home owning Archives - Nothing good rhymes with Charlotte

Six things to remember when you’re moving house

07/05/2017 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

We’ve moved. Not far, just around the corner in fact, but we may as well have emigrated to the moon, such was the level of admin and boxes and general chaos involved. But we’re in now and the new flat is slowly starting to feel like home. The rest just feels like the results of a jumble sale I attended whilst drunk and bought everything in sight, but we’ll get there.

Next time we move (which will be NEVER by the way. We’re just going to have to stay here forever), there are a few things I’d like to remember in order to make the whole process easier on my mind, so here they are. Writing this means I’m not currently doing unpacking, as I should be, and for such an escape I’m very grateful. I hope reading this provides a distraction from whatever much more worthwhile activity you’re supposed to be doing too.

1. All being well, you won’t look back

I felt quite emotional about leaving our old flat. It was the first place we’d owned, the flat we left that September afternoon and headed off to the Cotswolds to get married, the safe space I could never wait to get back to after work or socialising or doing a big shop. To suddenly step outside of those walls felt risky – what if we didn’t feel as happy elsewhere? What if the next owner didn’t appreciate the perfect arch of the ceiling above the lounge like I did? What would next door’s cat do without me? Who would she ignore now?

But the time comes to move on and though it’s laborious and dusty and, at times, downright soul destroying, the process of packing up is actually rather helpful. You’re so happy when you’ve finally got all of your belongings out the door and into the van that you’re more than ready to get going and never look back. Also, if you’ve given the whole thing the appropriate amount of thought, you’re probably moving somewhere you like and that will enable your life to keep moving in the desired direction. And for that reason, it makes sense to just keep looking forward with optimism, and only to look back with gratitude for what a happy time you’ve had until now. (Mitsy Cat, call me!)

2. You really should do a clear-out before you pack up, but don’t beat yourself up when you inevitably don’t

Looking through the madness of belongings we brought with us to our new home I am reminded of the level to which ‘F*CK IT, JUST PUT IT IN A BOX’ became our home move mantra by the end. You imagine that you’ll spend the weeks before you go sorting through every item you own and only bringing with you the most vital and useful of belongings. But this is not reality, or it certainly wasn’t for us. Mind you, I did try. I will remind my husband forever of the fact that when I suggested we get rid of anything we didn’t need before the move, he said: “I want everything I own“, as if to suggest that I was the sole hoarder among us. I can confirm now that we’ve moved and are surrounded by boxes which may as well have been labelled ‘WHY WOULD ANYBODY EVER BUY THIS’ that he no longer stands by this statement. (But I don’t mention it. Much.)

3. The good news is, you’ll still be you when you get there

The building itself is only part of the reason you’re happy where you live. The roof and walls and floor are critical, of course, but it’s you that makes that house a home. The relationship you have with yourself and whoever you live with. The life experiences you prepare for, recover from, and dream of beneath that roof. The friends you cater for, laugh with, and console on the sofa over cake and tea and the sound of a colours wash spinning in the machine in the background. That’s where the real happiness lies, and that can be recreated anywhere, I’m sure of it.

4. The bad news is, you’ll still be you when you get there

I fell into the same old trap once again. You know, the one where you believe that in this new house you’ll be a tidy person, and in this house you’ll own less stuff, and in this place you’ll be a calmer, more together and focused person. Guess what? A property doesn’t just change your personality overnight. It’s nice that we’re now trying to cut down on the level of crap we own, but we’re never going to be minimalists. I’ve got a box upstairs especially for old greetings cards, which also contains a leaflet I made during A-level French explaining how to conjugate verbs. You know. JUST. IN CASE. I’m not good at letting go and that is OK. Je ne regrette rien.

5. That miscellaneous box of wires is going to follow you around for the rest of your life. Just accept it

I don’t know what most of them are even for. Some of them are ethernet cables; I believe we have about 300,000. There are also approximately 250 European plug adapters in there too because HEAVEN FORBID we should actually manage to remember to pack one when we go on holiday and miss out on the opportunity to purchase yet another at the airport. As for the rest, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that they have followed us from flat to flat for the past nine years untouched, except by our fear that they might one day come in handy. If you came here looking for the very definition of a first world problem then I think you just found it.

