shipment of all the rest of our "stuff" from Australia finally arrives next Tuesday. It feels like such a long time ago that we packed all our belongings and sent it off back in July/August. It will be so nice to sleep on a proper bed for the first time in months and for the girls to get to play with their toys again.

Here are a few pics of the house and we can't wait to start turning it into our first UK family home. I think we might wait a while before starting a reno (do you say reno in the UK?? I can't remember??) but knowing us I wouldn't be surprised if the builders were knocking on our door on New Years Day!! LOL!!

Dougal and the girls loving their new outside space.