August 2000

I was definitely wearing rose tinted glasses when I looked round this house in August 2000. It was being rented out by the room and I don't think we even got to see all the rooms. All I saw was a 3 storey house which we could afford. Forget the leaking roof, the plaster falling off the walls, the fact that there were no internal doors, no central heating, leaking windows, and a garden which was open onto the road and used as a rubbish tip by both the inhabitants of the house and anyone passing by. Did I forget we had 3 children then aged 10, 4 and 9 months, oh and very little money to spare! No! All I saw was the magazine photo of a family round a large dining room table at Christmas, the open fireplace, the high Victorian ceilings - and lots of potential.

Eight years on we still have the leaking roof and no garden. No rooms have really been completed although we have made quite a bit of progress. Despite all this I still love the house as much, if not more, than I did when I first saw it. We are now about to tackle the garden and hallway and I am going to record our progress in this blog.