My Pad: ‘We didn’t sleep till 3am just talking about paint colours’

From rental properties to DIY renovations, Megan McCarthy, 30, and her partner Rich Batchelor, 40, speak about their experience buying their first house after Covid-19, turning it from a hole into a home and picking up a couple cats along the way. This interview by Scarlett Jeffries is part of the MyPad series based on the theme of home.

What was the process of finding the house?

It was a very quick process. From our particular story, I was looking for houses for a while and I was looking in all areas and it was irritating Rich a little bit, because I was probably going further out than he would have liked.  So I said, okay. Fine. I’ll stop looking at houses. Let’s take a break. That same night, this house came on the market and I said oh, I know I said I wasn’t gonna talk about houses but can I just talk about one more house with you? Because it does tick all of our boxes. And you were grudgingly were like okay, yeah.

We got super excited about it and didn’t sleep till 3 AM because we were already talking about paint colors. then 8 o’clock the next morning when the office opened, I had already submitted an online viewing request.

How did it feel once you where the confirmed buyers?

We had gone from seeing the advert to having it within 10 days, offer secured and then accepted. It was that quick. We where very fortunate. There wasn’t a lot of houses around at the time, especially not at this price point. We wanted to do it within our means and there wasn’t any complaints about this house. Admittedly when we viewed it we thought it was cosmetic issues only. It was only then when we actually moved in we were like, oh, there’s no radiators, no heating, and no gas. But all things considered we knew how fortunate we where to have managed to get the house.

Do you think anything affected your process or decision?

With it being slightly out of COVID, the issue was that houses were going so quickly. There were other houses that I had viewed but they were selling straight away, We knew we couldn’t dillydally which was part of why we acted as quickly as we did. The house prices, they were starting to climb as well. We got in at a very lucky time because this one hadnt shot up in price yet.

With it being post COVID where everyone had been locked away for a year, people realized that actually they wanted to be closer to family or wanted to reassess their lifestyle. So loads of houses were going on the market, which meant that also loads of houses were being sold because there was a stamp duty break as well. So it was the perfect storm for everything moving super quickly.

How did you turn it from a house into a home?

It was a it was a shell, basically. As I said, we have no heating in the house. Every room was a different color with different florals, different shades, different carpets. We stripped everything, and we did it ourselves. There was absolutely nothing in here for a while. we were cooking on a camping table with a camping hob, washing up in a bowl, and that was it. There was no heating for the 1st Christmas, which was pretty depressing, and a very low point for us.

It was a massive learning curve. it was the time it took to do things. I think partly because I grew up with the father that I did, things would just happen and it would be done and it would be a great design and solution. Whereas, we didn’t have that person here to do it for us it was all our own work. it was not gonna happen unless we did it. Three years on and that hard work paid off.

At any point in the last three years did you have a moment where you realised this was officially your home?

It took a couple of years for it to get to that point. But yeah definitely. At certain points we did question our decision. There was that first winter that was awful. It was just so cold, so miserable. There was brick dust everywhere. It was really grim. That was depressing time, and I think that was the only time I think I really said I wish I hadn’t done this. But we know now doing it ourselves, we’ve had so much satisfaction of every little thing that we’ve done. It’s like doing something completely new. We’ve we’ve learned so much. And its our achievment, weve done it ourselves.

When we got the cats that was a defining moment, i always wanted cats, but I was renting, so I couldn’t do that. And that was a big thing for me. It certainly made it feel more homely. They do make it more happy, definitely.

Did you face any challenges during the whole process and did it make you stronger?

I was 27 when we bought it, and I didn’t think I’d be in the property lab before I was 30. I don’t I don’t think I ever expected to be. I thought I would be renting. It was it was really tough at times. And it pushed us to the to the limit, but, you know, we were so close with each other that we just got through it in the end. I never would have bothered if I wasn’t with Megan. It helps that you’ve got another person there to kind of lift spirits and to have that sort of laugh and joke with. There’s been a lot of laughter here. It’s not like they they portray on Instagram. It takes a long time. But it worked out for us.