DIY can stand for many things like design, dream or just do it yourself. We’re here because we want to share with you our London life experience. It all started when we recently moved into what we first imagined to be a good for the budget ‘convenient’ flat, not flash, not fancy, not much bigger than our bedrooms we had come from. We started with our first viewing, a dodgy street in the grime of East London. While all excitedly waiting for the agent to arrive we were not so subtedly told by a potential drug dealer to “hide your phone love” … nice, how thoughtful of him. Eeek. That viewing was rather lush, spacious, enough space in fact to swing a tiger in not to mention the two bathrooms and all the mod cons. We almost settled for it but then sanity kicked in and we knew it was a budget breaker. We then moved onto to our second viewing, mostly out of courtesy with absolutley no expectations or thoughts of taking it as we had seen the photos online and just no no no especially with our low 28 expectations. Then unexpectedly after running around twisting the taps, peering into the closets and trying to chat up the agent about the football scores we felt quite drawn to this cosy, character filled nook here just above the Columbia Road and we both looked at eachother and we knew it was for us. We have failed to mention that we were not the only viewers at the same time … is that even legal?!! Later we were told we would need to win over the landlord if we wanted the place with a personal email selling ourselves to the max to grab this little, uninspiring place from under the nose of this young hipster couple dreadlocks and all. After also being told by the agent that couples were a more attactive option than friends and four pints later at the local we nailed it! A few days later, intense packing (86 boxes atleast), up and down numerous narrow staircases, the van, the blood sweat and tears (that’s an exaggeration) not to mention dragging a severely hungover friend into our moving trip we made it. After the first month rent, the 6 weeks deposit and the last month in our previous places we were at a point of eating butter and drinking water. Just the exciting city life we had planned on. Not. So, thats how we got to this point. Four months later, alot has changed, we’ve dreamt it, designed it and done it all ourselves, made new discoveries, learnt new skills, discovered new places, ate great food, cooked pretty tasty food too and not to mention had a few more pints too. We are ready to share our ongoing journey with you.

 Evelin & Monique