This one is ours.

A new adventure has begun... Just over two weeks ago, we became the owners of a house.

We had been looking relatively seriously for a few months. We had had a few small disappointments by then. Some houses seemed exciting on paper and turned out to be horrible in real life. Others felt like they could tick some boxes but had some sort of major problem: too close to the coal, too close to the train lines, too much traffic, too much work, too ugly and of course, too expensive, too small or too far.

We would go from feeling elated to deflated in a matter of minutes.

Everyone kept telling us that when we found The One, we would 'know'. So we kept at it, talking ourselves into and out of a dozen more houses. I remember laying awake one night and trying to imagine what it would feel like to switch the sound of the waves for the sound of a coal train clonking past. I wondered if this was something one could get used to. And I couldn't sleep. I thought I would rather rent forever than try to get used to something like that.

So we kept looking and eventually, we found it. The One. And we knew. We were giddy when we walked out. Both of us at equal levels. It ticked ALL of our boxes.

Our house is a converted warehouse. It's unusual and brimming with potential. It's spacious and can become more spacious. It faces the right way, towards the North. It's in a great location, a few minutes from a good main street and a block away from a great school, and it's on top of a hill so we look over rooftops and tree canopies. It feels like living in a huge apartment but without worrying about neighbours and we have a backyard, neither too big nor too small with space for a veggie patch and entertaining/playing areas.

It also has an infinite number of small problems (and a few biggies). It needs more windows and parts of the house are quite dark (thankfully, mostly the bedrooms). The warehouse was converted by an artist who also calls herself an architect and a builder. She gives these professions a bad name. Nothing aligns, nothing joins properly, cupboard doors get stuck on carpets and windows are hard to open or close. Screws are loose and hinges broken. Keys to mysterious locks are missing. Equally mysterious keys seem to fit no lock. The joinery is built so poorly that we are actually dismantling parts of it to use the boards to make shelves. The kitchen is tiny which is especially annoying.

And it's not babyproof. AT ALL. My main occupation this week was keeping Hugo alive. It's what I normally do but this felt like I was doing it with the odds stacked against me. So far, I've stopped him from tumbling down the back stairs and from climbing the balustrades. I've had to remove splinters from his hands from playing outside and I've had to break into my own house after locking myself out while Hugo was inside.

But, once we get a few things done, this will be a house for grown-ups to enjoy and a house for kids to play in. It will be a beautiful house and it will be a fun house. We're in for a long haul, with ups and downs, moments of despair and times of elation in store for us.

We've been in here for a week now and with each day, I feel more and more excited. I still lay awake at night but this time I am thinking about all the things we could do. I have to stop myself from waking Chris up. We have a wall which we are writing all of our ideas on. We've called it the Great Wall of Ideas. One day, we'll paint over it but for now, we excitedly map out our thoughts: planting bamboo in the front, making concrete furniture, a curtain for Hugo's room, a sandbox for him to play while I plant tomatoes...

I know the excitement will wear off when the reality of what we have undertaken kicks in but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

There are many houses out there but this one is ours. And we love it!