We’re back!

After a not-so-brief hiatus, we’re back! What a four years it has been since we last posted…

So what have we been up to? Well, we did move into our flat and made quite a few changes! We had an unpleasant surprise just one week after moving in, when we lifted the threadbare carpet to reveal a damp patch on the floor. Further investigation revealed an ancient and rusted hot water tank slowly watering the floor boards. Thankfully it wasn’t feeding any fungi! One emergency plumber call out, a few thousand pounds, and many lifted floorboards later, we had a new combi boiler. This was a big expense which we hadn’t anticipated so soon after moving. We also discovered that the washing machine and fridge weren’t working and both needed to be replaced. It was slightly disheartening to have to spend money on these essential, functional things which we thought would be included with the flat, and researching washing machines is not quite as fun as browsing paint colours and curtain fabrics. It wasn’t quite what we had expected to be doing when we first moved in! Nonetheless, we had enough money left for a new bathroom and to redecorate throughout.

We made our flat a cosy space where we really enjoyed living. The process would have made great blog content if we’d have managed to keep up with the writing… Even better, the small study space we created would have been the perfect place to write it. Still, it was fortuitous that we made the study space, which didn’t go to waste when work from home became the new normal for many.

As Covid swept the country, and impacted us personally with our work, we decided the time had come to move back down South to be closer to family and friends; we were once again on the hunt for a new home.

We moved to our new home in Bedfordshire in November 2020. With two home purchases and a sale under our belt, I suppose we can no longer be considered green in the sense of new and naive. We’ve now got experience of both the Scottish and English property markets and legal systems. We have also now had two boilers fitted in two different properties, as it appears we don’t have much luck with heating systems! This is perhaps proof that, as any homeowner will attest, ownership constantly throws up new challenges and it seems the work is never done. We’d therefore love to continue sharing our journey in homeownership with you. Hopefully updates will be regular and consistent from now on!

As touched upon above, our most recent tale of woe concerns our boiler (again!) and asbestos, which we’ll write more about next time.

Until then, take care!

Rachel and Joe

Another weekend, another shopping trip (or two)

Hey hey hey!

We spent this weekend shopping again – no surprise given that there are less than three weeks until we move into our new flat. We’re also away the weekend before we move so that leaves us with a grand total of one weekend at home until we move… Now I’ve typed that out I’ve just realised how little time we have left and how much we still need to do!

With this in mind, we came home on Saturday feeling a bit deflated, thinking we hadn’t done very well as we hadn’t bought very much, but with the help of online shopping we more than made up for it on Sunday!

On Saturday we went shopping in Edinburgh city centre. The Christmas markets had just opened on Friday so it was feeling nice and Christmassy and we managed to pick up a few Christmas presents too (which we won’t tell you about to avoid ruining the surprise for the recipients).

As I say though, shopping for the flat wasn’t all that successful and we came away with a peeler (£6.50) from Debenhams (which we can’t just now see online) and a roasting tray (£6.99) from TK Maxx.

On Sunday we took a different tack and browsed the shops online in our pyjamas from the comfort of our own sofa. After reading lots of reviews, we finally settled on some pans which we’re very excited about! We both enjoy cooking and had preferences of what we wanted. Joe wanted metal and I wanted non-stick so we were excited to find these pans on Very for £129.99 (reduced from £159.99). We had heard good things about the brand Circulon and we’re both very pleased with them and can’t wait for them to arrive.

Our second purchase of the day was… a KitchenAid! We spotted them on sale on the John Lewis website for £279 (here), but we weren’t keen on the only colour available (cinnamon gloss). We searched around for similar deals in other stores and lo and behold they were on sale for the same price at Currys in the colour Cafe Latte (voila)! There was just one problem – they were none available for home delivery. No matter, we thought, we’ll just go and collect it from the store. We soon realised the KitchenAid we had now set our heart on wasn’t available anywhere in Edinburgh.

The nearest store with the KitchenAid in stock was in Falkirk. Now, we don’t have a car so to get to Falkirk required a bus and a train journey – one hour there, one hour back. So we did what any other keen bakers would do and off we went, arriving just in time before the store closed. Four hours later we were home with our new shiny KitchenAid.

Here is a picture of our new purchase on the bench at the train station ready to come home. The box is red but the KitchenAid is actually a cream colour like the sticker in the bottom right hand corner.

While we were in Falkirk we also popped into our much loved TK Maxx and got another couple of bowls to complement the four we already had (£3.99 each) and a baking sheet (£7.99).

All in all, we think the weekend was pretty successful!

Next time, we’ll be talking all things packing and organisation ready for the move.

Wish us luck in the meantime!

Rachel and Joe

 

Dryer balls and meatballs

Hello!

Well we certainly shopped until Joe dropped today. Five shops, five hours and £103.37 later, we have lots of new and exciting things for our flat!

