I had grand plans for last week. I had an entire week off work, and I planned to do nothing except sew. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks and had planned my list of things I was going to sew.
How much sewing did I get done? I made another (yes there is already one, no it isn’t blogged about yet) Kelly skirt. Well, almost. It still needs buttons and buttonholes. Man those buttonholes are causing me problems! And…that’s it.
Am I disappointed? Not in the slightest! You see, there was a very good reason for my not getting any sewing done last week, a reason that, in the long term, should hopefully allow me to get more sewing done. I ended up househunting!
Image source: Ruby Lane
I have wanted to own a house for as long as I can remember. I just want a place that I can make my own, and put pictures up on the wall without landlords getting stroppy. We can put nothing up on the walls of our current flat, nothing. Admittedly that is more because the walls would probably fall down than for any other reason. In the last couple of years I have got more serious about wanting to buy a place, but haven’t really be able to actually do anything about it. Oxford is an insanely expensive city to live in, and the only way I can afford it is with a lot of financial help from my parents and grandad. Luckily, they are happy to help me out, which I am incredibly grateful for.
The hosuehunting last week was kicked off by speaking to a mortgage adviser, who basically said he’d have no problems getting me a mortgage, and let me know how much I could borrow. House prices are really going up at the moment so my parents and I decided that if I’m going to do this, now really is the time.
So in the space of about 4 days I spoke to 3 mortgage brokers, visited 6 estate agents and viewed 21 houses! I was busy! But it was so worth it. Just seeing that many properties allowed me to hone down my ideas of what I wanted, and also give me a basis for comparison for any I saw. On Saturday I dragged Marcus out with me as well, and we saw about 9 houses that day. One of them we saw was lovely, and we both decided that it would suit us perfectly. It was bigger than most we’d seen, and space is definitely a big thing for us. Marcus works from home, so needs an office, I was desperate for a sewing room, and we do a lot of hobbies that seen to come with loads of stuff! Piled up in various places in our living room at the moment are 2 folding bikes, 3 tents, 5 sleeping bags, miscellaneous camping gear, climbing ropes and gear, climbing helmets, skiing helmets, cycling helmets…you get the idea! And that’s before we even get started on my sewing machines, fabric stash and related things! There really is not a lot of space, and we trip over things (literally) on an alarmingly regular basis.
So we liked this house, put an offer in over the weekend, and got a call from the estate agent on Monday to say that the offer had been accepted, and the vendors (who we had a long chat with and are lovely) really wanted to sell us the house!
I am trying not to get too excited, this is only the beginning of a long and stressful journey, and there’s a lot that could still go wrong, but it is at least off to a good start. And then not only will we not be tripping over things on a regular basis, but I can actually have a sewing room. Now to work out how best to use the space – I really want to get myself a decent sized cutting table, and some funky storage solutions – any inspiration/ideas from what you have done with your sewing room, if you are lucky enough to have one, would be much appreciated!
I have been browsing Pinterest for a little bit of inspiration…Source
Now we just have the agonising wait for everything to go through. And bizarrely, I still don’t really have any impetus to sew – I think I find it difficult to focus on more than one big project at a time, so although I have had a bit of time free this week, my brain has been whirring with house stuff so much that I just haven’t had the concentration to sew. I haven’t even been keeping up with reading sewing blogs, everything has been house-focussed! But I don’t mind, the sewing may have to go by the wayside for a short while, but hopefully once I can concentrate on it again, it will be better than ever!
Make, sew, do 