I very naively thought that the first days in a new house would be all joy and happiness. Like one of those 1950s real state adverts.
Wake up Ben
You’re wrong.
You ain’t no Stepford wife.
And I was indeed, so wrong, sooooooooooo wrong!
So wrong, that That I felt like saying:
To Wong foo ,
Thanks for everything Julie Newmar, let’s go!
But it was much more like this 
the clutter in the living room
bye bye carpets
some demented previous owners “oak” linoleum aspirational floor.
The way we feel right now can only be described as tattered and very VERY tired.
The aftermath of painting, sanding and carpet ripping couldn’t have been more soul destroying.
My poor Daniel was covered in paint, and myself in sanding dust from our 100 year old floorboards.
We feel pain in places that we dint know even existed ! We seem like Mike Tyson’s punch bag right now.
The previous owners left the house in a terrible state, they were still moving out the day we finally got the keys ! And I’m simply not very happy with them. I cursed their name so many times that I think I might have opened a door to the underworld specially for them.
So my dears just to reiterate once more, everything was dirty. Starting with the kitchen, to the toilets, clogged drains, filthy carpets…
Not what I was expecting but as Daniel very rightly pointed, some people’s standards of what “clean” means differ enormously from the reality that they’re plain dirty. I don’t even want to think about the state of their underwear.
If anyone has seen “the money pit” will be able to understand how we felt with our little archaeology project around the house. Here’s a list of things that we “discovered”, eat your heart out Howard Carter!!!:
-The Bath is leaking
-We need to move a radiator to fit Daniels built in book unit
-Kitchen door wasn’t properly sealed and the kitchen flooded after one of the worst rain we’ve had in years in the midlands.
-Splintered floorboards
-Dirt
-More dirt
-Oh and I forgot, DIRT
Mommie dearest wouldn’t be happy
At all.
I feel that I have to put on some night cream, a black silk robe and use my wire hanger to discipline this people.
Considering the age of the house this list could have been much longer. And I don’t want to shout hooray just yet, in case I Jinx this and we are, in fact, under some very twisted gipsy spell.
But we found some goodies:
original quarry tiles on the entrance
Inside this little hole …..
Surprise!
The original kitchen ranges lining tiles!
We started work full of energy, enthusiasm and willingness to start decorating the place, but…………ha!
Little did I know about what was waiting for us.
In all the rage and excitement of the first proper days of work, I inspected every room and got greeted by what I just can describe as a punchy smell of mould and urine.
How on earth didn’t I realised this before ?
Was I drugged?
Was I brainwashed by the beauty of the few original features in the house ?
Am I insane ?
While my hubby and my in-laws were cleaning the kitchen thoroughly, I started by ripping every single bit of wee wee stained carpet all over the house.
My poor mother in law slaved herself cleaning all the filth in the kitchen. Bless her ❤️ I’m thinking on giving her a raise from scullery maid to house maid. ( she’s gonna kill me for this )
and this is my father in law “helping” with the cleaning too😂
But now for real I have to give him proper credit too, as he suffers from his lungs,he couldn’t help with the heavy cleaning but he drove all my stuff from one hour away twice that day and cleaned all the gutters outside. He did help us a lot.
this pile of shit is all the carpeting from the rooms.
my beautiful staircase ❤️❤️❤️❤️
(Yes, I look insane with that knife in my hand)
So back to the carpet piss:
Was this the cause of a severe case of incontinence due to excitement with lottery results, and the consequent disappointment when not having the winning combination?
Was the dog marking every inch of this house,to ensure that no ghostly presence would ever grace the walls of the house ?
I simply must find an answer. This was a quick job but not a rewarding one. All the underlining in the carpets was soaked in wee,which probably has acted as a preservative as the floorboards underneath are pretty damn good.
If this happens to be true, it might well be the start of a new beauty line. ” eau du wiwi”
Other that the odd splinter here and there the floors are beautiful.
The very next day we had the help of friends and family too, so we moved all the delicate China and the pink bathroom suite from our current rental property.
I wanted to ensure that all my pretty and delicate menagerie of shit beautiful things wouldn’t get broken.
Then the sanding and the painting started. 
The floorboards are coming up pretty nicely. After some thorough sanding and they will be stained dark when we refinish them.
And needless to say, I won’t never ever attempt to sand a floor with an small belt sander again .
We’re hiring the real deal,
The big guns,
The industrial sander gloriousness.
If you’re thinking about doing this, with a small tool you’re simply as insane as I am.
Don’t get me wrong,
Buying the sander was a good idea and I will still do the edges with it, but I won’t be sanding all the rooms like this or I’ll end looking like Quasimodo in no time. My whole body aches and I move like a 96 year old today.
So far a house full of surprises. Will we top this up with some more Reno horror soon?
You can count on it.
Love,
Ben
The 1903 house 