New house, building work commences! 11/11/2010
So, after a very long struggle, we've finally got the house! Completed on Monday and picked up the keys on Tuesday. Spent Wednesday trying to get the gas, electric and water connected (with no success... repo's are hard work!) and today I met with the builder. After lots of discussions with the builder, we've tweaked the kitchen design. Added a small sink to the other end of the kitchen, taken the doors off the washer and dryer, so we can get bigger machines, swapped the plate rack for a display cabinet above the new sink, to make it a feature adn some other stuff. Two new photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fetchsarahl We went upstairs and long story short I ended up opening the velux window in bedroom 2. ARGHARGAHRGH! Suddenly a big black blanket of flies (normal house flies) dropped through onto our heads. There were hundreds of them, all dopey! I screamed and ran out, leaving the builder standing there, perplexed, combing flies from his hair!! I nipped home and got some fly killer. Brought it back and gave it to Mr Builder to go and sort it out!!! ugh! lol! All very exciting now. The builders are starting on Tuesday next week! :) Plumber's coming round first. We're pretty much re-plumbing the entire house - new pipes throughout (wider), new boiler and two new hot water tanks... YAY! :) Add Comment Waiting with baited breath 10/13/2010
The last few weeks have been a bit stressful... and they will be until we exchange contracts. The seller has stated that they're going to withdraw from the sale if we don't complete by tomorrow... we're doing everything in our power to make this possible, but our future hangs in the balance on a decision by our bank re: lending. In a nutshell, the bank are insisting on a boundary fence being erected to the rear of the property. The seller, being a bank themselves (this is a repo) have refused to put a fence up. We've had a quote for the work and hope that this is sufficient for the bank. And so we wait. In the mean time I now have the quotes for the new bathrooms, new kitchen and new driveway. I've also selected all the furniture for the letting rooms. All parties are waiting for the go-ahead, which I'll give them upon exchange of contracts. So... fingers crossed and hopefully I'll have good news soon! B&B progress update 09/28/2010
I've been working on the logo for our new business. Pretty much there. I'll post on here when it's finalised. And I've been doing lots more behind the scenes work on the website and money taking side of it. More work still to be done, esp on the PayPal side, but I'm getting there. Tried to speak to solicitor today but he doesn't work Tuesdays. I've found out that the bit of land we want to acquire is owned by the chap who built and owned the house. He owned several properties but his business collpased and the bank repossessed. Somehow he managed to hide this bit of land from the bank. He moved back to Barbados and is unlikely to come back to the UK. This bit of land is only accessible through our property. Not sure what will happen or what the law is. Someone told me that the law states if you tend the land for 5 years it becomes yours. But what if he came back after 6 years? I need help from the solicitor! That'll have to wait until tomorrow. Hoping to get final bathroom quote soon and am also now looking at getting quotes for the driveway to be paved... it's all go go go! Offer accepted! 09/07/2010
Some good news - although we're being cautious this time round. We've had our offer accepted on a 5 bed house in Bowness on Windermere. We're going to try and remain indifferent until we've had the results back from the survey. Once that's clear and we've exchanged contracts, then we can pop the champagne! I'll share some photos at a later date. At the moment it's in need of some work. We'll do that before we move in or open up as a B&B. I'll do some before and after shots and post them on here. Well hello! 08/11/2010
Yes, I know, it's been a while. Too long in fact. But there has been good reason! We're back! And I'm now Mrs Wilson! We had the most fantastic wedding, surrounded by our friends and family. It really was totally perfect. Then we headed Stateside for our honeymoon, Vegas, Hawaii and San Fran. Superb! And now we're back and we've moved from SW London to Windermere. We have a rental here and are just settling in (read: still surrounded by boxes!). Once we've got ourselves a bit more sorted I'll do a proper update to the website. In a nutshell: Both our properties have sold. We're renting in the Lakes. We're looking for our dream B&B. No rush, we'll wait to see what comes on the market and pursue it from there. Oh, and I got a part time job too, to get some experience at some holiday cottages. Proper update later.  Windermere, Buxton and Malvern 06/08/2010
On Tuesday my friend Felicia and I went up to Windermere (Chris was working). We saw a two bed semi-detached rental property and I put our names down for it (Chris and I, not Felicia and I!). We've decided we're going to rent for 6 months once we return from our honeymoon. It seems sensible to actually be IN the Lakes whilst looking for a property there. Completed the application forms etc and now just waiting for approval that all's gone through ok. On the Wednesday we looked at 3 properties. The first two were B&Bs in Windermere town centre. I wasn't keen on the first, you know how you just "know" from the minute you walk in the door... The second one was interesting. It was on the main road between Windermere and Bowness, so it certainly had the location factor. And it seemed a good building, nice rooms with a bit of a garden too. After these first two we drove out to Levens, near Staveley and looked at a country cottage with a self catering cottage attached to it. It was gorgeous and had 2 acres of land. So peaceful and idyllic. I really liked it but we have to decide if the location is right and if a busienss would work there (it's not currently operating as a self catering cottage). Sadly the day was highlighted by the terrible shooting of 12 people in the local area. Our thoughts go to all those involved. After lunch we drove down to Buxton. I wanted to just make sure that the Lakes was the right place. it seems you can get a comparable