Getting a new home organised takes longer than you’d think..!

I’ve been living in my home for 2 years last month and I’m still referring to it as my ‘new’ house! It’s a particularly nice period of time when you first move into your home and start unpacking, putting your stamp on the house and getting used to your new surroundings. But after 2 years, we are still trying to get things straightened out in the house and finding a place for everything. In fact, some of our belongings are still being stored in the loft at our parents house, so technically we’ve not really finished ‘moving in’ yet! It makes me think that we probably don’t really need all those boxes of stuff because we’ve not missed it over the past two years. There’s only occasionally been the mention of ‘Where’s my silver shoes?’ (me) or ‘Have you seen my projector?’ (hubby) so I think we could do with having a sort out before it gets finally shifted to the new home. Anyway, it got me thinking about the things that new homeowners do before we gradually settle into living our lives in the house and I’ve come up with a few that you might be able to identify with!

♥ The house has a permanent scent of fresh paint, with colour swatches patched around the walls and I’ve even got a half-painted wall in the kitchen! We bought testers, tried them out beside the kitchen door, purchased the paint, painted a larger area of the wall (spreading onto the window wall), agreed that it was lovely but then never quite got round to painting the room! There’s been a half-painted wall in the kitchen for about 18 months! My brother has even offered to come over to help just so that we’ll get it done, but I think it’ll have to wait for the school summer holidays before we get started.

♥ You might never have had any rules in previous homes, but the new house has suddenly become a shoe-free zone with a strict shoes-off-at-the-door policy! This might be down to the fact that the new carpet cost an arm and a leg, or it might just be starting a new routine in a new home, but whatever it is, you’ve even bought a shoe rack bench to enforce the new rules! You’re incredibly house-proud and spend more time cleaning and tidying in the first couple of months than you will in all the future years you’ll be living in your home!

♥ You’re drowning in paperwork and want to clear it out but don’t know what you should keep. Of course you don’t really need bills from your old home any more (as long as you’ve settled them!) but you don’t want to chuck anything out just in case. There’s also that new folder full of solicitors letters, surveyors reports and mortgage information that is essential to keep! What if anything goes wrong and you need to check out what’s been said by your legal advisor before you bought the house so that you can be sure there hasn’t been any ‘solicitors negligence’ going on? You’re going to need to use that spare room as an office, just to store all the paperwork associated with house-buying!

♥ There’s never enough storage. Even though you chose your house because it had a larder, build-in wardrobes and bathroom units, it turns out that there’s still not enough space for all your things. You’re desperate for extra storage space because you want everything to have its place, so you skip off to Ikea for a fun day out and a plate full of Swedish meatballs! You come home with a car full of flat-pack boxes, a 100-pack of tealights and a big grin on your face – this house WILL be sorted out by the weekend! – but the furniture stays flat-packed for a week or two (or a month or two!)…

Let me know if any of these things sounds familiar to you and I will be here with a sympathetic ear! I’ve had over two years of disorganised living, spending every spare weekend putting up shelves or hanging wallpaper, so I know what you’re going through and just want to say one thing: Good luck!