‘I moved house IN LOCKDOWN!'

Buying a property during the pandemic meant Catherine had to work around a lot of restrictions – yet still achieved pastel-perfect results

- LISA MOSES

When I came to view this property I was renting a flat five doors down the road,’ says Catherine. ‘I did want to buy my own place one day, but wasn’t seriously thinking of moving, yet since this was so close I thought I may as well take a look. When I walked in I just fell in love with it.

It’s a ground-floor flat with a garden, which was on my wish list, but it also has beautiful high ceilings, huge sash windows, and lovely original features, such as the ceiling moldings and the fireplace in the living room. The layout suited me too, with the kitchen and living room next to each other at the front and the bedroom at the back, rather than on the noisy roadside. And it was big for a flat, as developers hadn’t chopped it up to try and squeeze in an extra bedroom.

Panic buy

Choosing the flat was easy but moving proved to be somewhat trickier as I exchanged right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic when the country was going into lockdown. I was lucky that I lived so close, as the owners let me go round and measure up before I moved in, so I was able to think about what I wanted to do with space. At one point I wasn’t sure if the sale would happen as the house-buying chain looked like it might collapse because no one could move. However, I did manage to complete and got the keys at the start of the Easter holidays. I’d originally planned for my boyfriend to help me decorate the place but he was in lockdown with his mum, so I decided to get on with it by myself and spent the holidays going into the flat at 8 am and decorating every day, moving from room to room.