Moving House Part one – Finding a new place

I decided to start a new regular series on moving house, another 4 parter. To be honest it was mainly because of lack of anything else to post at the moment, as home projects have taken a back seat. However a lot of my other projects are wrapping up and I hope to get at least some garden work done this weekend so I should have a courtyard update soon!

I'm not an expert on moving home but I think with the amount of times we've done it in only 5 years of living together we are getting close enough! We've lived in 4 properties over 5 years, our average is 1.5 years per place (some longer some shorter)...I hope we won't move again until we buy somewhere now! I thought it would be good to share the experiences we've had. 

So you've decided you want to move or been given notice by your landlord to leave, what’s the next step? If you've been given your notice, first take a deep breath and don’t panic! The first time we were given 2 months notice I was so upset that we had to move (even though I didn't love the place we were in) as I thought we’d never find a place in time, but we were actually out with time to spare!

A few hints and tips we've found along the way when house hunting:

• Sit down and think about where you want to move, and what you need from your new place. We make a list of absolutely essential requirements (cost, location, size and area are often the main ones) then a second list of things that would be nice but you could live without or work around (near shops, off road parking etc).
• Stick to your essential requirements (for us compromising on them has only lead to being dissatisfied after moving in), but don’t be too fussy on the rest especially if you have a deadline to move. For example somewhere must meet all of our essential requirements for us to book a viewing. We decided this time we wanted at least a one bedroom so discounted any studios, it must have central heating, so we didn't bother looking at anything with night storage heating and so on.  The ‘would be nice’ list comes second, it’s fantastic to find somewhere that meets the requirements of both lists but it is just not always possible. We managed to meet nearly all of our 'would be nice' points and our essential list and we are the happiest we've ever been with a property.
• Call or email all your local letting agents and let them know your requirements, and start getting the local newspapers (or steal the classifieds/property section from someone who does) and look in there every day. Obviously you may be in more of a hurry if you've been given your notice, so look at every available place to find advertisements – Local papers, property websites, do a search engine search for your area, classifieds websites as well as lettings agents.
• Also tell everyone you know that you’re looking for a new place, I knew 2 people at work who live near where we wanted to move to so they were looking out for ‘to let’ signs in their area for us.
• If you both work set aside a day per week for viewings so you can just book in a viewing without having to keep checking with each other and calling agents back.
• Being clear on what you want will save time when viewing, we found that there were a lot of places out there to let and we had to narrow it down a bit otherwise we would have spent hours looking round flats that weren't suitable. 
• Try not to get caught in the trap of thinking ‘I’ll just move there for now then look for somewhere else’, if you've been given a deadline to move it can be scary but persevere looking for somewhere. We had real trouble finding somewhere to take us with pets and I considered moving into somewhere like a studio temporarily then moving once the 6 month or year contract was up – but that would just mean more upheaval and a year of living somewhere we didn't like. 2 of us plus 2 cats and 2 turtles in a studio is not something I would like to try but I got near to considering it.
• However, if it gets really close you might need to think about temporary accommodation, like staying with family or friends and storing your stuff while you carry on looking. 
• Or take a good harsh, honest look at your list of essentials, is it too long? Is something always an issue? Do your expectations match your budget? If not one of them needs to change. Do you really need hardwood floors and fireplaces and is that holding you back being on your absolutely essential list when your budget isn't getting you those period feature properties? Get to the reality of what you really need, budget, bedrooms and pets would be all I really need if I was struggling to find better, the rest (new fittings, nice decor, near shops etc) is 'would be nice'.
• Make sure you ask all the relevant questions to you before going to look at somewhere, like price, area, pets allowed, size etc. Don’t assume just because the agent is calling you that it’s suitable, as sadly I often found this not to be the case. We moved for the first time with pets last time and although when I registered with all the agencies I told them we had cats we often got calls back about places that didn’t accept pets! One agent was very keen and sent me weekly emails of properties they had ‘selected’ for us, but when I called back to make enquiries about them most of the time nearly all of them were not suitable being either too expensive, not allowing pets or not in the area we’d asked for!
• Ask for the full address and look it up before you go, we asked for areas in the suburbs between Gloucester and Cheltenham or in Cheltenham, but there are areas within this that are not so desirable. For example, we got a call for a house, 2 bedroom with a garden and a driveway etc, within our price range and available now. I booked the viewing and looked up the address on Google maps only to find it was in an area that I did not want to live in (locals might know where I mean!) so I cancelled it.

