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House buying is the worst


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15 minutes ago, Kav said:

Finally expecting to exchange tomorrow, with completion on Tuesday... bloody hell I hope it goes through ok, it's been a right ball-ache waiting for them!

The waiting around is boring as fuck. There's no better feeling when it finally goes through and you know it's yours.

Although, saying that, @Eenuh and I were both massively underwhelmed when we had to wait around for hours on the day to get our keys off the silly previous owners. When we eventually got into the house, the whole place smelled of old dog. The carpets were crap and there was just a bad odour all over the place. Have to admit, we did feel a tinge of regret for those first few moments.

It won't feel like it's your place until you start gutting it. When we got rid of the shitty carpets, sorted out some electrical problems and started papering/painting the walls, that's when it started to feel like home.


Be prepared. :p

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5 minutes ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

The waiting around is boring as fuck. There's no better feeling when it finally goes through and you know it's yours.

Although, saying that, @Eenuh and I were both massively underwhelmed when we had to wait around for hours on the day to get our keys off the silly previous owners. When we eventually got into the house, the whole place smelled of old dog. The carpets were crap and there was just a bad odour all over the place. Have to admit, we did feel a tinge of regret for those first few moments.

It won't feel like it's your place until you start gutting it. When we got rid of the shitty carpets, sorted out some electrical problems and started papering/painting the walls, that's when it started to feel like home.


Be prepared. :p

We already are, carpets and paint etc bought. Wallpaper steamers at the ready! Haha

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23 hours ago, dan-likes-trees said:

I bought in Edinburgh recently and found that the valuation survey by our mortgage lender came out a lot higher than the home buyers report valuation was. So even though we were paying a lot more than the home buyers report suggested the flat was worth, the mortgage lender's valuation was in line with what we were borrowing. Might be worth looking into this as I'm sure we didn't just get super lucky.

 

Speaking of - have been in our new flat for a month now - whole process was utterly seamless! Can't believe what a cash drain getting all the 'essentials' for a liveable house came to tho. Cleared me right out!

Good point. I guess the mortgage lender's valuation could be different from the Home Report, especially if they do it a few months later.

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On 8/3/2017 at 6:25 PM, Fierce_LiNk said:

The waiting around is boring as fuck. There's no better feeling when it finally goes through and you know it's yours.

Although, saying that, @Eenuh and I were both massively underwhelmed when we had to wait around for hours on the day to get our keys off the silly previous owners. When we eventually got into the house, the whole place smelled of old dog. The carpets were crap and there was just a bad odour all over the place. Have to admit, we did feel a tinge of regret for those first few moments.

It won't feel like it's your place until you start gutting it. When we got rid of the shitty carpets, sorted out some electrical problems and started papering/painting the walls, that's when it started to feel like home.


Be prepared. :p

I only want to do one thing...

beprepared.gif?w=1200

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On 8/3/2017 at 6:16 PM, dan-likes-trees said:

Speaking of - have been in our new flat for a month now - whole process was utterly seamless! Can't believe what a cash drain getting all the 'essentials' for a liveable house came to tho. Cleared me right out!

Yeah definitely the first year, maybe 2 are the ones you're worst off financially speaking.  Even if a house is "ready to move into", like mine was, you can still find a million and one jobs to do and they all cost money, and add up!  Even stupid shit like curtain poles, curtains, maybe a new carpet here or there, (if you're like me a tank of oil for ofch) and before you know it you're into the thousands.  And that's after handing over many thousands on a deposit, fees, and other bits and pieces in the legal course of getting a home. Living on beans and toast for a while lol 

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Got the keys, woo-hoo!

They left the house & garden in a shit-heap though. Random crap everywhere and hadn't been cleaned since we possibly last saw it. It was disgusting!

Emailed the solicitor as they left shit-loads of crap in the garden and shed. So they've emailed their solicitor advising they need remove it asap or we'll have to proceed with notification of them being in breach of contract.

Just took up the carpets, stripped the walls upstairs and sanded the skirts etc in the bedrooms this evening. Plenty of work still to do before we move in on the Friday (still a good bit to do after too really).

Edited by Kav
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11 hours ago, Kav said:

Got the keys, woo-hoo!

They left the house & garden in a shit-heap though. Random crap everywhere and hadn't been cleaned since we possibly last saw it. It was disgusting!

Emailed the solicitor as they left shit-loads of crap in the garden and shed. So they've emailed their solicitor advising they need remove it asap or we'll have to proceed with notification of them being in breach of contract.

Just took up the carpets, stripped the walls upstairs and sanded the skirts etc in the bedrooms this evening. Plenty of work still to do before we move in on the Friday (still a good bit to do after too really).

Man, fuck carpets. Best thing we did in this place was decide to get rid of all of them and go with laminate flooring. Not a carpet in sight. Floor feels cleaner that way.

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We're in, still some things to move but they can wait until Sunday.

Theres still work to do, as well as unpacking, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was...

...although our garden and shed is still full of their shit! We'll be sending notification for breach of contract if we don't get a date from them next week as to when it will be removed.

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I have a feeling our washing machine may have broken... We went hardcore on it yesterday, doing about 4 washes in quick succession, as daylight faded I stopped. Put on a wash today and after the cycle the kitchen floorboards are a bit squidgy, making a squelchy noise and some water has popped up. I've covered the floor with a towel and done a bit of a dance on it to try and bring the water upwards... but I am unsure.

