Up Mayo!!!!

The county is going wild!  The last time Mayo was in the Championship final was 2006.  The last time they won was 1951.  So people are VERY VERY excited for the upcoming match against Donegal this Sunday.  There's flags and red and green (or should I say green and red) bunting everywhere!  Here's our flag!  A perfect place to mount it -- a pile of rocks sitting in the middle of where our driveway is supposed to be.  When they cheer on a county team here, they say "Up -- (insert said county name here)".  Hence, Up Mayo!!!!  It's particularly funny if you're from County Down ("Up Down!).  So if you are abroad, this Sunday find an Irish pub that subscribes to international match coverage and cheer on Mayo to 'bring Sam home'.  I can't help the enthusiasm, it's infectious around here.

As for house stuff, things are puttering along.  The biggest push is that we finally have a utility room which rocks because I can finally do our own laundry (my in-laws have been doing ours since we moved in!

In the process of adding the utility room to the back of the house

It's nice & big, plenty of space for storage but we'll probably keep it unfinished for the moment until we see how the budget is getting on.

The other big work finished up was to get the septic tank and percolation area up to scratch.  Waiting for good enough weather to get on with it took some time this summer but atleast all is done now. 

   

Stevie's also been busy laying loads of pipes to get our drainage around the house sorted and this week I think he's moving onto footpaths.  I think footpaths are another one of those things that really make a difference to the house looking like it's made progress.  There's loads of stuff that needs to be done leading up to it but it's that one step that makes an obvious difference.

Ready to be Underwhelmed?

As you've seen, there's loads going on inside the house and unless you've come for a visit, I haven't really described what the layout is like.

I haven't a clue what you think the exterior looks like but here it is:

Yep, that's it.  Not so exciting from the outside.  Here's more.

No not a dirt track but our driveway

Looking downhill at where the driveway meets the road

Bet you're even more underwhelmed.  And likely wondering where oh where in the middle of nowhere we will be living.

So here's the (brief) story.

Part of the old house (yellow building) was built a long long time ago.  Ha ha ... I have no clue.  Initially, it was thought that the 'cottage' could've been built circa 1930 but since Steve has begun knocking walls and uncovering the original layout he thinks it probably was even earlier than that.
There was some major refurbishment in the 1980s with an addition added and a new roof at this point (which helped hide the fact that a fireplace was hiding in that really thick bedroom wall).  The layout of this cottage had 3 small bedrooms, kitchen, sitting room, and bathroom.

In 2008, the previous owners got planning permission and built a dormer extension which now houses all the bedrooms and bathroom.  They had plans to renovate the old cottage to contain just the living spaces but then decided to put the house up for sale.  Though the dormer extension is mostly finished (it's floored, bathrooms completed, electrics done) since the owners knew their plan was to move, they never actually lived in the new extension.  As you can see, the new front entrance is between the old house and new extension.

So this is where we come in and why we get to knock loads of walls.  And while there's lots of work to be done inside, there's clearly even more work to be done on the grounds as well which at the moment is a lot of overgrown hilly mounds of hairy grassy weedy rocky land.

Which brings me to mention, this is surprisingly not in the 'middle of nowhere' but seriously only 5 minutes from town and our current house!

And also on the site are OUTBUILDINGS!  I would call them sheds but you don't understand how excited Stephen was about the OUTBUILDINGS!

I was rather indifferent at the time we bought but now I'm eyeing up one of these for a potting shed as I'm beginning to dream about all the GIY veggies and plants I'll have next year.  Dreams!

And Now We Begin

So finally after months (and I'm talking about MONTHS) of dealing with Mr. Banker and a faceless group of Mr & Mrs. Underwriters, we have finally gotten the keys to the house.  Woohoo!
This has been a long and very frustrating PROCESS which has taken a lot of wind out of our sails but now we can get excited about the house again as work has begun!  And I don't want to bore anyone with tedious details.  If you really want to hear about the ridiculous requests we had to deal with, give me a shout, I can go on for ages.  But moving on ....

Now we weren't really looking to move ... we're very happy in our comfy 4-bed semi-detached home in a nice and quiet estate (read: 'subdivision') in town.  But Stephen's one of those guys who is constantly looking at websites for auto and house sales.  Just out of curiosity.  I think it's an addiction.

And one day last summer he went for a cycle around the roads near his home place (read: 'the place he grew up') and saw a house for sale.  We looked at the listing on-line and I thought he was crazy.  The pictures just did nothing for it.  But he convinced me to take a look and off we went see the house with the auctioneer (read: 'realtor').  And I was convinced.  But it does need work.  A significant amount of it.

And the rest is history (it really is history as it is now nearly 10 months later and we have only just gotten the keys and started the renovations).  Oh right ... I said I was moving on ...  As you can see, I have a hard time letting go ...

I'll go tomorrow and try to get some decent pics of the outside to explain what's going on with it.  But in the meantime here's a pic of the view ... aren't you getting excited too?!