Welcome to Stressville - Population Me!

Picking up where I left off in my previous instalment, while I was on maternity leave, Joseph decided to give me a project - to find us a home!

As my father had passed away some years ago, my mother and Joseph’s parents both were very accommodating in letting us (me, Joseph and our son) stay in their houses until we were finally able to put our feet firmly on the property ladder. This took the bones of 12 months, which I believe is quite quick for first time buyers. We were looking around the north-side of Dublin as we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford anything in the areas we were looking for on the south-side.

So I added my name to the mailing lists of all of the major estate agents in Dublin. I logged on to www.myhome.ie on an almost daily basis. I set it up so that I could get text messages sent to my mobile phone if a new house was added to their website that met my search criteria.

We centred our search on the Swords area in Dublin. We found a house that we both loved and had a large back garden which we thought would be perfect (and safe) for our son to grow up and play in. We paid our holding deposit and waited for the sellers to get the contracts to our solicitor. They never came. We gave up on that house after a number of months of waiting. After giving the sellers an ultimatum on a date that we wanted to close the sale on they said that they hadn’t picked anywhere they wanted to move to at that point. We withdrew our deposit on that property. This happened on two other houses. We had deposits on three houses and they all fell through. We were bidding on other properties and getting out-bid by investors. It just didn’t look as though we’d ever end up in a house of our own.

I took my chances and picked up the phone to begin the ringing around to each of the estate agents to see if they had anything on their books that we could move into before Christmas 2002. Plenty of them had new houses available to purchase, but the majority of them were off the plans. All this buying off the plans is all very well and good if it suits, and stamp duty on second hand homes is a killer for first time buyers (which we were). It really would be useful if the government could have off set the then first time buyers grant against the stamp duty and reduced the overall cost of second hand homes (regardless of how many times it is handed out on the same property) but that would have made too much sense.

Getting back to the situation at hand, there was a house to buy and I wasn’t getting any closer to signing any contracts. I phoned one estate agent and I must have gotten them on a good day. I explained all about our situation and how we were mortgage approved and all that. We were told that there would be a completed house (i.e. one that was ready to move into) available to buy from them. We took a spin up to see the house that evening and brought our cheque book with us. 10 minutes after viewing the property, and while we were still there, we paid our deposit. Provided nothing else happened to the property, the keys were as good as ours. Thankfully, due to the speedy work of our solicitor we got the keys for our house in October 2002.

It was beginning to look like October would be a lucky month for us!
As it turned out the government, in its bizarre wisdom decided to abolish the first time buyers grant (often seen as a lifeline for first time buyers) shortly after we got our house, not that we had anything to do with its abolition! It worked out well for us as it began the wedding savings funds quite nicely.

With the house bought, the next personal project looming on the horizon is our own wedding. Before we could get down to the organising of our wedding, my sister and her husband to be (at the time) were getting closer to tying their own knot! The date they had picked was 30 December 2002. I was her chief bridesmaid and along with one of her friends had a hen party to organise, along with helping with the other wedding preparations. My sister didn’t want the pub and nightclub type of hen-night, so we arranged for a lovely meal in the Indian restaurant in Booterstown and then over to The Punch Bowl for a few drinks afterwards which was much more her style. In order to have something memorable for her to take from the night, both myself and the other bridesmaid went searching for old photos of the hen as she grew up and started exploring the world. We then scanned them and printed them off and laminated them. They were going to be the placemats for the dinner!!! She loved them!

We had purchased the dresses we were to wear for her wedding in Pamela Scott’s on Grafton Street during the sale and they were perfect. Ballet length deep red velvet sleeveless dresses, straight, with a round neckline. We had cream or ivory coloured pashminas to keep the cold out in December as well. This complimented her beautiful gown, which she got in McElhinney’s and suited her perfectly. There was a stunning full-length cape that accompanied her gown and I thought it was ideal for the time of year. Very festive!

I learned a lot while assisting her with the preparations but she did do most of them herself. I can remember the week leading up to the big day, there was 6 of us (the bride, two bridesmaids, best man, groom and another friend) sitting around the dining room table making up orders of service like we were on a factory assembly line! I vowed that I’d get mine done for me after that!!!

In my next instalment I’ll talk about her big day and how it has helped me make decisions for my big day.

Till then,

Lynne