Your First Place
Damp Has Three Causes and They Are Not Fixed the Same Way
Rising damp, penetrating damp and condensation look similar on a wall and come from completely different places. Treating one as…
Your First Place
Finding it, furnishing it, and the things you only need once you are in.
13 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Your First Place
The Viewing Questions That Tell You More Than the Photographs
A flat photographs well from one corner and badly from every other. Twenty minutes and a short list of blunt questions will tell you what a gallery never can.
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Your First Place
The Inventory You Take on Day One Decides the Argument at the End
A deposit dispute is settled on evidence, and almost all of the useful evidence has to be collected in your first week. It takes an…
Your First Place
Furnish a Flat in the Order You Actually Use It
The instinct is to buy a sofa first because a sofa is the thing that makes a room look finished. Sleep, storage and light come…
Your First Place
Measure the Doorway Before You Buy the Sofa
The dimensions printed on a furniture listing describe the item, not the route it has to travel. Most delivery disasters are a…
Your First Place
What a Landlord Repairs and What Falls to You
The split is not arbitrary and it is not decided by whoever complains loudest. In most systems the landlord owns the structure and…
Your First Place
Reading a Tenancy Agreement Line by Line
Nobody reads it because it is dull and because it arrives at the moment you have already decided. Six clauses do almost all the…
Your First Place
The Smallest Kitchen Kit That Can Still Cook Real Food
Kitchen shops sell sets because sets are easy to sell, and most of a set sits in a drawer for years. Eight or nine items cook…
Your First Place
Second-Hand Furniture: What Survives a Move and What Does Not
Used furniture is usually better made than new furniture at the same money, and some categories are still a bad idea. The…
Your First Place
The Cheap Flat That Costs More Every Month
Rent is one line in a monthly total that has six or seven other lines. Two flats a hundred apart on rent can be a hundred apart in…
Your First Place
Find the Stopcock Before the Pipe Bursts
There is a small set of things in every home that you need to locate exactly once and then never think about again. You want to…
Your First Place
The Three Things You Only Notice After You Move In
Sockets, storage and light are invisible during a viewing and decide how the flat works every day afterwards. All three have…