Hey hey hey, Get ready for a story! A long one! So much has happened this past year, and I've been dying to share it all with you. It's a story of big decisions, unexpected twists, a whole lot of packing, and finally, the creation of my dream studio.
Oh wow, where do I even begin? This past year has been an absolute rollercoaster, and I finally have the time to sit down and share everything that’s been happening behind the scenes. So, grab a coffee (or tea!), and consider this your read for the day—because this is a BIG one! 😆 I hope you stick to end of this series because there is actually some cool stuff for you at the very end!
If you’ve been following me for a while, you might remember that back in 2021, just before Ishaan was born, we bought our first house. It was perfect—my office was just two minutes away, and life was good despite the whole Covid situation. But then, as things started returning to normal, Sandeep (my husband) was asked to come back to the office three days a week. And while he was excited to be back at work, there was a small problem—his office was two hours away! 😳
And before you ask—no, he wasn’t working remotely due to Covid. He had actually been working from home long before that, which was a huge reason we chose to buy that house in the first place!
So, instead of the daily commute, he came up with the most bizarre schedule ever—leaving early Tuesday morning, staying at hotels overnight and coming back late Thursday night. Which meant…
For three full days every single week, it was just me. Me, Ishaan, my full-time engineering job, my growing art business, my two Instagram accounts, my Skillshare classes, my DMs, my content, my courses—everything. I don’t even know how I did it. I look back and think, WOW, I was a powerhouse. And honestly? I feel proud. It wasn’t just "managing" everything—I ran the whole show. People always asked me how I did it, and the truth? I just did. No complaining, no slowing down. I was building an empire while being a full-time mom, and I freaking nailed it. I wasn’t even exhausted. I never felt tired. And you possibly can’t imagine how much time I spent lazily scrolling and binge watching Netflix shows amidst all this!
But after two years of this, something had to change. Ishaan was growing up, and Sandeep being away for half the week was not fun anymore. We missed him! It was time for a big move.
The Big Decision—A New Job & A New House
We knew the answer:
✅ Find a new job (for me), closer to his workplace
✅ Sell our house and buy a new one in a better location for both of us
Easy, peasy right?
LOL. Of course not. 😂
Now, funny thing—although we’re both aerospace engineers, we literally can’t work at the same company because our fields are miles apart. He’s a mechanical stress engineer, and I’m an aerospace systems engineer. So finding a job that worked for me was crucial.
And here’s where the first miracle happened. I thought job-hunting would be hard because of my conditions—I needed reduced hours because hey, Fridays are my painting days! I kept thinking, “Why would anyone hire me when so many candidates are available full-time?”
But the moment I started applying, I realized something incredible—I was in demand. Big demand. The number of calls I got made me realize:
👉 I was a dream candidate—woman in engineering, "diversity hire," experienced systems engineer with 5+ years under my belt.
👉 I could literally choose my dream job. And that’s exactly what I did!
👉 Flexible hours? Check. Four-day work week? Check. Amazing salary? Check.
I secured the job faster than expected, and I was over the moon.
So, new job secured! All done, right? WRONG. The real adventure was just beginning. Selling the house, finding a new one, and the dreaded chain…
Selling the House: The Waiting Game
We put our house on the market before I switched jobs, thinking we’d sell it quickly. Nope. The market was slow, and we had zero offers for months. We couldn’t buy a new house until we sold this one, so we waited.
Meanwhile, my new job started, and I loved it. I wanted to go to the office more often, but since Sandeep and I had to take turns being home for Ishu and closer to his nursery, we did this wild schedule:
- I’d leave early Monday morning, stay at a hotel overnight and return Tuesday night.
- He’d leave early Wednesday morning, overnight hotel stay and return Thursday night.
We waited, waited, and waited. Finally, in July, we got an offer. Our estate agents said it was actually fast (some houses have been on the market for a year!), but for us, it felt like forever.
Finding the New House & The Never-Ending Chain
The weekend after accepting the offer, we went house-hunting and fell in love with the house we’re in now. We put in an offer immediately, and they accepted it! 🎉
YAY, all done, right?!?
