"it's going to be so beautiful!"

Thank goodness for the optimism of a child.

I got the keys to the house yesterday. As I was walking away from the lawyer's office, with the legal-size envelope and its contents - including my new keys - I started to panic a little. It felt exactly the same as the day I visited the house I'm currently renting. That day, nearly two years ago, I walked down the street, having left what seemed like a hole of a house, realising that it was the only thing in the neighbourhood that was affordable, big enough, and available. I nearly had a panic attack. But I got through it by giving myself a pep talk. It's going to be fine. Everything is going to work out. It's good.

Those were the exact same words I whispered to myself yesterday as I walked out with my new keys and the biggest debt load I've ever carried. By the time I got to the bus stop, I was adequately calmed and ready to pick up my girls to go see the house.

It was their first time inside. I had warned them that there are lots of renovations and cleaning up to do, so it doesn't look perfect now. But it will be better before we move in.

We got to the house, I pulled out the key, and turned it in the lock. This is it. No going back. And we went in.

The first thing that hits you is the smell. The entire first floor of the house smells rancid; like an old, sick woman. And it's dark. And the light switches, if they work at all, are fritzy and fiddly (that's knob and tube for ya). And the colours are horrid: a 1950s turquoise in the living room, pink in the dining room, and a sickly yellow in the kitchen. The sticky tiles in the kitchen are coming up, and the cupboards are cheap and ugly.

Upstairs is not much better. The bathroom is at least 60 years old; the floor is mungy, the toilet scary-looking, the sink likely original to the house (80-90 years). The Bean's room, with the sink, has cupboards that need to come out, and that neat sink? The plumbing is wonky. Boo's room looks okay, but the pine floor has been painted - but only along the edges where it's not covered by the cheap roll-out cushion floor. Same for the floor in my room. And both our rooms have skinny closets that are too narrow to hang a hanger.

The windows throughout are original and falling apart. Some don't open. Some open with effort and are hard to close. Some have unattractive and broken roller blinds on them.

And that's all I could see yesterday: the problems, the work, the cost. I felt so defeated in that moment. And then Boo, in her cheery manner said, "it's going to be so beautiful!"

She had heard all the stories I told about what work we were going to have done. She had seen the tile I picked out for the bathroom, and listened to the design ideas I had for it. She knew the floors were going to be restored to gleaming hardwood throughout. She knew that I can work magic with a paintbrush and the right colour and that the kitchen was going to rock, despite its long pedigree. She knew that her room and her sister's were going to be fabulous, just like they are in our current, rented home. She just believed and overwrote the plans onto the current mess, and she saw.

I'm still in a bit of a lingering panic. I don't have all my workers lined up yet - that's my project for this week. I'm not 100 percent certain that it'll all be ready when we move in. Maybe it won't be. But it's livable. Completely and totally livable. With a bit of an airing out and a fresh coat of paint, of course. Boo is right: it'll be beautiful. It will just take some time and a lot of work. One bit at a time.