Completion of the purchase at last!

This house is now ours, eleven weeks after we first saw it, and I'm off to collect the keys.  Equally importantly, for the first time in our lives, we own a house and have no mortgage - it's a good feeling!  Unfortunately Jane is away today and tomorrow, so I won't be able to carry her over the threshold when we go in for the first time.

Now the real work starts.  So far I have been doing detailed planning and some tinkering on the outside, like getting some ivy down.  I'm now about to take the architect inside as soon as I've got the key.  Next week we hope to have scaffolding erected and the roofer will start work, and I'll use the scaffolding to get rid of the rest of the ivy.  The condition of the roof trusses will be of considerable interest, as will the extent of damage due to water ingress.  I will also get the roofer's carpenter to have a look at the joists (all of upstairs, plus the lounge downstairs) as that is the other major unknown at present.  Just as the stonework behind the ivy was in surprisingly good condition, I am hoping that the joists won't be found to be rotten.

Earlier this week I cut back all of the growth (mostly ivy) along the low stone wall at the front, revealing the coping stones (with cement "repairs").  I almost had an accident when the "For Sale" board broke its Ty-Wrap and fell onto the pavement, to the concern of an old woman a few yards away.  I propped the board up again, but any concern I had about its security was removed an hour later when a man with a van came and took it away.  I also cleared the overgrown front garden of the bottles, cans and litter accumulated over a fair time.  The score was about 50 each of drink cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles, but the following morning someone had dumped two portions of chips, a bit of chicken, a paper wrapper and a drinks can.  Sigh... 

In the course of this work I had conversations with over a dozen people passing by, so it took longer than it might have done.  Clearly, work on this house is going to be a topic of considerable local interest.  Two of these people assumed that the entire building was going to be demolished, and were surprised when I said that it was listed.  Another woman told me about the owner in the sixties who had two Old English Sheepdogs; the garden was well laid out, and the dogs used to sit behind the wrought iron front gates to greet passing schoolchildren like her.  "You mean these gates?" I said, pointing to two rusty gates hidden in the undergrowth!