NO. Because here’s the thing about buying a house in the UK—you don’t just get the keys the next day. It’s all about the chain.
Just because you sell your house and get your offer accepted on a new one, doesn’t mean you get to move the next day or even in a month.
Instead, we had to wait for the chain to close.
💡 What’s a house chain? Let me explain:
1️⃣ We sold our house (House C in the chain) to a family.
2️⃣ That family had sold their house (House B) to another family before approaching us.
3️⃣ That other family sold their house (House A) to first-time buyers. So this is where the chain actually started. The first time buyers got an offer accepted on this House A, and the owners of House A approached House B…….
4️⃣ We were buying House D.
5️⃣ The sellers of House D needed to buy House E and so on. And this can go on until there is someone at the end who do not want to buy a house.
And if even one of these people back out, the entire thing collapses. Months of waiting—gone. And luckily, House E was chain-free which meant they didnt wanna buy a house. That meant the chain was closed. Phew!
Five houses. Six solicitors. Endless paperwork. Solicitors typically take weeks or even months to do a lot of searches like environment searches, flood reports, land registry searches, and enquiries based on the searches.
And we had to wait for everyone in this chain to complete their buying process before we could move.
The worst part? At any moment before contracts are exchanged, anyone can back out. If someone in House A or B or others changed their mind, the entire thing would collapse.
And you know what? That happens all the time.
Sandeep would come home and tell me stories about his colleagues whose chains collapsed right before exchange. I was terrified.
So I did the only thing I could do—I started focusing on manifestation.
I wanted this chain to go perfectly. I started calling our solicitors and the estate agent of House E almost every single day, pushing them to get things done.
Finally, by the beginning of December, Houses A to C were legally ready to exchange. But we were still waiting for Houses D (the one we were buying) and E to be ready.
Finally, on December 13th, after months of waiting, we exchanged contracts. Once the contracts were exchanged, no one can back out! It was official—we were moving!!! 🎉
The Chaos of Moving (and Being "Homeless" for a Day!)
But even then, there was one final hurdle. In the UK, the moving date is fixed after the exchange, and it all happens on one single day. We had to be out of our old house by 12 PM, and we wouldn't get the keys to the new one until we arrived with all our worldly possessions. First-time buyers have the luxury of getting the keys while staying rented to make any changes, but since we were selling and buying, it had to be a one-day whirlwind.
The problem? Our buyer could only move on the 18th, and our seller could only move on the 19th. To make it work before the Christmas solicitor shutdown, I had to make a tough call. We agreed to move out on the 18th and get the keys on the 19th. Yes, that meant we'd be homeless for a day! We figured we'd just put everything in a self-storage overnight.
Every solicitor and estate agent asked, “Are you SURE you want to do this?” But we didn’t want to wait until January to find a date everyone was happy with, so we said YES. We decided to break the chain process for a single day.
But then, a miracle—our movers said, “No worries, we’ll keep everything in our truck overnight.” Saved us so much hassle!
And did we start packing earlier? Actually, yes. Months ago, around August, we started slowly packing up things we didn’t use daily into boxes and moving some furniture into my sister’s garage—which was halfway between the two houses.
Sandeep even hired a van, and with his cousin brother (who was staying with us at the time), they moved a ton of non-essential stuff over to my sister’s place. The idea was that after we moved into the new house, we could slowly bring it back whenever we wanted.
But now, after the exchange, it was time to pack EVERYTHING.
And let me tell you… packing up an entire house in one week is no joke.
The Packing Process – From Super Organized to Absolute Chaos
At first, I was super methodical about packing.
✔ Labelling every box
✔ Writing down contents
✔ Wrapping things perfectly
But as we got closer to moving day, I realized... It was too much stuff. Too many rooms. Too many last-minute things we still needed to use. Millions of things on the walls, furniture to dismantle… it was overwhelming.
By the night of December 17th, it was full-blown chaos. For three nights straight, we were up until 2–3 AM packing.We were surviving on 4 hours of sleep a night.
