How it all started...
You know those people that are obsessed with property? you know the type… the ones that constantly have property programmes on TV and although they have no intentions in moving houses are glued to the computer looking at what is up for sale…yeah!? Well that is us!
Our last house was very different to My Tiny Estate. Underfloor heating, polished concrete floors, open plan living and super bright with natural light flooding in from all angles, very child ‘unfriendly’, basically what suited us then, screw resale, this was our forever home!
Every time that we were travelling, I (Borja) started discussing what would we do if we were to start another project… I definitely knew what I wanted and what I didn’t want.
Dean is the type of person that plans ahead (he already knows what he will do when he retires… - OTT I know, he is only in his 30s !) Anyway Dean, although reluctant to think about moving he started mentioning that IF we moved he wanted to have a house that we could get an income from so that it could take the pressure off that desperate requirement to work work work!
In the summer of 2018 we saw a farmhouse, totally derelict, untouched for decades, with outbuildings, a very long drive, 15 acres of land… so you can imagine our excitement… ticked a lot of our boxes, except one, it was fairly close to a motorway and it had the constant noise in the background…. something we thought we could compromise on. With our decision already made we became obsessed with the property! We spent hours researching the location, the history, how to mitigate the noise, Dean designed the Farmhouse with an extension and looked into how to convert the Barns into another house.
We put an offer and it was accepted! We were thrilled!
We had to get the ball rolling with our house we had to get it photographed and put it on the market, so we did. We sold it within 24 hours and exchanged within 5 weeks ! The fastest exchange I ever did, so fast we quickly became homeless and had to lodge up at Dean’s parents! (Thank god they are so nice! as we ended up living with them for 8 months! I loved it)
During the process of buying the farm the solicitors made us aware that the drive that went towards the property was not owned by the property, and there was no right of way! The property was basically landlocked, (We did ask this in our first visit to the Selling Agent and he assured us it wasn’t… ) so although we approached the person that owned the drive to ask if they would be willing to sell it, we also found out that there was a family member buried within the garden. Pairing that with the constant noice from the nearby motorway spinning in our heads, we decided to put our sensible hats on and decided it wasn’t the one for us. Ok yes I skipped over the point about the human remains in the garden but it wasn’t a huge deal to us (well assuming he wasn’t buried under the floor boards!) They never did confirm the exact location of the body when we requested it, which we found extremely odd?!)
A month went by and I started panicking, thinking we would never find something as special as our previous house and we had already sold it!!!… we were celebrating our anniversary in Prague when I checked a property portal and I saw it! My Tiny Estate came up for sale! waheyyyy!!
There were only 3 pictures online so we knew it was going to be so bad inside but what we saw of it was a good start!
I think it was the first time ever that we wanted our long weekend to end ! we wanted to go back to Warwickshire, book a viewing and put a silly offer as we didn’t even have the budget to pay what they were asking for…
We arranged a visit and Dean and I did what we have done every time we have offered on a property… Within the first minute of walking in we looked at each other and I mouthed to him ‘OH - MY - GOD!’ - Dean did his cheeky smile which meant ‘I KNOW!!’
So we went home did a spreadsheet of the financial suicidal mission we were going to embark on and placed an offer that I thought would definitely be rejected. To our surprise after a few weeks they told us it was accepted!!! (I think we have now realised there was no one as brave or stupid as us to take something like this on.)
It took months to get through the legalities and as we were dealing with an actual Lord, which the sale of this part of his estate was rather insignificant to him, it was not high on his priorities. However, as you can see we persevered and we got it through, we got the keys the 7th of March of 2019!
During the months of the legal process we became friends with the old Caretaker - Roger. Roger had the keys for the estate and opened up every time that we asked (which was many, maybe a bit too much!). He was delighted that the estate was finally going to breathe again and he said to us…
“‘The people that have worked here for many years would be proud to see that you are going to make it a home once again! ‘”
Just to contextualise this… the house had been sitting completely empty since 2005 and not as a residence since the 1930’s. It was official our exciting journey began as we became the new guardians of this beautiful tiny estate….