Well after nearly 3.5 months in our Caravan in Waterrow, Somerset we are getting closer to moving to our new house in West Byfleet. Earlier this week we paid a flying visit to WB and then was able to spend approx 2.5 hours roaming the property, not so much to find faults, but just to check on how matter were progressing.
We had hope to find a fully completed house inside but when we arrived the carpet layers had been running late and had not finished and so there were bits and pieces and other work tools around the place. On an earlier visit amount one month ago we discovered that the walls had been painted the wrong colour, which has now been corrected, so this time to check to see if anything was missing. We have been trying to work out where all our furniture will go as we believe we have to much which is always a problem when downsizing. When we got back to the Hotel that we both awoke overnight with the same though and ended up having a cup of tea at 3.30 am and working on layouts, phew not the best thing to do.
Its now getting so close that we should consider ordering certain new equipment that we need such as washing machine, dryers, lawnmowers etc etc and also lots of racking to the garage and also for the storage area on the top floor. There will be a lot more stuff we need but cannot order until we are in situ but at least we can prepare for the event. At the moment full legal completion should be on Friday 2nd October and we plan to leave the caravan on Sunday 4th October and arranged for the keys handover at 1000 on Monday 5th and so we can make final judgements on furniture positioning, or not as the case may be.
Most people when they downsize at our age tend to go for a bungalow but of course we are little different and go for a smaller house with double the amount of stairs which might be challenging to the male member of the family.
The house in on what was the Broadoaks Park Estate and country house which is currently being renovated as are three other historic buildings on the site and it is a private estate and so we should not have the parking issues that Wey and Round Oak Roads are currently experiencing. The garden is a lot smaller that the last house and should be easy to maintain, we hope although we may call in some gardening design people to see what they suggest.
Anyway the next few months will be quite interesting and perhaps even challenging.