We still had to manage Ishaan, cook, clean, and do basic life things. And then, by the last night? We were throwing random things into boxes. ZERO LOGIC. The only positive thing I did was to carry around a marker in my pocket, so that I could write down as soon as I dropped something into a box.
We had one box labeled:
“Lamp shades, running shoes, old purse, kitchen books, lentils, powder, pens.”If future me ever finds this box, I will have so many questions. 😂 Because I haven’t opened that box yet!
The Moving Day Disaster – Two Households, One Street
Since the moving date wasn't confirmed until the 13th, I couldn't book professional cleaners to have the house cleaned behind us, just as a courtesy, you know. So, guess who became the cleaner? Me! Sandeep bought all the supplies, and we all pitched in. The morning of the 18th was absolute pandemonium. The movers arrived at 9 AM, and we were still packing like mad. Sandeep and his brother were packing more boxes. Movers were loading it onto the truck. And I was cleaning the space that they cleared.
At 11:58 AM, we were nowhere near done, so I called the agent and asked for an extension. She gave us until 2 PM.
And then, reality hit— at 12:30 PM, I looked outside, and I was shocked!
There were FOUR additional moving trucks outside our house waiting with our buyers' belongings, ready to move in! Because, guess what? Mr. & Mrs. Brown (our buyers) had already arrived with their movers! Their movers were literally outside our house, waiting to move stuff in. It was hilarious and stressful all at once.
I called the agent in a panic, and she confirmed it was okay. At 12:30 PM, the solicitor called, saying the completion hadn't gone through yet because the funds hadn’t reached the top of the chain. That gave us extra time because until completion the house still belonged to us, and we needed every minute of that time.
It was still a frantic race against the clock—packing last-minute essentials while the movers dismantled furniture, me cleaning, all while keeping Ishaan entertained amidst the madness.
Then, at 2 PM, our solicitor called:
“The sale hasn’t completed yet. The money from the bottom of the chain hasn’t arrived.” Translation: We still had time.
So, I kept scrubbing and cleaning while Sandeep reminded me that at any moment, the email could come saying the sale was completed, and the house wouldn’t be ours anymore.
But around 3PM we were done and starving. So me and Ishaan quickly stepped out to grab lunch at a McDonald’s.
Left some goodies at the kitchen counter for Mr and Mrs Brown!
My Unexpected Goodbye to the House
I had planned to go back after grabbing lunch at McDonald’s.
But while I was there, Sandeep called:
“The agent said we can leave the keys with her and go. We don’t have to wait for the completion.” So he dropped the keys and joined us at the McD.
Around 6 PM, we got the call. It was official. The house was sold. We were homeless for a day. A wave of emotion washed over me. That house, the place where I finally had a large studio of my own, wasn't ours anymore. I knew the new place would be even bigger and better, but it was still a goodbye to the old house. And I hadn't even had a chance to say it.
So, before driving to the new area, I made him go back to the old house, Ishaan in the car with me, to say a final farewell. Both our cars were packed up to the brim and it felt like I was driving a van with no rear view mirror! The buyers hadn't arrived yet, but their movers were waiting impatiently at the door.
I sat in the car, took a deep breath, and said my final goodbye. And then, we drove off.
That night, we stayed in an Airbnb which we had booked for a few days because we didn’t want to move into the new house full of boxes right away even after getting keys the next day. It was just two minutes from the new house, so we could go back and forth easily.
Stepping Into Our New Home
The next morning, the 19th, we got dressed, had breakfast, and headed into the city center to kill time while waiting for the call about the keys. We fully expected it to take all day – the sellers had until 2 PM to move out, and if their moving day was anything like ours, we figured it might be closer to 6 PM before we got the keys. But then, at 11:30 AM, we got a call: “The completion is done. You can collect your keys!”
Wait, What?? Already??
We rushed over, and there was the estate agent, the agent I'd been talking to for months, standing there with gifts and the keys to our new home. Another wave of emotion washed over me. We learned that the sellers had actually moved out the previous day! They were moving to about four hours away, so they needed two days to complete their move. Smart thinking on their part!
