This is a collaborative post
If you’ve read any of my previous posts about our intention to move to Cumbria and the Lake District then you’ll know before we are in a position to move we need to spend time refreshing our house.
Unless you are an interior design fanatic, houses can get stale whilst you are busy living life.
Well the past 3 months or more has seen a hive of DIY activity in the Tuppenny household.
I am very lucky that Mr2p is a carpenter and all round great DIYer so he has completed all of the handyman type jobs.
Saving us a ton of money.
He fitted our kitchen last year and more recently has done the lion’s share of tiling, filling and painting.
I am the laborer, doing as I am told which includes all the gloss painting.
Can I just say I am so over gloss paint?
Master Lists
I know some of our family and friends have thought that perhaps we are spending too much time and effort on revamping the house only to sell it.
Why bother?
We think it’s worth it so when it goes on the market we have the best chance of getting an early buyer.
I can’t think of anything worse than waiting for a buyer for 6 months or more.
Spend the time now and save time later in the selling process. That’s the idea anyway!
We created two master lists for our house project. One list detailed all the DIY work required, things such as:
- re-grouting tiles
- painting walls and ceilings
- painting woodwork
- knocking down a large, rundown, outhouse/aviary
This list is almost completely finished now – whoop! Which means we are now working on the second list.
The second master list was a room by room account of what we needed to do to style the house when we put it on the market.
What needed renewing, removing, hiding or just binning. On that list have been things like:
- new cushions
- purging an overflowing bookcase
- getting rid of all the clutter in the spare bedroom
- new lounge carpet (coal fires burn holes in carpets if you don’t use a fireguard – just saying!)
- new bedroom carpet (never give in to a teenager who wants a black carpet – just say no!)
I have made countless runs to the household waste tip. I have taken 2 carpets and the associated underlay. I’ve also taken the entire 5m x 4m wooden aviary!
90% of the items taken to our tip are recycled so I don’t feel bad about throwing these things away.
Interior Design
Now that the house is almost complete we are focusing on the prettying up of it to make it appeal to as many viewers as possible.
The thing is you can spend a fortune on interior design if you are not careful.
There are so many lovely things out there to tempt you that you can get carried away and forget your frugal skills.
Luckily I have found this interactive guide which not only provides some great design ideas, it links through to tons of discount codes.
Who wouldn’t want to save money one something they were going to buy anyway?
We’ve set a new deadline of next week to getting agents round to value the house.
So the next few days will be a hive of bustle and finishing off little jobs.
Roll on the summer and potentially a new place to live!
Last Updated on 16th September 2020 by Emma
