About Us and Our Blog

About The Fintelmans
We are Emily and Gary and we are a couple in our twenties who have just bought our first house together. We both seem to have missed the gene that makes you interested in houses with these kind of windows and instead love old houses and the history they have. We both love Grand Designs and tolerate The Block, and have bought our slightly shabby 19th century terrace house with the intention of renovating over a couple of years. The plan is to restore it to its former glory, whilst adding space and features to suit our totally hipster 21st century lifestyle. It might not look like much now, but in our minds/in the future/in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it's incredible. Should be fun.

At the moment the house is being rented out and we will continue living in our love shack about 20 minutes away while we prepare our building plans and lodge applications. We will be doing some minor works on the house in the next few months before we go full ball and start waving around hammers and wrecking balls.

About Our Blog
Despite there being a whole internet on which to write about terrace house renovations, it seems that no one has done it yet. In a noble effort to contribute to society and share our experiences so others may follow where we have dared to tread, Emily is going to blog about the house renovations in order to avoid the physical labour associated with house renovations.

About Emily
Ever since I was a kidlet I have wanted to live in a castle. Then I grew up, fell in love with Mr Darcy and got more realistic... castles were a bit out my my price range. Pemberley was the new dream. However, all my hopes were crushed with the realisation that my parents were mean enough to not bother to be a Duke and Duchess with grand estate and county seat in Somethingshire that I could inherit.

With reality and the wage of a teacher in mind, I set my sights a little lower and but still high enough to pretend I live in Regency England. For a while it seemed ridiculously unattainable but with a time of totally boring saving and a hefty amount of luck we have got ourselves this house that is a dreamy little piece of history.

I have no experience with anything of this kind. My main house-related skills appear to be Pinteresting and hankering after expensive wallpaper.

About Gary
Gary does not want to live in a castle. Gary is ever the pessimist but loves to dream. While he never thought we would buy a house this big he keeps reminding me that we only could because of how much work it needs. He loves starting projects that are too big and too complicated to ever be finished and this seems like the biggest one yet. Hopefully his logical engineering mind can be put to work and get us over the line and into a beautiful house, with no shortage of help from friends. Hint hint.