Plagued by worries as we finally move home after two years of renovations

Eimear McGovern

Moving into a post renovated home can bring a sense of fulfilment

Moving into a post renovated home can bring a sense of fulfilment

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A walk along the beach

Vladimi with Julia May Jonas

Moving into a post renovated home can bring a sense of fulfilment

June 11 2022 07:00 AM

We tested the foundations, taking our time before rushing into a decision and each of us shouldered the burden when the other was too tired to do so.

No, I’m not talking about my marriage — although I’m discovered over the process of our home renovation that many of the same principles apply, not least having to listen to and consider the concerns of others when you don’t always feel like it.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to find a house on a property listing, go to a viewing before deciding it was absolutely the one for you and making an offer, before the excitement of it being accepted. I’d go sofa shopping, think of the perfect paint colours and eventually move into a beautiful house that only needed the slightest of cosmetic touch-ups before hosting a barbecue to show off my new abode.

Chance would be a fine thing. I won’t bore you with the details but when we bought our house from a family member, it was after we had already lived there for a year. It was until recently a freezing, tumbling-down bungalow that had little work done to it since the Queen’s coronation after which our street was named.

It’s fitting considering the year we started carrying out work on it was that of her Platinum Jubilee.

We always thought it was the last stop in renting, the first property we had officially lived in together and the first step towards something bigger and better, or at least with less of a persistent damp problem and pervasive draughts.

But when the sharks began to circle and threatened to steal it out from under our feet through the means of legitimate purchase, we were eventually forced to show our hand and put down that deposit we had saved for a home we had chosen ourselves.

But it wasn’t before we were forced, through the medium of house shopping, to realise that what we wanted wasn’t available or required means that weren’t quite ours. To make matters worse, what was in our budget also needed a new kitchen or new bathrooms, or was too small, too big, too ramshackle.

Then we were left with a dilemma. The only thing to do was to renovate, with all the confidence of first-time homeowners. Of course, that was, in hindsight, the least sensible option at a time of sky-high costs and lockdowns coupled with a shortage of builders, no connections and a lack of knowledge when it came to the most basic of house affairs.

Two years after that oh-so-easy decision and several crises and architects later, we’re about to move back in. And although I’ve dreamed of this moment and of the chance to go home after renting and imposing on others for the past six months, I have the cold feet I certainly didn’t have before my wedding day. I’m dreading the snag list, wondering what decisions I wish I had made or renovation jobs I should have found the money for.

It’s hard not to worry about damaging the new kitchen, somehow breaking the boiler or buying the wrong piece of furniture and being lumbered with buyer’s remorse for years on end.

That’s along with the anxiety of settling down for good this time in a town that isn’t my own, where I don’t know anyone or have an extensive support system.

Above all I’m hoping those worries will be alleviated by being able to move in somewhere and call it our own for at least the foreseeable future and all that entails, what I imagined while I was lingering outside the windows of estate agents or scrolling through Property Pal and Facebook.

It’s about finally putting a nail in a wall and not worrying about the landlord or having to cover up the hole when you leave, finally picking your own paint or buying a piece of furniture to make somewhere properly your own after years of sleeping on lumpy mattresses or watching TV from the dodgiest of sofas.

Better yet, we won’t have to forward our post to another address when we inevitably leave after a year, lured by the promise of something better in another part of town.

There will be no awkward sharing of kitchen space with other grown adults who would also rather live alone, or dodgy flatmates who refuse to clean up after themselves, meaning your home always has a slight smell of unwashed dishes.

It’s all behind us now. Good things come in threes and after good thing number one came in the form of our wedding, the second good thing is (we’re hoping) the move back home in preparation for good thing number three when our baby hopefully arrives safely towards the end of the year.

Plagued by worries as we finally move home after two years of renovations

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