6. Nobody knows what’s around the corner

Change is scary, I’m never not afraid of it. Be it the small, such as a new brand of orange squash or the suggestion that we should go out on a Monday night. Or the big, like a change of address, or a new local cat to make friends with (it’s going extremely well so far with this one, BTW). But life wouldn’t be half as interesting without change. We simply couldn’t move on without it.

My dad has said to me each time we’ve bought a new home to remember that there will definitely be something wrong with it that we don’t yet know about. That’s just the way it works. So what matters is that we like the place enough to endure the cost and the admin that comes along when we discover what it is. And it’s strong advice.

You never know what’s going to happen, all you can do is make what feels like the right decision based on the information in front of you, and then move forward without regret. And just as you don’t know what trouble might be around the corner, you never know what fresh joy is waiting for you either. The only way to find out is to risk it.

Grown-up problems: When ants attack

27/04/2014 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

I found ants in our kitchen.

I opened a cupboard and there they were: crawling on the tuna, nibbling at the chopped tomatoes and – worst of all – trying their luck with my peanut butter. It was like living in the creepy crawly room at the Natural History Museum except with real bugs.

It was Easter Sunday morning and there I was, attempting to annihilate the ant community by slapping it with a packet of udon noodles and screaming “Just F*** off you little sh*ts!” when I thought: how did I end up here?

Sure, I could recall wandering down the stairs with an overwhelming desire for peanutty buttery toast, but I couldn’t quite summon the memory of the moment when this sort of crisis (yes, crisis – did you know ants have six legs EACH?!) became my responsibility. As I covered every corner of the house with ant powder (if only my mum’s boil-the-kettle-and-soak-the-bastards approach worked indoors), I realised that at 28, the answer to that question is: ages ago.

There comes a time when you realise that calling your parents isn’t always the quickest way to solve your problems. I found this out a couple of years ago when a friend and I returned to the room we were sharing after a night out to discover a large spider on the floor. She screamed, I screamed, and the spider just sat there looking evil. And though we were terrified, we resolved not to call her dad who was probably asleep and definitely a three-hour drive away to help us fight this monster, but to pop it under a glass until the morning. Neither of us slept much that night but at least her dad did.

I think I imagined that by the time I was old enough to own a house and get married I would just magically know how to deal with all the grown-up problems that would come our way: the insect infestations, the locks that suddenly decide to break, the garden than seems utterly determined to evolve into one giant weed… But I don’t and neither does he so, unfortunately, we have to work this sh*t out by ourselves.

Well, I say by ourselves but what I really mean is that we use Google. At the press of a button my search for ‘how to make ants get out of my kitchen’ led me to websites and discussion forums with every suggestion I could need (although I don’t recommend reading too many of them – finding out about the variety of places people across the world have found ants was almost enough to make me sell up and live on a boat). And it turns out there’s these wizards called ‘Locksmiths’ who can make even the most knackered of door security mechanisms work with just a drill and some cash. Incredible.

But of course, we can still go to our parents for advice from time to time, in fact I’m sure they’d hate it if we didn’t. (How else is my mum supposed to pass on her ant extermination wisdom? She’s right, they most definitely do not like Dettol.) But we’re old enough now to at least do a little thinking and research of our own before automatically speed-dialling Home.

Adulthood seems to happen overnight. I imagine everybody feels like that. One minute you’re thinking about whether you’ve successfully nailed the dance moves to Stop! by the Spice Girls and the next you’re sat having dinner with your husband discussing whether the best way to solve ant-gate is just to get a new kitchen.

Now I come to mention it, I might just see what my parents think about that one.

20 things you’ll find in a woman’s handbag

03/11/2013 by Charlotte 4 Comments

Lost something? Live with a woman? Whether it’s a pen or a sock or a six-piece set of drill bits, there’s a good chance it’s fallen into that leather bound black hole she calls her handbag.

I emptied mine this weekend. If I’d taken a picture and asked you to identify whether it was the contents of a handbag or rubbish sack that I’d photographed, I doubt you’d have been sure.