property for at least £100k less if you're outside the National Park. Thing is, I wasn't that keen on Buxton at all. The peaks are nice. But they're certainly not the Lakes and the town of Buxton didn't have the right "feel" for me. We spent the night in an awful hotel, which didn't help. And the next day we saw some properties. The first of the two properties we saw was a definite no no. The second was ok, but by this stage I knew that Buxton wasn't for us. We drove home having accomplished quite a lot on a short trip! I was home for one day then off to Malvern to visit Luke and Ruth Lucan at Cowleigh Park Farm. Their historic home and business is beautiful and they are wonderful hosts. It was so very kind of them to offer us some work experience and we will be forever grateful and also reminded of the kindness of strangers. They cooked us a lovely dinner on the Friday night and we chatted about all sorts of B&B, business and home things. The next morning we shadowed Ruth as she prepared breakfast for the guests and then did a big clean up - two rooms completely, one turned over and then the two cottages. It was great experience and really gave us a feel for what life would be like. Saturday afternoon we went into Malvern centre and climbed the Worcester Beacon. It was a lovely litle climb and wonderful weather for it. Stayed in another B&B on Saturday night and then back to Cowleigh Park Farm for the next round of breakfast! Said our thank yous and good byes and headed home. Via Cadbury World!! Ate just a little bit too much chocolate!! We very much liked Malvern and actually it made us realise that there *were* places outside the Lakes that we liked and felt we could live in. This is our first fall back! Our first choice is the Lakes, and that's where we will continue to hunt for our dream B&B and property. But if we can't find anywhere we now know we have somewhere else to look. Progress update 05/28/2010
This isn't the blog that I would like to have written, but it is the blog that has to be written... we've retracted our offer on the dream B&B. After getting the survery back we realised that there was too much work for us to take on. Perhaps we'd been a bit too ambitious with an older property. Anyway, after A LOT of thought, deliberation and discussion, we decided it wasn't for us. We had a few tears and then I had to go about the awful business of letting everyone know. Estate agents, vendors, solicitor, building society etc. Still, everything in life happens for a reason. Our dream B&B is still out there, we've just got to find it. And on that note, we have some viewings booked for next week. Looking forward to them. Becoming Self Employed 05/16/2010
I've been very busy since the last blog entry. One of the big things we've done is to become self employed! It's great to be "back working again" officially, even if I'm not getting an income from it (yet!). We've applied for some new bank accounts, completed reams of paperwork for the solicitors and building society and have arranged meetings with them next week. We've instructed the mortgage valuation survey and also a building survey and are waiting for them to be carried out and the results reported. Keeping our fingers crossed that all is well! We've also done lots of thinking about variuos room layouts and options for the property. It's so versatile that we have almost too much choice!! Currently there are 3 letting rooms. These will continue as they are for now. They may receive new curtains and little touches, but they are just lovely and will survive until the winter when we can redecorate or do whatever else we want to them. We do need to open up pretty sharpish the other rooms. So we're heading up to Thornthwaite next weekend to do a room by room measure up. We can decide exactly what we need to get each room up and running. And again we can do a full review and upgrade in the winter months. Additionally we'd like to convert the dining room back into an ensuite letting room, but that will come in winter. I've been watching the new Channel 4 show Three in A Bed which follows various B&B owners across the country. Picking up lots of tips! And it's quite amusing too! These last few days I've worked hard on designing the new website layout and writing a lot of copy to go on it. We also want to get an online booking system so I've been researching that too. Our London flat sale completion date has moved back by 4 weeks, which is ok. But it can't move back any more as we're getting married shortly after!! There's no reason for it to be delayed any more, so fingers crossed it'll all be just fine. I've also had my make up trial for the wedding, taken the photographer to the venue for photo inspiration, met the Toastmaster and devised a table plan. Not much more to do now really, just got to pick up the dress and turn up! :-) That's all for now! A long list and lunch 05/04/2010
So we spent the weekend happy and excited about our new purchase and our impending change of life! It's such an exciting time! Today I got back down to the nitty gritty of arranging things. I started a long list and then began to go through it one by one! First off the Cumberland Building Society. Told them we'd had our offer accepted. They're arranging for some quotes for valuation and building surveys for us. Then to instruct a conveyancing solicitor. I called two companies in Keswick. I wanted a local one that had dealt with B&Bs before. Both had and it was a shame to let one down... but still, we now have a solicitor acting on our behalf! I started looking at our bank account situation. Between the two of us it's a complicated web of personal current and savings accounts! We're going to detangle it, get rid of the accounts we don't need, set up a business account and a joint account and hopefully we'll be sorted! Lots of other things on the list, but for now, LUNCH! :-) OFFER ACCEPTED! 05/01/2010
We have officially had our offer accepted on our favourite B&B in the Lakes! Obviously we have to have survey, valuation done etc and then exchange contracts - but this is the first step towards our exciting new life in the Lake District! We're thrilled and excited and can't wait to get going on everything! Now the to-do list gets even longer! Hurray! :-) | ArchivesNovember 2010 CategoriesAll |
RSS Feed