Pulling into the little dirt driveway on night one was a little bit like stepping into a frozen picture scene— if the picture was of banged up doors, scrubby grass peeking out from beneath cardboard pathways the lingering feeling someone had left in a hurry.
Inside was a whole other story. It brought to mind that old Christmas carol, except in this reality I got—
- Four catty rugs,
- Three purple chairs,
- Two disco lights,
- and a strange hole in the pantry.
Although that doesn’t quite begin to cover the entirety of what we found.
I’m talking screw tails hanging out of random parts of the walls (painted purple to make them ‘invisible’), cat hair dusting every surface and droppings from an unidentified rodent like kitchen drawer landmines. The good news? I was absolutely spoiled for choice as to what to include in this post.
So began Week One: The Great Purge
My poor ute wore tracks between our driveway and the tip, loaded with broken wheelbarrows, holey curtains and a couple of rugs that literally crunched with kitty litter. Gone were the cardboard piles from the backyard, the broken lamps and drawer-less sideboard.
Only a few items were spared my evil eye, including a black tv cabinet (who’s on thin ice), some terracotta garden pots and—surprise—a full set of roof gutters behind the garden shed.
But the worst find of all? The black mould creeping along the skirts of shared bathroom and kitchen wall.
Reality Check: This is Adulthood.
The first week in the house was a roller coaster— equal parts exhilarating, grim and bonding.
With an empty house now (mostly) free of cat hair, we could finally take stock of how much work lay ahead. Every room needed attention—from faded floorboards to flaky ceilings—and with so many jobs to tackle, we quickly hit decision paralysis.
Where do you even begin? Do we go room-by-room and strip the lead paint? Or tackle something “easy” like the wasp nests on the front porch? The black mould situation in the bathroom wall seemed a pretty likely contender too. The house was starting to feel like a mountain, and Seb and I? Two very unequipped mountaineers.
Remember how alluring adulthood felt when you were a teenager? All that independence and free-will waiting just for you? Until you finally get a full time job and realise freedom is actually just… more work. That’s what this felt like. The ecstasy of having your own space clashed hard with the sheer scale of the project ahead. It was hard not to just spend the first few nights wandering in silence—room to room—cataloguing every crooked line and creaky sound that was now officially our problem.
So how did we finally pick a starting point, you’re wondering? I’d love to say we weighed our options and made a solid plan— but the truth is, we were left with little choice. The house picked for us. Or rather, it shoved Seb straight into the deep end of the bathroom.
But that’s a story for another post. You’ll have to stick around to see how that went.
Level-ish 