So we finally moved into our new house in Kingsland on the 14th. It was a day of mixed emotions and rain so we weren’t really off to a good start. We were thrilled to get the keys but once we opened the doors we were horrified by the state of the house.
Never in my life have I moved into such a disgustingly dirty house…and I have moved A LOT! Sure I’ve had to get out my trusty toothbrush (not the one I use on my teeth, thanks) to get grime out of hard-to-reach places but maggots??? Yeah. I found live maggots in the cupboards. That was actually comforting compared to what I found on the toilet which surely hadn’t been cleaned in the 15 years that the previous owner lived here. The bathtub changed colours after I scrubbed it for an hour. Under the kitchen sink it was a complete disaster zone and that was even before we discovered there’s no wall behind the kitchen sink!
But I wasn’t the only one having fun. The shed was completely overgrown with vines…inside and out. Apparently people had lived in there at some point and they had used anything they could as insulation in the walls. Seb spent a day pulling out the board and the lining and the vines. Seb also spent another day scraping tape off the floors in the house. It seems someone had the foresight to put tape down before painting the skirting…but then never removed it so now it had become part of the floor. To make it seem even more insane, whoever painted stepped in the paint and got it on the floors and then never cleaned it up.
The first evening we had our friends over for drinks and our not so great start turned into a fantastic night. We saw quickly how well the layout of the house lent itself to entertaining our friends and we felt the spirit of the house. We realized what a gem we had and really started to appreciate the good things…the gorgeous heart kauri flooring, the high ceilings, the big open space, the fireplace (YAY we have a fireplace) and the ability to have more than four of our friends over at the same time. We have a very prolific grapefruit tree in the backyard and we’re starting every day off with a glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. As a parting gift we force bags of grapefruits on our friends. We also have two lemon trees of two different varieties though I’m not sure which so if you know some good recipes with lemon and/or grapefruit let me know.
A week later the house is still dirty in some parts. We just haven’t had time to get to all of it yet but we will. For now we are enjoying the house and loving the north facing super sunny garden. We love the area and we’re thrilled it’s literally a hop and a skip to the strip of cafes and stores. It’s a unique experience to take the foot bridge over the train as it’s coming as you’re going into Kingsland. It’s like walking into a little part of London.
The house is awesome and we’re only going to make it better. We just need to decide on what it is we’re going to do. It seems we keep changing our mind. They’re all good ideas!
There are new photos in the gallery so go check ‘em out!
