There's no place like home

After 3 years of searching for a family sized house we finally moved in a week and a half ago! Hooray! Its so nice to have our own place. Its so nice to not have a pram in our lounge, and have a garden, and be able to open the boxes that we haven't seen in the 9 months that we were homeless, and to be able to decorate things how we like, and not be still in the process of buying a house.

We moved our stuff in over a long weekend. We're lucky that, because we were living with a family, we could move out over a few days and didn't have that annoying thing you have when you're buying and selling a house, where you have to do the whole move on one day.

So, Friday afternoon me and Percy picked up the keys. I didn't go and see the house straight away because Percy was a bit confused by seeing an empty house. He's worried we're just going to live with nothing: he kept asking if we were taking his bed. And then, when I went to look round charity shops for a sofa for the new house, he said "we need to buy jumpers for the new house".

Lola and Percy settling in to the garden

In the evening, when Percy was asleep at the Langston's, me and Dan headed over to the new house which was just an empty blank canvas of anaglypta and dreams, and had a celebratory Orangina, in a little bottle all the way from our France holiday in the summer. I know, we're pretty rock and roll. The last 2 bottles are saved to celebrate baby number 2 making an appearance. Then we set to work making Percy's room look like a bedroom, so he could see it in a relatively finished state.

All of Saturday was spent moving things with the van we hired. I mainly stayed with Percy because as a pregnant woman I'm not a useful lifter. We had help from a few friends and family.

Then, on Sunday morning had a really hectic start. The van had to be returned for 10:30 am and we still had a wardrobe, masses of boxes and a rabbit to move, and no helpers. Dan managed to collect this wardrobe from a friend get it into the van get it in the house, a long with a load of boxes and just get back to the van hire place with seconds to spare. The rest of the day was a lot more relaxed, we had a nice family car journey over, all 5 of us (me and Dan, Percy, lola the rabbit and the bump). Lola got to enjoy some grass again for the first time in a while, and then Percy went to see his new room. He was really happy he said "all my toys are here" and then just started naming all his toys and he ran around the garden a bit. We had lunch with Katie who then babysat Percy while we went on a hunt for a fridge and washing machine.

It turns out fridges and washing machines are expensive, so we decided to try and hold out for a second hand one. We had a few days of eating vegetarian, and leaving our milk outside, before finding a fridge freezer and washer dryer on gumtree and therefore making modern life sustainable. Hurrah!

On the Monday I went food shopping, while Dan and Mike made several attempts at getting a wardrobe upstairs before completely taking it apart and putting it back together again. Percy watched a lot of Peppa Pig.

Then this weekend my parents came up and I managed to survive a trip to Ikea with my mum. I went through the 7 stages of an ikea shop, they're universal right?

1) woo isn't this exciting look at all the pretty stuff, oooh we could get this!
2) we need to get dull stuff like shelves too.
3) mum- "ooh look at these knobs, do you need a knob, you said you wanted a knob? shall we got back to the knobs" - stop saying knobs mum.
4) I'm so tired when will this maze end
5) Yay meatballs, yum yum.
6) ok lets just collect the furniture and go "but you haven't looked at frames and curtain rails" I DON'T CARE, I NEED TO LEAVE
7) I'll just buy some frozen meatballs on the way out here *puts in trolley* oh wait I forgot to pay for them. I'm so tired, lets just go (I put them back, I didn't shoplift)

The whole house needs decorating but we're going to start with the studio, which just needs a paint and some laminate flooring so it's more art friendly. When mum first saw it she said "it just needs a paint". It was the only room I'd painted. I've bought the laminate flooring and watched a youtube video on how to lay it. They use something called spacers which look like dominos. I don't have spacers so I'm guessing dominos will do.

Then we're going to do the bedroom. We've left that pretty much empty apart from a mattress as a motivational tactic to get in done, but I had a huge revelation: "BEDS ARE POINTLESS!" They're just something that our consumeristic society has made up. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor is just as comfy. And then, when you aren't sleeping and you want the space to make a box fort, you can just flip the mattress up.

Percy managed to cue himself of his hoover fear overnight

3rd on our list is the lounge, which is going to be tropical themed!

And if theres anymore time before baby number 2 pops out we'll do the dining room.

30 weeks

Thanks to everyone who has helped out with the move!