We start our relationship with a handbag with such good intentions. We swear that never again will we scrabble about on the train station floor, hurling tights, Tupperware boxes and old gas bills over our heads as we desperately search for our Oyster card. With a new bag comes the opportunity for a fresh start.

But before the week is out we’ll have started accumulating. We’ll pop a sock we find behind the radiator in there with the intention of putting it away upstairs, or eat a Babybel and chuck its rubbery jacket in our bag because we can’t be arsed to go to the bin, and before we know it we’ve been carrying it around for a fortnight.

And if that’s how it looks after two weeks, imagine how it looks after a year. In my case the inventory reads something like this:

1. 10 out-of-date supermarket coupons. I should have got that 40p off baked potatoes when I had the chance.

2. One lone skin-coloured pop-sock. They look even more depressing on their own.

3. A small blue bouncy ball. Obviously.

4. 12 used train tickets. How else am I supposed to remember that I sat in seat 16A when I went to Sheffield in May?

5. Three nail varnishes. Used for antisocial, ill-advised nail painting on public transport.

6. The remains of an eyeliner. Sharpened so many times that the lid is now bigger than the length of the pencil

7. Four handfuls of receipts. Enough to document every item I have ever purchased.

8. Recipes ripped out of magazines. You and I both know I will never cook any of them.

9. A lip balm I got free with a voucher. I’ve never worn it. Candyfloss pink is really not my shade.

10. Hairbands. With a bonus knot of my hair attached to each one. Nice.

11. One earring. Its twin fell out on the District Line ages ago but I’ll never give up hope of finding it.

12. An umbrella case. I haven’t seen the actual umbrella since April.

13. A ‘Sorry you were out’ Royal Mail card. Dated June 2012.

14. Two pen lids. No pens in sight.

15. So many crumbs. The bottom of the bag feels like a sand pit.

16. A single Nurofen tablet. Although it’s been in there so long the writing now just says urofen.

17. A neatly folded empty Doritos packet. I like to hold my favourite memories close.

18. Enough tissues to soak up the Thames. And all the empty Kleenex packets they came in.

19. The snapped string and beads from a broken bracelet. I thought the earring might need some company.

20. The ‘Genuine leather’ badge that came with the bag. Good to be reminded that it’s a quality accessory that I’m ruining.

And now I’m back to square one again. Bag tidy, rubbish binned, good intentions at an all-time high. But I know that all it’ll take is a processed cheese or Pringles craving to see my standards drop again.

Well, if you must carry crumbs around with you, at least make sure they’re good ones.

Relationship chit chat: Then and now

19/05/2013 by Charlotte 1 Comment

Saturday morning – One month into the relationship

HER: What time is it?

HIM: Erm… 11.28.

HER: Excellent. We don’t have to get up for at least two more hours.

Saturday morning – Eight years into the relationship

HER: Morning!

HIM: You’re up early…

HER: It’s the weekend and I really don’t want to waste the day, and you know my back hurts if I stay in bed too long these days. And you didn’t fill the dishwasher before we came to bed last night and somebody has got to do it. And I want to put a clothes wash on before I got to the post office. There’s just so much to do!

HIM: I’ll get up.

Saturday lunchtime – One month in

HER: What do you want to have for lunch today?

HIM: Ooh I don’t mind – let’s go out somewhere new and exciting!

HER: Ok!

Saturday lunchtime – Eight years in

HIM: What shall we have for lunch? Shall we go out?

HER: Hmmm no, I planned for us to have mackerel today.

HIM: Ok, but I don’t really fancy that.

HER: Well, we’ll be completely off schedule if we don’t have it – I planned it that way 10 days ago when I put the grocery order together. You should have said then if you thought you wouldn’t fancy mackerel today!

HIM: Mackerel it is.

Saturday evening – One month in

HIM: Let’s try that new bar you told me about tonight and stay out until god-knows-o’clock.

HER: Ok!

Saturday evening – Eight years in

HER: Let’s stay in tonight and watch a film. I hate other people.

HIM: Me too.

HER: And I could really do with getting another load of washing on too.

HIM: On a Saturday night?