Feel free to add any more tips in the comments, I hope that’s helpful it’s really just some common sense guidelines for looking for rental properties. Next up will be viewings. 

Sponsor me to climb Kilimanjaro! www.justgiving.com/katie-kili

1 Year (and a bit)

I let my blogs one year birthday slip by without mentioning it at all! It kind of dawned on me at the end of February that the blog had been going for a year, and I meant to write something....and now we are nearly halfway through March! Will someone please stop these days from sprinting by...so the blog is 13 months old now, but hey ho I thought I'd still do a bit of a look back. I'm trying not to get too mushy or overly excitable (spoiler alert, it doesn't work) and look at the facts and figures of the last year, so this is the breakdown of what has happened here on Tenant Chic over the last year (and 1 month).

The blog has had 159 posts in total...the first one was back on 7th February 2013. It contained all of the before photos of the flat, when we had just moved in and from when we viewed it before moving in. I like to look back at this one when I feel like the flat isn't how I want it, to remind myself how far it's come!

The first Friday Inspiration post was back in Feb 2013 too, and is pretty much the only regular post to still be going regularly now, along with the (forgotten for a while but recently reinstated) 'If we owned our flat...' posts. Failed ones over the last year have been payday wishlists (dull to write, downright boring to read), monthly flowers (soon to be reinstated now Spring is back but will probably be a sporadic post). I had a pretty busy posting schedule in the early months with 4 posts per week Mon, Wed, Fri and Sat/Sun but that was too hard to maintain with a full time job and somewhere around summer last year I dropped the weekend post. Friday Inspiration has since become 'weekend inspiration' so can come up on either Sat or Sun depending on my schedule!

The wedding blog also made a start last year, when I got engaged and wanted to talk weddings but didn't want to fill this blog up with wedding things. It's really a side project and I don't post nearly as often on there as on here, but it's still getting some views and I hope this year and into next I will have more to say on there.

On this page the most popular posts have been:
This one from the first month on cleaning supply storage

This one on making my own runner for the living room, which is one of my favourite projects although it could currently do with a wash.

Those two are the breakaway favourites with more than double or triple the page views of the others, but some of the other most read posts are this one on the garden, this one on saving money and this one on our to do list.

I get my page visits from all different places it seems, the most from one singular point is this post in the Young House Love Forums. Other than that's it's pretty spread out and includes facebook, pinterest, bloglovin and twitter.

The google search starts are pretty random, it's what people have searched for on google to direct them to my blog:

tenantchic.blogspot.com
best dark bathroom
cat litter mat chic
cleaning pile clothes
diy table decorations
furniture turtle tank pinterest
how to make shoe hanger
http://tenantchic.blogspot.co.uk/
lux decor dining room
office dining room

I get most of them, wouldn't call our dining room lux but I'm taking that as a compliment! And our bathroom is a 'best dark bathroom' or has chic cat litter mats, um, cool? It seems there are people actually google searching my blog name too which is amazing!

As far as you readers go, I don't know a lot about you, but hi! Thanks for reading!

I know some of my real life friends and family read, but I'm surprised by the stats sometimes that show lots of foreign readers. The last year the readers have been from:

United States

3955

United Kingdom

3463

Russia

1265

Germany

254

Canada

142

France

125

Australia

106

Ukraine

59

Netherlands

42

India

33

The UK and USA were pretty near on numbers, I think possibly because of the YHL forums and that a lot of the blogs I follow and comment on are American it means I get more American readers. I just think it's great that someone other than my mum and Tom are reading! If you're a regular reader feel free to say hi in the comments, I'd love to know who's out there!

I'd also love feedback from you, so please comment or contact me if you have any burning questions or (constructive) feedback, like you want less of some posts, more of others, did I randomly start a project then never post the end (I know the decluttering has stopped, IRL it has stopped too, update on that soon) or is there something I didn't explain very well?

So that's the past year in figures. One thing I can't break down into numbers is the satisfaction from running this blog, just having somewhere to ramble on and post pictures of my little flat and have people actually read it is fantastic. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented or searched for this blog over the last year, I hope this year will be better and bigger than the last!

Also to whoever has google searched my blog name so many times last year, and those of you who are reading regularly, you can follow me on various blog readers. You can then get posts sent to you every time there is a new one rather than keep checking back, I use Bloglovin' for the blogs I read, there's a link on the sidebar on the right to click through to follow this blog with bloglovin.

