Making Our House Our Home
For this week’s flashback I want to share some photos, in no particular order, of Willow House becoming our home.
We decided to move from our cute little cottage in Bodiam at the end of 2008, when we started IVF. Naively we just assumed that the treatment would work first time and that very soon we would be a family of 3, or even 4.
We found our current house online before it was properly on the market. There were no pictures, only a very brief description, but as it was in a good location for us we decided to go and take a look.
We found this house, our home, and we immediately fell in love with it.
It is a higgledy-piggledy lopsided 17th century cottage which has been sympathetically improved and extended creating a wonderful family home. It is softly lit through small windows and has a very warm feel inside though in reality the house is often freezing because of all the holes in the ancient walls!
On our first viewing we rushed from room to room gasping and exclaiming at how perfect it was for us. The beams, the original floors and doors, the little garden leading to stepping stones over a stream and on to the village green. It was perfect. We could see how we would fill and use each room. It excited and inspired us. We wanted the house to be ours. But we were not the only ones … another couple had viewed he property with as much excitement, energy and enthusiasm as us.
At the end of the viewing we had a chat with the owners who seemed to like us, a young, professional couple with no plans for children!! The owner did not want children living in their house. David and I assured them we were not planning any as they told us that we were not the only people interested in the house.
We went away excited but disappointed, we could not move into a house where we could not have children. Once home at our other house I decided to write to the owners and explain our story to see what could be done. I explained about the IVF and how we might fall pregnant within weeks or not for tears, it was impossible to know. I told them how much we loved the house and that if we were to have a baby there we would leave before they were mobile and able to cause any damage.
We sent the letter and we waited.
We waited.
Then we got a letter, a letter saying that the house was ours and in February 2009, the day of our first unsuccessful embryo transfer, we collected our keys. Later that month we moved in and vegan making our new house, Willow House, into our home.
During the two week wait of that first IVF cycle I had furnished our new house through EBAY. And on moving day David and his Dad drove all around London collecting the bits I had bought. It was a very tiring day particularly for David and his Dad.
There were some bits of furniture I had not bought that David made; our enormous dining table and our bookshelves. And later our television stand. He made them all from wood using no nails or screws. He used the Internet to teach himself how to do it and they are amazing. A real focal point of our house along with the fires.
This house is in a community that has become special to us, I was baptised in the church behind our house where later this year we will marry and next the twins will be christened. I taught in the village school, we had our engagement barn dance in the church barn and it is just a really lovely place to be. I will be sad when we leave to buy a house of our own.
This is a house that is at its best at Christmas. The beams and fires come alive when decorated with traditional Christmas trimmings and our magnificent table can host a wonderful festive feast.
It has become even more of a home since the babies arrived and we created their nursery and playroom. For a house that is not supposed to have children it has become all the better for having the here.
I love our house, our home.
I hope that you enjoy this peek inside.

For further Flashback Friday Fun hop on over to Cafe Bebe’s Blog and see what other people are sharing.
Perhaps you have a favourite flashback of your own?