Matthews Mansion

Today my husband met with the architect and the builder at the house.  He brought the rough plan below that I put together with magicplan on my ipad. The original floorplan is a standard two up two down 3 bed house. The plan shown here uses the permitted development rules to add 8 metres on the back and 3ish metres on the side.  The architect said it is probably, maybe, more or less doable and will sort it out for us into something that might work in the real world. For those family planning to visit, this picture shows the guest bedroom with ensuite that doubles as a TV room.

Today I enjoyed the satisfaction of pulling a perfect blackberry whip from the brush.  If the cane has been formed correctly you can get a 5 meter long  whip that can actually pick things up with its spikey end. We defeated enough of the greenery to be able to stake out the estimated house extension.  Which is cool because my husband is having the architect over tomorrow.

 On first impressions on entering the house was "oh my god what have I bought".  It has subsequently grown on me and I don't see hideously coloured walls, the dirty ripped paper in the kitchen or the worn through shag carpets. Yes they are all still there  ( as well as the boiler in the bedroom  what were they thinking ).  But it is my house now and it just needs some love.

On my eldest daughter's 12th Birthday, much to her indignation, we had lined up a few properties to view in search of our new house.  Ironically the first property we took the whole family to see that day was Old Man House. We had been giving all the properties funny names.  House with the open stairs, House with a big tree, House with too much land, Narrow house  etc.  Old Man House was so named  as it was obviously owned by a single old man who no longer noticed the house he lived in.  It was dated around the 60s with patterned carpets, horrible colour choices and a garden so overgrown we thought there might be tigers.  We decided that day that it was too expensive for its state of repair and crossed it from our list. This Friday we complete settlement and will be getting the keys. It has taken a long 7 1/2 months to go from first viewing to purchase as buying a house in the UK is not quick.  Although it worries me a lot with its current state of repair, this property  has