I finally saw inside our new house on December 20. There was a charming card from the vendors, a bottle of wine and some chocolate polar bears. It is a lovely, lovely house.
We decided not to tell the children until after Christmas because I knew Michael would be upset. On St. Stephen’s Day we took them to see it. The Princess was pleased; Daniel was indifferent; and Michael was distraught. He spent the duration of the visit sitting in a fetal ball crying. When we got back to our own house, he threw himself on the stairs and said, “Goodbye stairs”, then he turned to the wall and said, “Goodbye wall.” “Sweetheart,” I said “we won’t be able to take the walls and the stairs to the new house but we will be able to take all your things.” “Will I be able to take my pear tree?” he asked.
Over Christmas, however, Michael became resigned to his fate and even began to run around the new house as though he might be able to contemplate living there. He has a couple of months to get used to the idea because we won’t be moving in until we get central heating.
The vendors have left a book of old postcards in the house with cards dating back to the 30s sent to this address. The house hasn’t changed hands much since it was built in 1890 [I find the title deeds fascinating in a way I never did when I had to deal with them professionally – I’m going to get copies and read the title] and I really hope that we will be there for a long time too.
Wish us luck.
Hurrah for lovely houses. I wish you lots of love, joy and wonder in your new family home. Plant trees
Wonderful news. Wishing you all the best in your new home.
I loved that when we bought our house it had no title deeds as such, because it had last been sold before land registry, so instead we got every purchase contract (including for the land it was built on) and the paperwork, right back to 1880.
Enjoy the new house. Glad Michael’s coming round…
‘Goodbye Stairs’ – the title of Michael’s autobiog, volume 1?
Glad things are moving forward. The house sounds lovely.
But will Hodge be happy there?
Good news. I know how stressfull the whole process of buying a house can be, and I sincerely hope all the family will be very happy in this lovely house. Michael will love it too when he realises that might be his home for a very long time (apparently he does not like change). All the best for you all.
Thank you, thank you. Part of the joy is at the prospect of no longer house hunting. Hodge will be almost as appalled as Michael. We haven’t told her yet.
Oh God I am all too familiar with the trauma of trying to get money from these bloody banks! We have been trying to start our extension for the last year…and trying to remortgage and get money from PTSB has been the most stressful traumatic thing ever. (And i have toddle twins!!)
Imagine the builder was meant to start last June and 4 days before he was due to begin the bank came back. I know we gave you agreement in principle and allowed you to sign a contract with your builder but we have decided to change our lending policy and will only lend 75% of the load to value …blah blah blah. Which for us meant 15 k short on the cost of the build. We had to re-apply for the smaller amount. (After trying to get a new mortgage from another bank and failing!) This took 6 months! Our build which was due to start last June will hopefully be starting in March. All this stress and we sill have to move into my parents house for the duration of the build, Two adults… 4.5 year old boy, 2 year old twins boys and a dog!! Happy thoughs!! Ah Monday morning rant over.. I am sure you really wanted to hear all about this!
Congrats on the new house!
Congratulations on the new home! As someone who has been living in her mother’s basement for almost 18 months, in an effort to save enough for a down payment on a house (where we live in salt lake city, houses are still extremely expensive for what the wages are), I have to make an effort to ramp down my envy of, well, pretty much everyone, it seems like. Everyone who owns a home, everyone who’s buying a new home, etc. oh well, hopefully it’ll be us within the next 6 months. But I mostly bring up my plight just to play on your sympathies, because I have a request! For obvious reasons, I have an obsession with all things home design (which I’m sure you’re familiar with) right now, so pretty please, could you let some of us live vicariously by posting pictures of the rooms in the new house? I’m just so curious about what an “ideal” house in Dublin looks like!
Oh M, oh Kara, I feel your pain, I really do.
Funnily enough M we moved in with my parents in law for nearly 2 months when we came back to Ireland with a 5 year old and two three year olds. No livestock though. Good luck with your build.
Kara, you have made me realise that we have no photos of the house. Will remedy this. One of my friends said that it’s like a Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside. Ideal for me, it has to be said, but maybe not for everyone in Dublin…. I really know what you mean about envy; when we were looking I could barely watch television – an inside shot of pretty much any house depressed me. Fingers crossed for you.