WE'RE ALL MOVED IN

My last post on here was back in March, and I was telling you about all the things we (myself and my partner Ryan) had been up to, and most excitingly, that we were in the process of buying a house with plans to rent out my old house in Lancaster.

WELL. First off, we're in our new home. We moved in on 13th April after exchanging on the 12th. We'd initially planned on moving in on the Sunday but alas, we were impatient and so with the helping hands of our parents and a few trips to and from Lancaster, we made it. Two frightened kitties in tow.

We were both shattered, Ryan especially as he'd actually only landed back in the UK on the Friday and had collected our keys en route back to Lancaster, and between that and having people coming and going that weekend, appliances delivered and so on, I'm sure he'll agree with me when I say that we didn't really get chance to truly take everything in for a little while after the move. 

I can't recall whether or not I've mentioned it on here but Ryan and I volunteer as cat cuddlers at the local RSPCA and right before we moved, we fell in love with a charming senior boy named Peanut. 

He joined the family shortly after we moved in and despite a few grumbles and hisses from the other boys, was accepted into the fold very quickly. We are now, therefore, a family of five. 

Since his arrival, we've been adding furniture to the house, and rugs. Lots of rugs. And last weekend, we finally put paint to the lounge walls. And skirting. And ceiling. We've got some additional skirting, the doors and window frame to paint, and some touch ups to do but it's so nice to finally feel like we're putting our own stamp on the place. As nice as the previous colours in the lounge looked (see above purple wall), they just weren't us. We've gone dark and moody and I love it. I'm just excited to fill our walls up now with prints, and eventually, to get the ceiling papered and a new light fit. Hopefully that's not too far into the future. We've decided to go with Divine Savages wallpaper and I am so excited to see the finished product. 

Behind the scenes my dad has been working tirelessly in Lancaster, re-plumbing and re-flooring, sanding and paper hanging, painting and tiling. We've helped with little bits along the way, but in all honesty, I think we mostly get under my dad's feet. Thanks to his incredible efforts, Lancaster is probably only a couple of weeks away from being ready to market. I think I'll share the renovation story with you once it's all complete, although I believe that the real trick to it is having someone who's bloody brilliant at DIY to help (read: do most of it). I will absolutely be taking my dad out for a thank you meal after this. Fear not. 

With Lancaster under control and the new house transforming into our forever home bit by bit, there's not really too much else to report. Life is steady, and happy. I've been sharing a lot of what we've been up to with the house(s) on Instagram as I've been playing along with the #myhousethismonth challenge for what will be three months at the end of this month. The month before, I did a further challenge too by joining in with #storyofmyhome. I've been loving playing along, posting a photo relating to a given prompt each day of the month, for a number of reasons. I love looking back and seeing the first month's photos and how empty the house was, remembering how we had to run around bringing bits in from other rooms to stage the photo. Now, I'm chuffed that we can just take (for the most part) live photos of our home - save as for having a bit of a run around with a damp cloth, or hiding an ugly plastic bag or kitchen roll. It's good to track progress, and to gain ideas from other people's lovely homes who are also playing along. If you do want to follow along, my Instagram is @lauraseed_ and is linked in the sidebar in any event. I'm wondering whether to do a post with some of my favourite challenge photos in as a bit of a house tour type thing?

If you do have a nosey over on Instagram, you'll also notice that Ryan and I have been away recently. He took me on a surprise (I say surprise, he caved the night he booked it and told me where we were going but it was still a surprise booking) early birthday trip to the North Star Club in Yorkshire. I think I'll save that for another post though. Just know it was lovely and I fully recommend. 

Going forward, I have some renovation on a budget posts (it's literally just titles of posts) in my drafts, some half drafted posts (again, some are just titles) about the things we do in our house to promote sustainability and a title called "securing the second property" which I hope will be beneficial for anyone in the same position as us ten months ago. We are, of course, still at the start of this process and so I'm sure we have lots to learn along the way and I'm no expert but I love reading posts with 'how I did it' vibes. It makes things feel a lot more achievable. Someone who's blog I adore for posts like that is Tasmin's- have a read, treat yourself. When I posted my post "The Trouble With Blogging" back in 2017, I mentioned her posts and I stand by what I said then. I love personable blogs, with real life writers and so, I hope, that's what I'm achieving with these planned posts I have. Plus, I just really bloody love houses and could talk about them all day long. People IRL probably get bored of me rambling on but I guess if you guys are here, that must mean you're interested right?!