There's also a box on the side bar on the right to follow by email, so you can get new posts emailed to you if you don't want to sign up to a blog reader. If you prefer just to check back though that's absolutely awesome, just want to make it easier for you so you will keep reading!

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone, thanks for reading xxx

Picture Problem Solving

You may remember that we hung some photos on the chimney breast in the living room, and attempted the bedroom.

However the wall appears to be made of titanium, ok probably not but something really solid. In our old house I would have just got the drill out and hung some more heavy duty screws but Landlord was really specific that it must only be small picture hooks (the piddly little ones that come with teeny tiny nails). These had just about worked in the living room, although I would personally not use them again as they were massively fiddly and damaged the wall more than just using screws or nails in my opinion.

Anyway, the walls then stayed like this in the bedroom for a while (months) while I nagged Tom to fill and paint it. Then I did it myself and he got the paint from his dad. Nowhere does tester pots of decorators white, you have to buy a whole bucket of it, which is not what we wanted to do for this tiny amount of painting so we went to borrow a cup of paint.

All remedied and tidy, but still no pictures. Then I saw this on pinterest.

Then I noticed that our wardrobes are the same height...so I went and bought a curtain pole and laid it across the wardrobes.

It sat like empty for a while until I went and got some picture rail hooks. On a side note how awesome would a picture rail be in a rented place?

Now it looks like this!

The small canvases are from Asda a few years ago, they came as a 3 with the 'home sweet home' canvas which is currently on the dining table. I'm debating taking them out as the uneven number looks a bit weird and they fall off occasionally...I might see how it goes but I'm sure the pictures will change around a lot on here anyway!

I won the other 3 prints a while back and they've been floating around the flat looking for a home. I originally wanted to hang this canvas there but it's too big and made the rail sag in the middle, so I stuck to smaller lighter things. The love canvas was a Christmas present from Toms mum it is made up of photos of us.

 The pole came with 3 brackets for hanging, and I had a bit of a brainwave...

 Finally somewhere to put the dressing gowns! They've just been hanging about for ages, the brackets are just tucked under the ottomans.

So far so good except for a few incidents of them falling off when we slam the wardrobe door too hard or if we catch the pole when getting our dressing gowns out, but these have gotten less now we have got used to it being there.

I like that this is easily interchangeable and we can add to it as we go, I'd like to maybe create some hanging flowers or lights but for now it's just nice to have something in here! I'd really like it to look a bit more dramatic like the inspiration pic, so I'm on the look out for some straps or hanging implements of some sort...

If we owned our flat

I'd change the carpet. We've found the carpet to really not be very hard wearing at all, look at the state of the living room one.

It seems to snag and pull really easily and really soaks up spills! We've never had this at previous houses and I really hate to think I might lose some of the deposit on it but what can you do? The cats are pretty good at not clawing stuff and use their scratching post, so I don't think it's their fault, but the carpet just seems to snag so easily.

The rest of the flooring is OK, the bathroom is hard wearing black lino and the wood floors in the hallway and dining room are great, the kitchen is a little marked and under the oven is actually a bit warped and chipped but it's still got a bit more life left in it. I'd just run the same flooring through the whole that is in the hallways, it's a nice dark wood and looks great with the white walls.

Ah well, nothing we can do but nice to think about it!

Friday Inspiration

A pretty bring week here really! Work, work, climbing, walking dead season 2 on DVD (no spoilers please we've not finished it yet!), work, work, climbing, work...pretty standard. The bouldering room at the warehouse is back open properly after all the refurbishments so spending a lot of time there and hoping to get back into the 3 times a week routine.

The wedding fitness plan is in full swing and I'm going climbing so often as I'm pretty rubbish at dieting, anyone who's tried to deal with me when I'm hungry or have nothing in the house that I like to eat will concur...offer me a salad or a diet bar and you may end up wearing it! Case in point yesterday at work my colleague and I were debating whether to eat the chocolate éclairs in the fridge (well I was waiting for her to open the packet) another colleague said 'ooh 300 calories in each that's like a whole meal'...we agreed that 300 calories is not a meal (pffft I think my roast potatoes are about 300 calories alone!) and proceeded to eat the éclairs...so I had to try extra hard bouldering yesterday resulting in my typing this with claw-hand and having a rather uncomfortable day at work with aching arms! Ah well life's too short not to each the occasional éclair or 3!