HER: Yes on a Saturday night – imagine the sense of achievement we’ll feel when it’s all clean and we know we did it whilst everybody else was out standing in queues and dodging pools of sick.

HIM: …Ok… you do that and I’ll get the sweets.

HER: DEAL!

Saturday night, bedtime – One month in

HIM: It’s 4 o’clock in morning and I’m not even tired yet!

HER: Me neither! Shall we get chips and cheese and then walk two miles home and discuss how ace we both are?

HIM: YES – let’s do that immediately!

Saturday night, bedtime – Eight years in

HIM: Charlotte? Charlotte? CHARLOTTE?

HER: Bleurgh…. what?!

HIM: It’s half eleven. You slept through the whole film again. Shall we go up to bed?

HER: Hmmmnoooohmmmmm, I want to stay here.

HIM: Ok, well I’m going up.

HER: Hey, don’t go without me! Why would you leave me down here on my own?!

Saturday night, lights out – One month in

HER: The room’s spinning!

HIM: I know. Let’s just close our eyes and hopefully it’ll stop.

HER: It’s not working!

Saturday night, lights out – Eight years in

HIM: Honey, come to bed.

HER: I’m just completing my facial routine; you don’t want to marry somebody who doesn’t have a nice clean face do you? And then I’ve just got to check that all the doors and windows are locked, that the hobs are off and that you’ve remembered to unplug the iron – somebody has got to look after this house!

… (20 minutes later)

HIM: Can you please stop touching every part of the house and get into bed?

HER: *sighs* OK.

*climbs into bed* Night night.

HIM: Night.

…

HER: Did you put the dishwasher on?

HIM: *deep breath*

…

I’ll do it in the morning.

Londoners: You won’t like us when we’re angry

24/02/2013 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

All it takes is one bad commute to make you want to sell up, sack off the city and move to the countryside. Assuming The Archers is an accurate representation of real life; the people there are very friendly.

This week, I was called a STUPID BITCH by a person I asked – very politely – to move aside so that I could get off the train.

It hit me like a punch to the stomach, hot water to the throat, a kipper round the cheek. I was astounded, and likely to cry at any moment should anybody ask if I was ok. I’m not sure they’ve designed a hazard warning sign to say Floor slippery due to falling mascara yet but they should.

Speaking to strangers like that can only go on for so long. Call me a stupid bitch and all you’ll get is a flabbergasted look and a quivering jaw. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to respond with wit and expletives to make Malcolm Tucker proud, but I’m much more effective on paper. But say it to somebody feistier and I can imagine a hand sandwich may come your way. It’s a risk the shouty ones take.

And we’ve all met our fair share of them. The ones who just can’t contain their frustration with the world any longer and have to try and make our lives as bad as our existence is apparently making theirs.

But to these people I say this:

We’re all angry, sweetheart.

Nobody likes being cramped so tight in a train that a sardine would upgrade his property description to ‘Penthouse’ if he saw us.

Nobody enjoys queuing behind 35 people who don’t understand how a queue works just to buy a tray of sushi.

Nobody likes bad weather.

Nobody takes pleasure from an announcement to say the train which should have arrived ten minutes ago is running on time.

We’re all livid. Just writing the list makes my brain hurt.

But most of us keep it to ourselves. In the interests of perspective, maintaining a healthy heart and avoiding getting a punch in the chops, we keep the anger inside. Or at least wait until we get home and vent our frustrations on Twitter – the modern day equivalent of screaming into a pillow before a captive audience.

Because living here is our choice. We could go somewhere else if we liked. But there will still be people. Perhaps not eight million sweaty people all trying to get to north London by 9am, but people nonetheless, who will probably still manage to piss you off.

I am baffled every day as to why I have financially and emotionally invested in staying in a place where travelling through train station barriers at anything less than the speed of light is a crime punishable by sighing.

And I’m sure one day I will hang up my Oyster card, bid farewell to the underground, leave and not look back. I consider doing it every day.

But until then, all I want to do is keep my head down, read my book, and remember to get off at the right stop.

If you would just be so kind as to let me through, I’ll be on my way.

Welcome to the house of fun

02/12/2012 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

Only when you can legitimately use the phrase “Whilst you’re under MY ROOF you will live by MY RULES” do you truly feel like an adult.

