She lives in a house, a very big house in the country
We don’t own the whole mansion, only a wing of it. And we bought it dirt cheap because it was falling to bits. In all honesty, the roof could have been hanging off and I still would have moved in, simply to find out what living in a mansion was actually like. If you indulge in any of my other posts you may have noticed that I am far from a snob. Not that I think folk who live in mansions are snobby. I’m just nae a rich witch (although I am working on it).
Living in a Mansion
This post comes from a very sarcastic place in my heart. When I watch these rich celebrities on cribs that have 25 bedroom mansions, I do not feel any envy. Might give up the mansion for a shed. Less maintenance.
These are the not-so-glamorous points of living in a mansion.
Wide Open Spaces
No furniture will ever be enough. Our living room used to be the ballroom of the mansion back in the day. Pretty cool eh? But really, imagine having a ballroom in your house?! And… have you ever tried to furnish a ballroom? We only had two sofas when we moved from our city-centre flat. Which was like peeing freely in the ocean.
No matter how much furniture we add to our living room, we will most likely never know what it feels like to be cosy. This maybe isn’t so much of a problem for these celebrities living in a mansion in Miami. But we live on a very windy hill beside the North Sea in Scotland. And sometimes it rains indoors. Turns out that living in a mansion is kinda cold. Even in the height of Summer.
The Age-Old Question
Our house is old. Really, really, really old. There are really old things in the world that are younger than our house. Like the pyramids. And The Queen. We were completely sold on the ‘original features’ of the house. Unfortunately, the original features have begun to fall down…
Most modern homes are not built with huge blocks of ‘porous’ granite. Porous means that our house absorbs water. No house should ever absorb water as this is where you go to be dry. I thought this was standard house-building knowledge. Living in a mansion of such an old age means we are permanently trying to prevent it from falling down by any means possible.
Raindrops Are Falling On My Head
Literally. I have never paid more attention to the weather forecast in my life. And the local weather forecast never reflects where we live. Like, never. Sometimes it will be glorious weather in Aberdeen, but up the coast in Cruden Bay, I can’t find the house for fog.
Usually, when you check the weather, it is to see what the weather will be like outside. I check the weather to see if the rain will be joining us inside. It doesn’t matter how many times I get a leak fixed as another 2 will appear in a different place. It’s like in old cartoons when the character is trying to prevent a leak by sticking their fingers in the hole. Then they run out of fingers and get hosed in the face. This is our life most of the time. I am totally looking forward to the April showers. Bye house. Hello, Noah’s Ark.
I Would Walk 500 miles 
And I do. Walking from the back of the back garden to the front of the house leaves me out of breath. It takes at least 17 minutes to cover the distance (slight exaggeration). This is no use, particularly when your washing blows right of the washing line and you have to trek 3 miles to fetch it. There may have been times that I have just left my knickers to fly off into another country. Sorry, not sorry.
Wait a Minute Mr Postman
He doesn’t know what door to go to, I don’t know what door to go to. I think he just sticks my mail into any letterbox and hopes for the best. The other day, we found a lovely Christmas card from 2015. Seriously though, I have now taught my dog to bark at any noise that comes from around outside so I can track the postman through my binoculars to see which route he is planning. This is exactly why I am 2 weeks behind with my Mastercard payment. That is my story and I am sticking to it!
Playboy
Nope, it is nothing like living in the playboy mansion. Although my fiancé does wear a rather fetching dressing gown. I bought a plush Playboy bunny pillow when I moved in here thinking I could emulate the design of the Playboy Mansion. That never materialised. Absolutely zero of us walk around the house in lingerie and bunny ears. We do have rabbits outside that eat from my non-existent carrot patch if that counts?
Glamour
When we bought this house, I envisaged myself wandering around wearing beautiful and risqué Georgian ball gowns. You know? Like in the movies where the rich women look permanently stunning against a backing of glamorous and rich design. This is neither practical nor possible. Instead, I wear an oversized dressing gown from Matalan and I think my hair was brushed yesterday. One day when I have more money than most countries and living in a mansion involves no upkeep, I will likely indulge in this fantasy. Or just continue to dream…
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Can somebody call security?
I have watched too many movies over the years. Do you know how in classic action films the bad guys live in a crazy big mansion with heavy security but the good guys manage to gain entry with no difficulty? Yes, even though it is highly doubtful, I am still convinced that somebody is going to break in and steal my make up collection or worse, my TV. It may be worth mentioning that if you are reading this and you are getting ideas that I have nothing of any value and if I did you would never find it anyway because it is buried in the back garden. Oops. For the record, nobody has ever tried to break in because they probably know that I have a big, aggressive and scary Labrador that would definitely lick them to death.
Money, Money, Money
Living in a mansion is a permanent cost. If I can’t come out for cocktails it is because I am repairing a leak, or trying to figure out where the smell of 18th-century death is coming from. Don’t judge. I love cocktails and your company but I am trying to prevent my house from falling down. We paid thousands of pounds to fix a broken beam and window. Only two months after having this fixed, we had a leak in the same place. There was no obvious leak or reasoning behind this. Therefore a saucepan was put in place to catch the water. Coulda saved a few quid there eh?
Housework you say?
HA! There is no point. It really annoys me that we do housework and within the space of 2 hours there is a mess again. Living in a mansion makes it near impossible to keep everything clean. So if you ever come round to my house and it is clean then you should be pouring the wine, not me. As I have put in days of effort for your visit.
Baby, it’s Cold Outside
And inside. The roofs are high and the rooms are huge which means heating bills are just terrific. We do put the heating on to warm the rooms but the windows are prehistoric. This means that we maybe get 30% of the heat that we pay for and the other 70% heads straight out the windows contributing directly to global warming.
Drive-By
My other-half agreed to buy the house as soon as he saw the fancy driveway up to the house. It could have been a tent. We basically only bought the house just so he could feel slightly more royal. This has since backfired majorly for a few reasons. The drive is an awkward width therefore if we are getting anything delivered bigger than a kettle, the delivery van will park at the bottom of the drive meaning we get an irritated delivery guy at the door. It gets even better… It turns out that the drive is a wind funnel and has since caused our garage roof to blow completely off.
Windy City
Have you ever had the wind blow a door closed INSIDE your house? The wind blows all of our doors closed. Our bedroom window has to be closed from the outside and the drafts are stuffed with t-shirts that I have given up on ironing. Please be aware that our house isn’t a total hole however we do have various ongoing issues which we have learnt to accept and maybe one day, even love.
Noises
Old houses make an awful lot of noise. Sometimes when we are snuggling at night time and things are about to get extra romantic, something will fall down in between the walls. We have no way of knowing what or who has caused this noise therefore we just ignore it until it causes actual damage. Also, our house was named after a battle between the Scottish and the Vikings where the Scot’s basically annihilated the Vikings. Real Vikings were murdered where our house is. Therefore we have Viking ghosts. I have not seen any as of yet but I often hear their longboat sailing through the house in the wee hours.
Overall, living in a mansion is not quite how it is projected in the movies. Your life may get slightly more difficult unless you have cleaners and a team of tradesmen that live with you. You are probably not missing out.