Other than stuffing my face and then trying to work it off I've of course been looking at home inspiration...

This little work corner is lovely, I'd like this as a home office space as it's not too big and also so pretty you wouldn't mind looking at it out of work hours...although chances are if I you actually worked here it wouldn't stay that pretty for long

This bathroom is unfinished here but the bath and pouffe are gorgeous, and the mirror is probably way out of my price range but looks fab. The bath in front of a big window like that...gorgeous to stare out at the scenery or night sky while soaking in the tub (providing you don't have neighbours very close unless you're a total exhibitionist!) would be so soothing

I am jealous of these windows with their multiple panes and different options for opening, and the ceiling height. We will never be able to grow a tree in our flat! This girls flikr feed is pretty good actually with some lovely interiors as well as others

As usual more on my pinterest page - warning it has been over taken a little with wedding pins! It's never ending inspiration, I start most wedding talk (Ok ok most sentences altogether) now with 'I saw this thing on pinterest...'

This is how we do it

 

It's Friday night, and I feel alright....had that song in my head all day! Any way this is how we get started on the decluttering mission.

 

I think most people (excepting the few super minimalist tidy people) get the feeling sometimes that their home is just too full of stuff, and it gets frustrating trying to store, organise and clean all of it. When you think about it do you really need half of it? Most likely the answer is no, so how do you go about getting rid of what you don’t need?

 

The first step is accepting that you want to get rid of your clutter and that getting rid of possessions is a positive thing, the house will be tidier, easier to clean, look better and you will have more freedom to decorate without lots of junk in the way. If you’re anything like me you have loads of things you have been meaning to get rid of or do something with but they have just ended up hanging around because decluttering the whole house seems such a huge job and it’s easy to get discouraged or not find the time for it.

 

I originally found this method here and just adjusted it to fit our home. It’s not rocket science, but the key is to break everything down into really small areas and do them one per day, allowing just 15-20 minutes per day. Allow more than one day for things that will take longer than 20 minutes. This keeps me on track and I don’t get bogged down into spending hours at a time going through one area and losing sight of the goal.

 

It also helps to find the time if it’s only a 20 minute task, plan around days when you know you won’t have time. If you don’t get to it just try to do it the next day, don’t be tempted to do more than one area at a time though. The aim is to make this easy and kind of fun and piling up the jobs until the weekend will just make it seem daunting and like a big task. It helps to do them in order as it keeps you on track rather than putting off the bigger stuff, but last time I did this I sometimes substituted smaller jobs on days when I was unexpectedly busy. If you start an area and realise it’s going to take longer than 20 minutes just add on another day for it.

 

Set up 3 boxes or areas for ‘bin’, ‘sell’ and ‘donate’ and put things into these each day. The goal is to put things into these boxes every day, so to get rid of something from every area you go through. It might be more from some areas than others but you must put something in at least one of these boxes every day. Rather than having to make loads of trips to the tip, charity shop or car boot sales it worked better for me to get rid of everything at the end, and it’s such a morale booster to see the piles getting bigger!

 

Really be ruthless and try to keep the image of your new clean, tidy and clutter free home in your mind! If something isn’t useful, beautiful or sentimental then it goes. Think about what other lovely things you can put in place of things you never use or don’t really like.

 

It’s useful to have a ‘maybe’ box for stuff you aren’t sure what to do with, as it’s better to remove them from their place to see if you can live without them rather than leave them in place to decide later as 9 times out of 10 I will just end up leaving it there! Also I tended to put stuff in there of Toms which I wanted to check with him first, and stuff which I didn’t think was ours and needed to return to whoever I had borrowed it from or whoever had left it at ours. I also had a small ‘repair/projects’ box, for things like clothes that need mending, stuff you’re keeping for a project you haven’t gotten round to yet, or stuff you are keeping to repurpose or renovate. Give yourself a deadline for each thing to be out of that box and either fixed or gotten rid of, and be realistic on how likely it is that you will get round to it – if you’ve been keeping it for a long time and haven’t found a use for it how likely is it that you ever will?