When we bought our home I became a number of things: an official grown up, in more debt that I can count, a cohabitee and a co-mortgage holder. But, more alarmingly, the purchase of land and walls and rooms to call my own made me become even more unreasonable than I ever thought possible.

If it wasn’t weird, disgusting and, frankly, logistically problematic for a woman to wee all around her house, marking her territory like a dog with a medieval style moat, then by god I would do it.

You see, the wonderful thing about having a place of your own is that – with the exception of boilers, power cuts and unexpected mice who pop by uninvited – you can control what happens within it. You decide which will be your handbag drawer, how the DVD filing system works, and your policy on how long it’s acceptable for the fridge door to be left open.

And this is fine when it’s just you in the house, queen of your one-bed castle. But what about when the king comes home? Or you have guests? How do you make sure everybody keeps to the house rules without making them wish they’d never visited?

I find it very hard to strike this balance. In theory, I love having people over, inviting them into our home, telling them the riveting story behind the purchase of our curtains, welcoming them hilariously to Ikea when they enter our bedroom. But in practice, the edge is taken off somewhat when they arrive and – instead of concentrating on the excitement of seeing a loved one – all I can think is: How soon is too soon to ask you to take your shoes off?

And when I do eventually ask, I try and disguise the level to which it matters to me (which is LOADS in case you hadn’t already gathered) by laughing and apologising and waving my hands about to shake off the illusion of *crazy*. It definitely works.

But friends – though they may silently think you’re in need of psychotherapy – will at least humour you in the interests of a quiet life. But family find having you attempt to rule the roost a little strange. You see, adults you’ve grown up with are so used to telling you what to do, that it’s very odd to suddenly find yourself saying “Mum, can you use a coaster please?!” when five minutes ago she was telling you to get out of the pantry, stop eating the glacé cherries and do your homework.

I spend the duration of any visit having to hold myself back from stalking our caller’s every movement. What are they getting up to in that bathroom? They aren’t dropping crumbs on the rug are they?! My priorities are all in the wrong order.

Of course it doesn’t really matter if a hot drink touches the table, or a shoe sets foot on the floor, or even if – god forbid – the butter knife ventures into the honey. I should just be grateful that anyone has travelled to see me.

There must be a compromise. I don’t see me becoming any less controlling any time soon – especially considering the level to which the knife/honey scenario made me shudder – and I don’t think my friends or family are going to come a-calling again if I keep putting my hand under their chin every time they take a bite of biscuit.

So next time, I think it’s best that I go to them. It’s only so long before following someone into your bathroom goes from ‘funny’ to ‘restraining order’.

So you really do have to Do It Yourself then? Huh…

19/08/2012 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

The toilet in our downstairs bathroom makes a very strange noise when you flush it.

It makes a groaning noise similar to that which a badly acted fallen hero would make in a low budget drama – long, loud, annoying. HHHHUUUUUURRRRGGGGGHHHH is the closest I can get to it on a standard keyboard.

It’s obviously because of some kind of problem with the plumbing but beyond that I have no idea what it is nor any interest in finding out. I would definitely like it to stop but – it turns out – simply wanting a household improvement to occur is not enough to make it happen.

In a couple of weeks’ time it will be a year since we purchased and moved into our very own flat. We own it (in loving partnership with the bank) and are therefore responsible for every element of its existence. And finding out exactly what this means has been something of a rude awakening.

I can say with as much confidence as I can spell out my own name that my co-mortgage holder (and coincidentally future spouse) would like nothing more than to spend every hour of every day of every weekend sat shooting at or scoring goals against every character that dares to cross his X-Box–animated path. Indeed it is – conveniently – precisely what he is doing as I write this.

And as much as I will of course spend the rest of my life working tirelessly hard to make him happy blablabla etc etc, I simply cannot stand by and let games be played when there are weeds to be removed and flat-pack to be assembled. It turns out – as my mum would so often tell me – these things really will not do themselves, you know!

