Welcome to Flatland…

And so construction began, and by construction I mean DESTRUCTION. As I may have mentioned previously, the house had been chopped into three cramped “apartments” – which we now had to knock through to create our home. To put this into perspective I shall now attempt to walk you through the old house … with words and some terribly lit photographs.

Open the front door and walk into dark hall, to the left is a small door to the first fabulous apartment (Please note that all use of fabulous or similar language is meant in a forcefully sarcastic manner.). Directly to your right is minute kitchen station, to your left is a MANKY, dark blue pleather settee and coffee table aka the living room /dining room. Shuffle two timid steps past the “kitchen” and you will find one of the skinniest halls in the universe, turn left in said hall to discover yet another terribly thin room – this room has the added appeal of cigarette stained lino, a broken cistern and utter destitution – you guessed it, the bathroom. Pivot 40 degrees from the bathroom doorway and enter the bedroom. The bedroom is dark, it has one window but no light seems to be able to penetrate the dull greyness of the room, it doesn’t help that there’s a random large tree directly outside the window. Oh hell. 

Plans o’ Flatland – Downstairs

We actually did not see this apartment when we first viewed the house, the house was still being rented at the time of the viewings and hence the viewings were at extremely random times/days and some of the renters were not too forthcoming with showing off their abode. The guy who lived here, let’s call him Judas, just refused to let the estate agent in the door. The estate agent was nearly smashing the door down as we viewed the rest of the house and politely tried to ignore the sound of her high kicks against the thin apartment door.

Anyways, leave Judas’ apartment and turn left, walk alongside the stairs, dip head and hunch-walk through a doorway roughly the same height as Bilbo Baggins. To your left you have drafty and damp hallway which leads out to the back yard and straight ahead we have the most terrifying of all apartments anywhere, ever.

Okay I cannot back up that outrageous claim – but it is definitely the worst in the house. You enter into dank, moulding kitchen with all these insane cubbyholes/cupboards really high in the ceiling (?!), a small and very mouldy couch is also in the vicinity, as well as a fancy-ass spiral staircase which leads you up and out of that mushroom filled chamber into a room entirely clad in pine. BRILLIANT YELLOW PINE – as far as the eye can see! Pine covered floor, pine covered ceiling and pine furniture to boot! Walk through the pine forest to find yet another bleak and tiny bathroom and a random locked PINE door which apparently leads to the main stairway via two steep-ass and highly unsafe steps. 

Since you are on the stairs you might as well trot up to the third and last apartment – this is the one we deem the least horrific and hence where we plop ourselves, our new dog ‘Gizmo’ and all our belongings. We have a tiny sitting area, small kitchen, very tall and skinny bathroom and bedroom – and yes, everything is covered in pine. After some intense cleaning sessions, we settle in for the long haul and long it is … we live in that apartment for a year and a half while we knock through downstairs and create a liveable zone.

Next blog post will involve wall knocking, beer drinking and thankfully a lot less pine.

April and the Bear x