 

The list for our flat is:

1.       Hallway – Books

2.       Hallway – Cupboard

3.       Hallway – Small ottomans

4.       Hallway – Music equipment

5.       Hallway – Shoes

6.       Hallway – Surfaces

7.       Hallway – Misc

8.       Dining – Table

9.       Dining – Boxes on tank

10.   Dining – Pet supplies

11.   Dining – Misc

12.   Bedroom – Chest of drawers

13.   Bedroom – Kate’s wardrobe

14.   Bedroom – Tom’s wardrobe

15.   Bedroom – Makeup and cosmetics

16.   Bedroom – Ottomans

17.   Bedroom – Ottomans

18.   Bedroom – Under the bed

19.   Bedroom – Under the bed

20.   Bedroom – Trunk

21.   Bedroom – Drawers

22.   Bedroom – Surfaces

23.   Bedroom – Misc

24.   Living room – DVD’s

25.   Living room – Corner by DVD’s

26.   Living room – CD’s

27.   Living room – Corner by CD’s

28.   Living room – Box under coffee table

29.   Living room – Ornaments, frames, candles

30.   Living room – Coffee table

31.   Living room – Misc

32.   Kitchen – Top of microwave/fridge

33.   Kitchen – Cupboard by fridge

34.   Kitchen – Cupboard under sink

35.   Kitchen – Cupboard by oven

36.   Kitchen – Drawer

37.   Kitchen – Worktops

38.   Kitchen – Tops of cabinets

39.   Kitchen – Food

40.   Kitchen – Misc

41.   Bathroom – Drawers

42.   Bathroom – Shower caddies

43.   Bathroom – Cupboard – cleaning supplies

44.   Bathroom – Cupboard – Towels, medicine box, misc

45.   Bathroom – Surfaces

46.   Bathroom – Misc

47.   Garden – Pots

48.   Garden – Plants

49.   Garden – Under steps

50.   Garden – Under tarpaulin

51.   Garden – Misc

52.   Whole flat – Furniture

53.   Whole flat – Ornaments, frames, candles etc

54.   Whole flat – Misc

 

Who wants to play along at home? We can compare tidy clutter free homes at the end :) The original list included a lot of things I didn’t need like kids rooms/toys etc and second bathrooms and bedrooms etc so modify it for your home and schedule. Leave the furniture until last because once you’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff you may be able to get rid of furniture you didn’t think you’d be able to. I also added a ‘misc’ day for each room on the end of that room, so once you have done all the areas you can think of just pass over that room again to pick up any things that you might have missed or didn’t fit into a category.

 

At the end of the list (Or when we run out of space to keep the stuff waiting to go) we go to the tip with the ‘bin’ stuff, start on selling the things in the ‘sell’ box so list a load of stuff on EBay or in the paper or do a car boot sale, then do a trip to the charity shop with the ‘donate’ pile. Last time anything that didn’t sell at the car boot sale went straight with the ‘donate’ box to the charity shop. Anyone not from the UK or not familiar with a car boot sale it’s kind of our version of a yard sale, we take all our stuff to one of these sales and park up and sell it from the boot of the car.

 

I’ll probably need to do this once a year as the clutter does build up pretty quickly, but each time it should get easier and I’ll try to keep the amount of junk we keep to a minimum and do this more informally as I go along rather than letting it build up.

 

I'm going to get started this weekend and cannot wait to start getting stuff sorted out!

Before the big declutter

I'll post our list for the big declutter on Wednesday, so if you're playing along at home get ready to get rid! See last weeks post here on the method.

I thought I'd share some before photos today because A.the whole flat is clean after a bank holiday housework blitz and B. I'm hoping it will look a bit different in a few weeks!

The Kitchen - Problem areas:
Top of the microwave
Countertops
Food cupboard

The thing on top of the hob is the oven shelves soaking in the overnight oven cleaner

The Living Room - Problem Areas:
Box under coffee table
Corners by the bookshelves

The dining room/hallway (not really sure what to call his room now it's no longer the 'office') - Problem Areas:
Shelves under the turtle tank

The Bathroom - Problem Areas:
Cosmetics
Built in cupboard

The Hallway - Problem Areas
Bookshelves
Cupboard
Music Equipment
Shoes
Computer Equipment
Chairs (we have 4 dining chairs and an armchair in here and never sit on any of them!)

This box is also still here, Tom needs to sort it out or it will just be labelled 'Sell' and become the start of the car boot pile...

The Bedroom - Problem Areas:
Under the bed
Ottomans

The bag on the bed is full of clothes that were on ebay and ended yesterday and I'm either sending off or if they didn't sell getting rid of elsewhere

So that's our flat as of yesterday, pretty clean and tidy but cluttered in some areas. I can't wait to get rid of some things and make some room!