We’re moving from a furnished rented flat to our new unfurnished flat so there are lots of things we will need to buy. We’ve already got a few things, including a bed, TV, coffee table and toaster – this was a huge bargain at £18 from Debenhams for a four slice Breville toaster. Neither of us could last a day without a cup of tea so of course we have our own kettle and will be packing it in the essentials box when we move.

As we say however, there is still lots to buy! We went to a retail park today to see what essentials (and non-essentials) we could pick up. We ended up going into ASDA, IKEA, Next, Matalan and TK Maxx. We didn’t end up getting anything in Next but we were eyeing up a sofa and armchair – big purchases we’re yet to make.

Here’s what we got in the other shops…

Asda

Safety first – we bought a Kidde smoke alarm and Kidde carbon monoxide alarm. The smoke alarm was on offer for £6 and the carbon monoxide alarm was £15. The home report for the flat says there isn’t a smoke alarm fitted and it’s always a good idea to have a carbon monoxide alarm so these two were high on our list of priorities (both sets of parents were very pleased when we told them we’d bought these already).

We also needed quite a few basics utensils for the kitchen and today we picked up a serving spoon (£0.40), ladle (£1.50), masher (£1.50), two wooden chopping boards (£5), three wine glasses (£1.50) (to add to the three we have already), a pizza tray (£3) (slightly less essential but sorely missed over the last year), silicone cupcake cases (£2) (even less essential but cute), a piping set (£2) (least essential of all according to Joe) and dryer balls (£2). I (Rachel) had never even heard of dryer balls before but Joe reliably informs me that they help your clothes to dry more quickly – the more you know!

We also got a pair of work gloves for £2 which should come in handy with all the DIY we have planned!

Total spend: £41.90

IKEA

Number one priority when we went to IKEA was food – Joe was feeling hungry and flagging – we would have been asking for an argument if we’d have gone round IKEA on empty stomachs. So 30 meatballs later, we were ready to shop and we must say it was quite successful!

As you can see, we got a dustpan and brush (£0.95), six small glasses (£2.75), six large glasses (£3), two washing up brushes (£1), two plastic chopping boards (£2) and an advent calendar (£2.50). The advent calendar came with a guaranteed minimum of a £5 voucher to spend in store with the chance to win up to £1,005. Given that we have plenty more to buy over the coming months, we knew we’d be back (apt given that I’m typing this with The Terminator on in the background) so this was a no-brainer – at least £5 worth of products and some chocolates for £2.50. We’ve already checked the voucher and it was indeed a £5 voucher – better than nothing!

Total spend: £12.20

TK Maxx

We’ve bought quite a lot of nice kitchenware from TK Maxx (including some really nice bowls) so we always pop in to see what they’ve got. I’ve been looking to get a quiche dish for a while now so we had to get this Mason Cash one (£4.99) when it caught our eye – you can’t quite see the colour on the photograph but it’s a light blue on the outside.

We also got a couple of Pyrex dishes (large – £6.99, small – £3.99) in time for all of the Sunday roasts we’ll be making as winter draws in.

Total spend: £15.97

Matalan

Finally, we got a few items from Matalan. All decidedly non-essential but we couldn’t resist. We got a drying mat (£3) which is largely for the flat we’re in now where we have a wooden counter, but we’re sure it’ll come in handy in the new place and for just £3 we thought it was a good buy.

As soon as we walked into the home section we both spotted the duvet set. We actually thought it was a blanket at first and we were a bit disappointed when we saw it was a duvet set but once we felt how soft the sheets were we were sold and it went into the basket for £28. If you look on the website (here) you can see they have a couple of other colours in this set too.

Finally, and please forgive us for bringing it up so early in November, we got a Christmas bauble! We’ve decided we’re going to each get a nice bauble every year starting from this year. Joe chose this one (although I approve) and it was £3.

Total spend: £33.30

And that’s the lot! We think it was quite a successful trip and we had a good day out. Joe has just about recovered ready for next time.

Please let us know if you’ve picked up any good bargains for your home recently!

Rachel and Joe

Green, green owners of home

Hello!

This is exciting! Welcome to our shiny new blog. We’ll be updating this regularly (hopefully) as we embark on our journey as homeowners!

To get everybody up to speed, our first ever post will be a brief summary of how we got to where we are now – and precisely where that is!

We met at university five years ago and by September 2016, after living 200 miles apart for most of the previous year, we were more than ready to move in together. Having never even set foot in the city before, we decided to relocate to Edinburgh from Manchester and Canterbury. So, excited to start our new chapter, we packed our bags and off we went! We found a nice flat to rent after a rather stressful search (which we’ll tell you about another time) and settled into life beyond the wall.

Fast forward a year to September 2017, having decided that we could happily share flat without wanting to kill each other and enjoying life in our new city, we decided we were ready to take the plunge and buy a home of our own.

(We will do a post in the future about the nitty gritty of the home buying process and our struggle with the Scottish system, with hints and tips we picked up along the way.)

So that brings us to the here and now and we have just under four weeks to pack up and move out!

We hope you’ll enjoy following our journey and hopefully learning from all the mistakes we inevitably make!

Until next time…

Rachel and Joe