The Bear Cave http://www.thebearcave.co.uk Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:00:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 February 2012 http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/2012/02/february2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=february2012 http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/2012/02/february2012/#comments Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:00:08 +0000 Ella http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/?p=1338 Continue reading →]]> We’re getting closer to owning our home, but we’re not quite there yet. While we wait we’ve been organising, and sorting. It makes sense to make sure we don’t have clutter in our house before we start our home improvements. It means we won’t be worrying about storage for things we don’t need, which should make our lives easier; if we don’t use it, or don’t need it we’re giving it to the charity shop, selling it or taking it to our local recycling center.

I love having a good sort out, its quite therapeutic. We now have less clutter but there is always room for improvement. Rachel from Small Notebook has some really useful tips about organising and simplifying. Her key advice is to stop bringing clutter in to your house to start with; perhaps easier said than done, I know I am certainly guilty of it from time to time.

Making money by selling things is another incentive. It means not only do we have a tidier house but we can buy the things that we actually do want instead. We’ve had quite a lot of success selling on Facebook (to friends and family) and on eBay (using a mix of buy it now and auction listings depending on the item). We’ve done alot, but there is always more to be done.

]]> http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/2012/02/february2012/feed/ 0 January 2012 http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/2012/01/january2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=january2012 http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/2012/01/january2012/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000 Ella http://www.thebearcave.co.uk/?p=1150 Continue reading →]]> We’re buying a house; the same house we’ve been renting for a few years. Early in January we had an unexpected email asking if we would like to buy it. We went to see the bank, and browsed the housing market before making an offer on our house. Now we’re meeting with bank managers and solicitors to complete the sale. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be the proud owners of our very own home.

We have lots of plans for home improvements, but we can’t do anything until all legal paperwork is done. We’ve spent quite a lot of time idea shopping, going round various DIY shops and working out what we both both like. I’m compiling a notebook of ideas that I like, so it makes it easier to explain to Mr. B exactly what I mean.

There isn’t much in our house that we don’t already have ideas for. Luckily it is a small house, but it still feels like a huge task. It’s useful that we’ve already been living in the house for two years and know how we use the space we have, and how it could work better. We’re hoping to upcycle as much as possible, being environmentally friendly and saving a bit of money too. 

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