Back in July, we bought our first house together. We being me and Him Indoors, my Mister. It was nerve wracking to say the least - everyone who has been through it will tell you the same story. Spending a huge sum of money, signing your name down for endless mortgage payments, wondering if the roof will cave in the week after you move in. We bought a duplex in northeast Fort Lauderdale, about 5 minutes from the beach and Los Olas (aka The Action). We have been staying out west with family and while being with them has been great, we wanted to be a little less suburban. My own personal feeling is that I either want to be in the country (rural with a capital R) or in the city. The suburban life is just not my bag.
Our reasons for buying a duplex were many and I won’t bore you with our rationale, but we are really happy with our purchase. We are going to live in one half of the building and rent the other. Buying like this really stretched us financially, and we had to prioritize upgrading and renovating the rental half of the property before we could move on to our own side. It took a while for us to finish the work (whilst working full time) so it was mid October before we moved in. It was wonderful to get all of our belongings out of storage at last - most of what we brought from London had been sitting in a storage unit for two years! However, it was also a dose of reality for us, because we really didn’t bring that much household stuff with us. Things like furniture (I brought one chair, my beloved Ercol) and kitchenware (one set of good pots & pans and some sentimental crockery) were largely left behind, as were most electronics (not compatible). So we spend a lot of time realizing what we DON’T have. Thanks to the generosity of family we have a sofa, some chairs and a few pieces of furniture inherited from my grandmother. We will have to start over in a lot of ways. Having said that, what is amazing is although we don’t have much furniture, or plates to eat off of, is how much STUFF we do have. Books. Lots and lots and lots of books (which are mostly still in boxes while we wait for some special bookshelves we ordered to be made).
And so, six weeks in, we are still living surrounded by a lot of boxes, while we slowly build our nest around us. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever be rid of the boxes, which have more or less been a part of our life for the last two and a half years. This part of our journey began in early 2013 in London, when I had to pack up a business of 30 years (ten rooms of history, equipment, and paper!) and our home (20 years in the same flat!) and get ready to move 3000 miles across the Atlantic.
But we make progress every week, some how finding the time between working all day, and stopping occasionally to just enjoy ourselves. Often wishing we could afford to simply get it all done in one quick blast. Or pay someone else to do the mucky parts! Ha. But it is rather glorious being in our own house, and settling down in our new home. Everything will come together when the time is right.