Converting the garage {Part One}….

When we bought our current house, we deliberately chose a slightly smaller house than we could have afforded (I know – the complete opposite to what the experts tell you to do) because we wanted to have more money each month for family fun.

I know that isn’t the best thing to do but we moved house not long after my Mam and my brother died and at the time all I that was getting me through the days was my family and having seen just how short life can be, I wanted to make sure that we made the most of every single day.

I was also convinced that my old home was unlucky as we didn’t have the best of luck while we lived there. We had our offer accepted on it around the same time that my brother died and during the short time we lived there my Mam died and a few other not great things happened to us as a family. We also had a neighbour who liked nothing more than playing The Beautiful South full blast in the middle of the night, a roof that developed a leak and damp in the walls that had been very cleverly disguised before we moved in. Oh and the day my Mam died an old man on his way to the pub wiped out both of our cars and ended up upside down in his car on our path.

Can you see why I thought it was unlucky?

I had it in my head that I would only move to a new build because no-one else would have lived there before us so there would be no bad vibes and also because after the problems we had with leaks and damp in the old house I wanted to know that there would be no surprises.

I’d probably choose differently now if I had my time again but I was a bit lost myself at the time and Mr Frugal didn’t know what to do to help me get over the loss of my brother and Mam so he just let me do what I needed to do which, at the time, was the best thing he could have done.

So, that’s the story of how we ended up in a house that’s a little smaller than I would like!

Don’t get me wrong though, the house isn’t tiny – we have three good size bedrooms, one with an ensuite bathroom and downstairs we have a downstairs toilet a good sized kitchen dining room and an adequate sized living room. It’s just that now that the kids are a bit older, we could just do with an extra room- a multi purpose room where I could have a desk and a mini photo studio area and where we could put the Xbox for them to play together out of my way.

We thought about a conservatory but I don’t think that the size we would afford would give us the space so we then turned our thoughts to converting the garage which is a complete dumping ground for us at the moment.  We can’t afford to do a full on garage conversion at the moment so we thought we’d do it bit by bit ourselves as much as we can and get people in when we need them.

We’re going to tackle it gradually as and when we have some spare money but Mr Frugal promised me as part of my Christmas present that at the very least he would get it cleared enough so that I could have a little photo area at the back so yesterday, he got up and got started.

Bless him, this is the sight that greeted him when he opened the garage door:

I told you it was a dumping ground!

I couldn’t let him do it on his own though so between us we’ve made three trips to the charity shop, one trip to the recycling bins at Tesco, one trip to the tip and we currently have some things outside on the front garden with a big ‘Free’ sign on them.

It was freezing cold out there but it needed doing so we just kept on going until we have a garage that looks like this:

It’s not done yet but it looks a million times better in my opinion.

The boxes on the left all need sorting still and the drawers and shelves on the right need replacing with better storage that will hide it all away.  We’re getting rid of the fridge freezer in there and have plans to paint the dresser at the back properly or just replace it with better storage and the bikes and scooters will eventually be re-housed in the shed we’ll get in the back garden.

Our next job is to get a door knocked through from the house and then we need to sort out getting the garage door off and a wall building in it’s place.

For now I’m happy just to be able to get in there again!

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