Sunday 18 November 2012

In which I buy a house...

After years of saving, months of hunting, days of stress and countless sleepless nights, we finally have our very own little bit of green. Our tiny cottage is in the middle of National Trust woodland with streams and ponds and fields and hills and comes with a massive overgrown jungle of a garden. The house has been lived in but unloved by the same couple for the last 30 years and the neighbours have confirmed that they never took so much as a tin of paint inside. Needless to say the house needs a bit of TLC. The grey muddy living room carpet, the brown wallpaper, the dingy, grimy kitchen and the asbestos kitchen floor all need a lot of attention- as does the 14 foot crack which runs the height of the house... (no nails?) The problems are these: our combined salaries (teacher and skateboard shop dude) do not amount to much we want to live our lives with as little impact on the environment as we can The Solution: Our little bit of green is going to be furnished with entirely second hand/ vintage/ antique furniture (including the kitchen which the boyf is building with a selection of old chest of drawers- more on that later) We are going to do all the work ourselves (mainly the boyf- being a skateboard dude totally doesn't take up as much time as inspiring young minds and indoctrinating teenagers towards feminism and away from David Cameron...and marking) We are going to make all our selections based on choosing the products with the lowest environmental impact within our budget (obviously on our budget farrow and ball throughout might put back the fixing of the crack by a few years) We are going to grow as much of our own food as we can (this part of the plan wont come into effect until we have attacked the garden in the spring) We are going to heat our house with a wood burner and try as hard as we can to resist putting the heating on (blankets and an open fire- terribly romantic..right?) Easy right? I'll keep you up to date!