 

Plus also received a note from our neighbours saying the wall at the end of the garden wobbles in the wind. Had a little look and whilst you can see some cracks and if I applied enough pressure I might be able to topple it, thinking the wind could do so is a stretch. I'm gonna go back when they're home just for some clarification and then get someone to have a look at it.

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1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

I have a feeling our washing machine may have broken... We went hardcore on it yesterday, doing about 4 washes in quick succession, as daylight faded I stopped. Put on a wash today and after the cycle the kitchen floorboards are a bit squidgy, making a squelchy noise and some water has popped up. I've covered the floor with a towel and done a bit of a dance on it to try and bring the water upwards... but I am unsure.

Any idea if it might be a broken pipe, or if maybe it just leaked from the door? Cause we had the second thing happen in our old flat, soap/water just seemed to have leaked from the door onto the floor. Only happened twice, think it might have been an issue of overfilling the machine or putting too much soap in.


After taking pictures to show to family of what we've done so far with the house, I decided to throw together a little before and after image for the main rooms we've changed. It's nice to see the progress we've made in the house over the last few months. :)
 

Spoiler

 


jrlFAXzzMGXWfGYW-EdslRPi39OhYNFngBQ0QUgG

K3XIhLPvRmRoA1juENy5jo0wbmv7RBtA4yO9mWSf

FGJ3NMLOV6dgE8mEL4jevYvCd63Q4iYD_JXVrMMp

w6pqFBAsr15hEBduW3Or5etUzv9DPaJoYXCoEym-

 

The second bedroom is one of our next projects, as it currently just serves as a storage room for games/music instruments and other stuff. Loads of things left to do around the house, but it's getting there. :)

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Our bathroom is one of our "project rooms" and we eventually plan to knock through to the toilet to make a single room. In the meantime, I got fed up with not having a shower, so me and my dad re-tiled and we had a guy out to change the individual taps to a single mixer/shower thing. After 2 years, we now have a shower (forgive the awful photo, it's nicer IRL):

 

20863681_10159271406155341_4578107880022

 

Not bad for a temporary solution and much better than it was, especially considering I've never tiled before (and never will again. Ever).

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House update from me. 

Our mortgage finally got approved yesterday! We've really had to jump through hoops with NatWest to make it happen, providing all sorts of documentation to get it sorted. Didn't have to do anywhere near this much for our current property, but this one is more expensive so it kind of makes sense. 

The flooring has been picked in the new build, having a crap laminate for free downstairs provided by Bellway. Yesterday we found some porcelain wood effect tiles on sale in Wickes that we want for the whole downstairs, including kitchen, hall, livig room etc. 

£5 a box for 11 tiles. The whole box covers one square metre. For the entire downstairs its cost us £200 for the tiles. Only nipped up on the off chance to get a single wall tile to see if it would work in the kitchen and saw them! 

3 trips back and to home later and they're all in our garage waiting to go in the new house. Seems silly ripping up new laminate that they're putting in for us, but it's not our taste (it was the best one of a bad bunch), and they wouldn't laminate the kitchen or downstairs toilet too so that will be lino which again, is not what we want. So that'll be one of the first jobs we get done. 

Completion shouldn't take too long now. NatWest have already valued our new build and searches are done, just waiting for that to happen on our sold house by the buyers which is happening Wednesday. Can't believe it! 

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On 16/08/2017 at 4:44 PM, Eenuh said:

Any idea if it might be a broken pipe, or if maybe it just leaked from the door? Cause we had the second thing happen in our old flat, soap/water just seemed to have leaked from the door onto the floor. Only happened twice, think it might have been an issue of overfilling the machine or putting too much soap in.

After banging in another load I have discovered the secret - it seems the cap thing you find at the bottom right of the machine was loose and the water was leaking out of there. unscrewing it a little and trying to go a bit tighter didn't seem to stem the flow. So I had to pause it mid-cycle and unscrew it fully, water came gushing out as expected but I had several towels ready to stop any more fluid going on the floor. After screwing it back on the problem seems to have resolved. Now I'm washing the towels that were on the floor :D

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On ‎19‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 11:52 PM, Goafer said:

Our bathroom is one of our "project rooms" and we eventually plan to knock through to the toilet to make a single room. In the meantime, I got fed up with not having a shower, so me and my dad re-tiled and we had a guy out to change the individual taps to a single mixer/shower thing. After 2 years, we now have a shower (forgive the awful photo, it's nicer IRL):

 

20863681_10159271406155341_4578107880022

 

Not bad for a temporary solution and much better than it was, especially considering I've never tiled before (and never will again. Ever).

Well done. Man, there's no way that I could have lasted that long without a shower. It would have killed me. First real thing we did in our place was to change the bathroom. 

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We moved into our new place almost 3 weeks ago and the transition has been oddly seemless. The house felt like ours before we even got the keys!

The first week or two consisted of lots of work decorating and such but progress has slowed a little as we're both so tired!

Hopefully I'll make a start on painting the living room tomorrow morning before heading off to work. Getting that done and a few things up on the wall will make all the difference :hehe:

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7 hours ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

Well done. Man, there's no way that I could have lasted that long without a shower. It would have killed me. First real thing we did in our place was to change the bathroom. 

The house I grew up in didn't have a shower until my late 20's. I'm well used to baths!

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  • 2 weeks later...

We decorated the bedrooms and have left it at that for now.

Still waiting for all the shite they left to be cleared, but at least they have made a start - they took all the window frames last week - and they're due back tomorrow to carry on shifting stuff.

I don't feel I can even start on anything until their shit is moved, I'm still seething that they left it all here!

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