Eleven in the house! I am very thankful that it is a large house. Finding it was a miracle. We had thought of having my parents live with us as they were getting on in years, and my dad was starting to get cranky although we never saw him that way when he was with us. It occured to me to wonder, "then why are they not with us?"
So we sounded out my mother on the idea, she was open to it, we did some homework on practical feasibilities, and agreed with my mother on a day to visit and raise the question with my father. I didn't have a feel on how he would take it at all. The morning before we went over, my mother called to say that my father had dreamt that we were going to ask them to live with us! And he was happy about it! I got goosebumps all over. Thankfully, they both agreed after our discussion and we set to work to sell our flat and buy the house.
Our flat sold suprisingly quickly. We had been warned that it might take up to half a year or more after putting it on the market. This was because our estate had reached the point where many first owners were now eligible to sell, while more new units were being released at lower cost, so there was a surplus of units compared to when we sold our previous flat about five years earlier. Our buyer was good enough to give us additional time to get the house renovated before we moved out. We topped up a little on the selling price for this, which was well worth it as it would have been a lot more costly and strenuous to have to move to a temporary place while waiting for the house to be completed.
On the buying front, the owners of the house we had identified suddenly decided not to sell to us, after we had effectively sold our flat! This meant that we faced possible homelessness unless we could find another place in time. We were told on a Friday evening that that house was no longer for sale to us, so on Saturday morning we scrambled to find other houses on the propertyguru website (I recall trawling through over four hundred listings) and managed to line up five to be viewed in a span of two and a half hours on Sunday afternoon. On Sunday morning it occured to us that we should get our contractor's opinion if possible, as we would have lots to ask about regarding renovating the place to accomodate all eleven of us, including my parents on a ground floor bedroom with attached bath which we knew would not exist in any of the five houses we would be viewing. He graciously agreed to view the houses with us.
The first house we saw had pig-nosed turtle in a pillar aquarim, lots of fish, and toucans in an aviary that took up their entire front garden! The fourth house we saw was ideal except that the living and dining areas were on split levels on the ground floor, posing a fall hazard for my father who was already having a little difficulty moving around due to knee problems. I told my contractor this, wishing it could be leveled, and he said, "Why cannot?" The second floor was also only half the size of the ground floor indoors, providing a double height living room. I asked my contractor if there was any possibility of extending the second floor over the living area to meet the front wall, greatly increasing the usable floor area of the second floor. He didn't immediately say "Why cannot?" this time, but figured it should be possible but would need a professional engineer's certification that tihs would be safe. So we had that done, bought the house, levelled the ground floor by raising the living area to match the dining area and sloping the long driveway down to the gate, and extended the usable area of the second floor. The new floor area was partitioned to form a a quiet closed-off study and an open work area, each lit by a large window on the front wall at the height of the second floor. This also halved the volume of the living area, making it much more efficient to air-condition.
The seller of the house was also very kind to let us have the house early, so we eventually had about three months to complete the largish renovation job:
On the ground floor we extended the back wall on one side to create a good-sized bedroom for my parents with attached bath, put in a powder room, extended the kitchen backwards, tiled up the backyard to the level of the back wall of my parents' room and put a glass canopy over that to create the laundry yard, created a split level front porch next to the driveway and put a glass canopy over that and the driveway so that the car is now fully sheltered in the driveway. The back white picket fence was replaced with black welded wire fencing that is now grown over with a light blue thunbergia vine, leaving a centrally located gate that gives onto a broad common walkway between our backyard and the main road.
On the second floor the jack-and-jill bathroom was moved out from between the two bedrooms so that it could be accessed without entering the bedrooms.
On the third floor an attic was created over the jack-and-jill bathrom between the two back-facing bedrooms.
Every existing fixture was torn out and replaced as the house was already 25 years old and had not been renovated. We only kept the stairs which were in excellent condition and only needed to be sanded and varnished. In all, it was a large job! We got the keys in the middle of September and moved in on the second of January 2018. That was the day school reopened for the new year. On that day, the children went to school from the flat, the movers came and brought everything over to the house, and the children came home from school to the "new" house. Things were still being completed here and there so it felt a little like we were living in a construction site of sorts for some time.
On the ground floor we extended the back wall on one side to create a good-sized bedroom for my parents with attached bath, put in a powder room, extended the kitchen backwards, tiled up the backyard to the level of the back wall of my parents' room and put a glass canopy over that to create the laundry yard, created a split level front porch next to the driveway and put a glass canopy over that and the driveway so that the car is now fully sheltered in the driveway. The back white picket fence was replaced with black welded wire fencing that is now grown over with a light blue thunbergia vine, leaving a centrally located gate that gives onto a broad common walkway between our backyard and the main road.
On the second floor the jack-and-jill bathroom was moved out from between the two bedrooms so that it could be accessed without entering the bedrooms.
On the third floor an attic was created over the jack-and-jill bathrom between the two back-facing bedrooms.
Every existing fixture was torn out and replaced as the house was already 25 years old and had not been renovated. We only kept the stairs which were in excellent condition and only needed to be sanded and varnished. In all, it was a large job! We got the keys in the middle of September and moved in on the second of January 2018. That was the day school reopened for the new year. On that day, the children went to school from the flat, the movers came and brought everything over to the house, and the children came home from school to the "new" house. Things were still being completed here and there so it felt a little like we were living in a construction site of sorts for some time.
My parents moved in three and a half weeks later, the same day that Isaac was born.
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