Back in April I wrote that I was working on something important, but didn’t reveal exactly what it was. But now I can reveal that instead of one bit of good news, we have 2! The first is that I got promoted. The second is that we bought a house! R put in most of the deposit money and I topped it up, took care of the bills and got the mortgage – as I’m a first time buyer, it meant we could avoid a large portion of the stamp duty. Right now I’m excited, elated, proud and surprised all at the same time. Excited and elated because, of course. Proud, because this is actually a massive accomplishment for us. And surprised because even 3 years ago I had no idea we would get to this place so quickly. The new role certainly helped – it’s a tough job and I’m having to upskill pretty quickly, but it’s put us in a good position to invest and save more, which is really nice.
3 years ago we were still living in a back-to-back terrace that my husband owned in one of the worst areas of Leeds – Harehills. Life there was a daily nightmare of noise and brutality. People were getting injured and dying on our actual street – and not once in a blue moon either; every week by the time we moved to Newcastle and sold the place. We were tired and stressed, and even with our wedding around the corner it still felt like the future didn’t hold too much hope.
Now, everything’s changed! And this new house is the perfect representation of just how hard we’ve worked to get to this point. You could say I’m pretty much in love with it. Of course it doesn’t tick all the boxes, and I still think occasionally about the ‘house that got away’ (a beautiful detached property just 5 minutes away from the one we just bought), but I do really love it; from the hardwood floors and spacious rooms to the decadent, mature garden and quiet cul-de-sac . I can’t wait to move in properly. And I’m so glad we chose York in the end. I really like this city and, aside from Bristol, in the end I couldn’t have imagined settling anywhere else. R is pleased too, because now his back is healed he’s got a job in Leeds, which is only a short train ride away. And when I get our (replacement) extension built he’ll have a gorgeous new work room all of his own.
In some ways I feel as though this house purchase may have given me rose-tinted spectacles for all future property purchases. It was *so* easy. Like, literally nothing was difficult or concerning about anything that happened. Our mortgage adviser Ian was incredible. Our solicitor Amy was on top of everything. And everything was just taken care of from start to finish. The only teensy weensy hiccup was the very brief bidding war I got into, but that was resolved in a couple of days. And now the house is ours! Like, literally ours! We’ve met the neighbours, I have a builder coming round tomorrow to talk about the extension, and we could live there right now if we wanted to.
The only reason we’re not living there right now is because we want to get the building work out of the way – or most of it at least – before we move in. R and I don’t want to be on top of each other, and we don’t want Errol to be stressed out by all that as well as the move itself. So we’re going to wait a bit. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be spending time there. It has a BATH for goodness’ sake. I haven’t lived in a house with a bath since December last year. I think I’ve only had 2 baths in that whole time. I am going straight into our new bathroom and getting in the tub with all the Lush goodies that my in-laws bought me for Christmas and I am NOT COMING OUT FOR A MONTH đŸ˜€