If you have read my house to home post, you’ll know already that I’m slowly but surely doing our house up.
I call it a house because still after nearly two years it still feels like a brick and mortar. Sadly not a home.
I’m not sure if it ever will as nothing can ever come close to the place I felt so at home at.
Really a home is where your heart is and this isn’t it. With that said though, I will try my very up most to make these walls into a place Marley-Kate will always feel as if it’s her home.
The location is a delight, a little hamlet just outside Salisbury, surrounded by trees and fields, a local shop and park and a funny old bunch of neighbors that like to think they know everyone’s business, but that’s part of country life I guess (towns are worst I think for gossip etc), some have been here way before the houses were built, which is kind of nice when you think about it.
We even have a dinky train station which has proven a god send at times for my lodger/cousin, bless him, but in truth he loves living here, which is a bit of a shock after growing up in good old Brighton.

When I first viewed the house, omg I just wanted to turn around and walk away, no way was I going to pay what they were asking, it was so dirty and unloved, the garden was a bomb site, worse than actually. Marly-Kate had other ideas and even claimed her room, which she had never done before on what seemed liked a trillion houses we viewed. That was it, we put our offer in and after someone else offered over the asking price, my heart sank, so I throw in one even higher and got it, I just couldn’t upset Marly-Kate.
It all went through very fast thanks to being a cash buyer and within 4 weeks I had the keys in my hands and a pig sty of a house where my hard-earned cash once was.
The first few days of having the keys, all my good friends were here with more beer than you can imagine and within days all rooms had been cleaned and had a coat of paint, even a few floors were down and a hall carpet in place.
Since then we have just lived with it, doing small jobs and started the awful task of the garden, which is half-finished. Since then I have had a new roof put on and smashed a hole in the bricked up chimney and I’ve made my own health, I’m pretty impressed with how it turned out. 😃
Just concrete, black glass, clear glass, tiny black stones which we collected from different beaches and a light black dye, mixed all up, poured into a frame-work and bobs your knob, one dull health. Hours of polishing changed that and a few coats of a sealer and it looks good, I’m more than pleased and now it holds a log burner which just adds a homely feel to these four walls.
It’s pretty cozy for those snuggles on the sofa under our home-made blankets watching movies, reading or writing Marly-Kate’s blog. Our puppy and kitten love cuddling up together by the fire, it’s very cute.
Still there is loads of work to be done, huge jobs like bathrooms, kitchen (it’s not that bad but it could be better), the rest of our garden along with decorating and small building work that needs doing inside.
It can all be done when the timing is right, I at least hope to tick a few things off the goal list this year, but I know for sure that I won’t let it get in the way of living, after all it’s really just bricks and mortar, which will still be standing way after I’m not.
Life is short and it’s making memories that matters to me more than most. Hopefully though these old bricks will be forever imbedded in Marly-Kate’s memory as her happy, safe place which she calls home.🏡