I have started looking at my parents with bewildered awe. All those things that used to break and get fixed in our houses when we were growing up. All those rooms that got decorated, lawns mowed, flowers planted. How did they know how to do it all? And, more importantly, how on earth could they be arsed to keep doing it time and time again? Beyond the serious lack of basic domestic knowledge that’s held me and X-Boxo back, the main route cause is what my Year 2 class teacher would have called being ‘bone idle’ but what I would argue is constant exhaustion. I’ll let you decide whose side you’re on.

But in a pairing made up of a woman who likes nothing more than a long but achievable to-do list (preferably involving some shopping) and a man who considers organisation to be an attribute he is only obliged to demonstrate in the office, something has to give.

Because I like our home as much as I do, I struggle not to consider every moment spent in it that does not contribute to its improvement to be time utterly wasted. Except of course the two and a half hours I dedicate each week to Coronation Street which is what I think the sisterhood would call my Me Time.

And so I stand on patrol each Saturday and Sunday, ready and waiting with my ‘We really should do’ list. For example, today’s was: 1) Go to Ikea and buy two more chairs to make our dining table more welcoming to guests who also like to sit down when they eat. 2) Do an absolute shed load of washing and marvel at how quickly it dries in the blistering sunshine. 3) Tidy up the garden which was becoming so overgrown I feared the weeds were going to break through the back doors into the lounge like those ones in Jumanji 4) Review the wedding budget because that should be FUN and 5) Finish painting the downstairs bathroom.

Well, 1,2 and 3 have all happened thanks to some excellent alarm setting and meal planning on my part and some brute strength on the gentleman’s and I look forward very much to ticking off 4 and 5…. she writes knowing she’s too tired to face either.

It turns out that – despite my initial misguided view – our mums and dads weren’t born DIY experts or cleaning machines, they got off their sofas (I presume they had them in those days) and learnt how to do it all for themselves, which is exactly what we need to do.

And we’ve made quite a good start in 12 months – we have shelves on the walls, more Ikea furniture than the shop itself and a full range of herbs and spices that we actually use. So now we move onto Stage 2 – the part where we don’t believe it would be easier to sell up than to learn how to change the sky lights when they go or knock the place down when a spider comes a-calling.

And maybe, just maybe, we will learn how to fix the toilet too. Or we could always ask our parents to do it for us. I’m sure one of them knows how.

Dinner’s on the table!

15/04/2012 by Charlotte Leave a Comment

The introduction of a dining table to our home has taken us up the next step to fully fledged adulthood.

We’ve lived here for seven months and 13 days now (to be precise). The weekly trips to Ikea we did in the early days ground to a necessary halt sometime before Christmas when our bank balances and patience could take it no more. We’d got everything we needed to set up home and took the opportunity to enjoy living here for a bit, and to start looking at each other as more than just flat pack constructing robots.

But this weekend the time came to start the next phase of flat development. Complacency kept us warm throughout the winter as we patted ourselves on the back for the excellent curtains selection we made in November, but with the Spring light of day flooding in through the window, we could no longer hide from the gaps we were still yet to fill.

We needed a big mirror for the lounge wall, a chest of drawers for the bedroom and, most importantly, a dining table for the kitchen. Eating on our laps is all well and good but as we finally admit that university life is a distant memory, the purchase of a table is an essential step to civilised living.

And the trip was very successful. All items were purchased and brought home in once piece – or at least the correct number of flat pack parts – and, after a quick beans on toast lunch to help us recover from the shopping ordeal, the assembling process commenced – starting with the table. And what a beauty she is.

We had our first table based dinner this evening and if our life were a computer game, which I’m delighted that it’s not, I think this move would have marked our move up to the next level. We had a nice chat, we used mats and coasters, and we didn’t watch a moment of TV the whole time. “I think having dinner at the table will be good for us,” I said, “It’ll give us more time to chat.” A polite raise of the eyebrows and silent nod of the head was as good a response as I could have hoped for to such a declaration as I watched his dreams of a lifetime of dinners in front of rugby highlights seep out through the ceiling.

So now this house feels like a real home. We can eat, we can sleep and we can sit down just like they do in adverts. All we need to do now is buy enough furniture so that other people can do all those things too should they happen to pop by. We might need an extension to fit it all in.