That moment was surreal. Anyway, all went smoothly, and we finally stepped into our new house – our new home – with a mix of excitement, hopes, and a touch of disbelief. It was precious. Even though we'd viewed the property six months earlier, I'd mostly been dreaming of the place based on the pictures I'd taken and the ones in the Rightmove ad. But in reality, it was so much bigger and better than I'd expected!
Unpacking, Sorting & DIY Projects Begin!
We then waited for the moving truck to arrive, but of course, there was another little hiccup. They got stuck in the infamous London M25 traffic and didn't arrive until around 6 PM! They finally finished unloading at 10 PM. Exhausted but excited, we went back to the Airbnb, making plans for the unpacking marathon ahead.
From then on, it was a blur of unpacking, sorting, and organizing. My amazing best friend came over to help for a day, then my sister and her husband joined the crew, and of course, my husband's cousin was a huge help as well. We officially moved in and stayed the night on the 22nd of December, after three days of Airbnb life and running back and forth between the apartment and the house.
The very first thing I did was rent a van and send Sandeep and his cousin off to IKEA. We had a long list of essential furniture to pick up. They also used the van to bring back the furniture we'd stored in my sister's garage – everything was finally under one roof! Then began the days of assembling furniture (so. many. Allen wrenches!), ordering more stuff from Amazon and countless other shops, and making over 20 trips to B&Q for décor and DIY supplies.
You know all those home renovation/DIY reels you see on Instagram? Well, I'd saved thousands of them! And my organizational skills really paid off. I had categorized them by room and task, and it made the whole process so much less daunting. Because I didn't just save them and forget about them – I actually did them! We're nowhere near finished – come on, how much can you accomplish in just 13 days of holidays? The rest of the work happens in the evenings after Ishaan goes to bed and on weekends. So, we're still going at it, doing DIY projects and adding our personal touches to the house. But I wanted to share the whole crazy story with you.
Now, let me give you a little tour and show you what we've been up to!
Here's the living room accent wall - from a blank slate to this. It's a start, but I think it needs a little something extra. Maybe an IKEA Mosslanda shelf above the TV with some frames and décor? What do you think? Any ideas?
My Dressing Room/Wardrobe - This space was a blank canvas when we moved in. We actually built these wardrobes ourselves, designing them specifically to fit all my clothes, shoes, and accessories. They look like built-ins, don't they? I'm so happy with how they turned out!
The Amazing Entrance Area - This is hands down my favorite DIY project so far! I envisioned this space as being both functional and beautiful, with tons of storage for shoes, bags, jackets, everything. I might have gone a tad overboard with the color, but hey, I'm Colorfulmystique, and you know I love my vibrant hues! But look at this space! Isn't it awesome? A place for absolutely everything! And all that furniture was white, each one had to be primed and paint two coats of blue on it!
Ishaan's Play Area and Storage - We created this little play area and storage space for Ishaan and all his toys. It still needs some decorating, personalizing and of course unpacking, but wow, that assembly was a marathon! And oh, did I mention that the bookshelf on the left was blue? It was a piece we already had, but the color just didn't work in this room. So, I painted it white to match everything else! 👇🏻
I'm pretty sure Ishaan thinks we are mad. Painting blue furniture white and white furniture blue 😂
Ishaan's Bedroom - This is Ishaan's kingdom! He actually chose the colors and design for his room. Sandeep did the painting while I spent a whole day with Ishaan at IKEA and some décor stores picking out the perfect finishing touches.
Studio Sneak Peek!) And finally, here's a little peek at my new studio! See that wall? That's my brand color for Geethu Chandramohan! The wall was originally orange, so we had to paint it this lovely olive green. It was a big job, but so worth it to have a space that truly reflects my brand and my creative spirit.
So, that's the epic saga of the big move! It was a year of chaos, but we made it! We're finally settled in and absolutely loving our new home. We're still unpacking, decorating, and putting the finishing touches on everything, but I wanted to share the journey with you all. I can't wait to share more updates and projects as we continue to transform this house into a home. And of course, I'm especially excited to welcome you virtually to my new studio space as we continue creating amazing things together! Stay tuned for more updates, and get ready for all the exciting things to come!