House Episode 1

Nothing to do with Hugh Laurie's pill-popping genius doctor but our house, in the middle of our street. OK, I'll stop it already with the oblique references (that was Madness, if you're interested.) Almost as soon as we saw our house we decided we wanted an extra bedroom or two and a floor plan that would have us living in our house as if it were a house and not as if it were a small flat. Our block slopes from front to back and that means we have a back door opening onto a small flight of stairs that leads down to a stepped garden. It really is all too much effort to go down those stairs for any reason other than to hang washing on the line, get a pushbike form the store under the kitchen or for me to periodically cut the vegatation I euphemistaically refer to as a lawn. So although we live in house on a decent sized block we make bugger all use of the majority of the block. In fact the dogs inhabit more of our land than we do. With AJ's arrival we have no guest bedroom stroke library stroke storage for my clothes stroke room where I can hide my shit from Sal. We need more space.

The house on the block at the foot of our block was recently built, replacing the one that had been burnt out. We spoke the the builder of that house; made sense as we'd seen his work every day for several months last year. He pointed us in the right direction. Get some sketches and some plans and take it from there. As luck would have it the owner of the house at the foot of our garden is an architect and designed the house now at the bottom of our garden. Last night we had our first semi-formal meeting, she took a few notes, gave us a bit of homework and the ball is now rolling.

I've done a bit of sketching of my own, Sal and I have a few ideas, we've chatted with friends, family and colleagues and now have a clearish idea of what we want. Talking to an architect made me realise that all of that lacked a certain structure. I'm sure we'll not be getting anything like mate's rates - a quote will be coming soon, and I was especially clear on just how much we can afford - but I am happy we will get a guiding hand, whether our neighbour or A. N. Other. You can tell when a person knows their shit and a person knows jack shit. Jack and I are aquainted. Jack and me are asquainted. Hmm, both of them sound wrong. I know jack shit and should write stuff more simple.

Watch this space.