Berrycakeness

It’s my one-year anniversary of homeownership, and so today I’m taking you on a journey of what started as an empty, damp shell and blossomed into a home.

The process took four months, battling with people who seemed considerably less interested in me buying the house than I was, and an estate agent who put the pressure on me instead of the conveyancers. Still, I made it through after using my work skills to escalate, push back and eventually sign a document confirming that a bank owns most of my house. For now.

Then, huzzah, time to collect my keys! I was handed a bunch of unlabelled keys, so my escape room experience came in handy. The house had been rented out for a number of years, and most of the keys open nothing – so I probably have someone else’s house keys too. It was then time to visit the property for the first time since the viewing back in April 2025. Back then it was occupied and damp, but I could see the full potential. Knock all the walls down, and I’ll have a huge living space!

Of course, as soon as we entered the property, the unmistakable waft of an empty house that hadn’t been aired in months hit me, and my dad cracked on with removing all the carpets before I could get any photos. Thankfully, I still have the estate agent photos, so enjoy these:

Typical landlord special, using the cheapest materials known to man.

The next two months were a small renovation: replacing all the flooring, painting most of the walls, fitting new lights, replacing the kitchen appliances, and putting a lot of effort into making the kitchen look nice without spending too much. Of course, all that had to wait because there was a secret in the garden.

Not a secret garden, which happens to be the first film I saw in the cinema. I already knew that it had a massive overgrown tree that needed to be removed, a chicken wire fence on the right-hand side that needed to be replaced, and a shed to be demolished, but all those things can wait a bit, right? Wrong. Behind the shed was a bounty of household rubbish. The back fence was pushed out into the pavement, blocking most of it. If only we had circled the whole house when we first visited, I could have maybe haggled on the house price.

What should have been a week of work on the house turned into a week of clearing layers of absolute crud from the garden. The odd hypodermic needle and rat nest aside, it was mostly end-of-tenancy type rubbish, old carpets and belongings, plus bags of recycling, and the odd fly-tipped bag or two. Well, two skips worth of it anyway. All that to make sure we fixed the fence before the council did. They had already sent letters to the previous owner and were ready to clear the lot and fine me, so whilst we had a skip around, it made sense to remove the shed at the same time, to avoid paying for more skips later on.

The big house renovation turned into the garden makeover. ERROR.

Although it was worth it this summer, as I’ve been able to host many BBQs without worrying I’m going to set a tree alight. The house renovation was a bit rushed to meet my move-in deadline, but somehow we pulled it off. It’s nowhere near perfect, but it’s mine.

A year later, the house is clean (minus paw prints and fur), the garden is usable and I’m content. The bathroom still resembles a communal bathroom at a caravan park but you can’t have everything.

Peace out xoxo