Saying Goodbye to My London Flat – Leaving a Home You Love

Finding a flat in London is like an Olympic sport. I remember the first time I went house hunting in 2010 (hi Zoe and Ellen!). We would arrive in London from Leeds on a Friday and spend rain-soaked weekends wearing Ugg boots, trailing around the capital looking for a flat with three similar-sized rooms. We would travel an hour to be told: “The flat’s just gone” or “I couldn’t get the keys” or “Do you mind rats?”

Who knew it would be so hard? Not me! The London property market is kind of like an A-list party—you have to know someone pretty special to get in.

The London Flat Hunt – A Journey That Started in 2010

Over the years, I’ve lived near Camden (loosely – hi Stacey and miss you Em), Maida Vale (I would live there again in a heartbeat), and Notting Hill (I had terrible problems with a drug-dealing neighbor in the flat above, and the estate agents acted TERRIBLY – hi John D Woods!). After escaping Notting Hill and living at my friend’s (hi Kate!) for three months, I started searching for a new place.

I only had one criteria: It had to be a top floor. I had been so scared living in my previous flat that I wanted to minimise any further problems.

Finding My Kensington Flat – Love at First Sight

Looking for a flat is a bit like looking for a boyfriend. The more specific I was, the easier it was to identify the few flats that were right.

As soon as I walked into the flat in Kensington, I fell in love. It was a white building with a cute balcony (with a barbecue!), a homely feel, and it was on a quiet road with a local pub on the corner. Mum and dad both liked it (hi parents!! I was sandwiched between High Street Kensington and Notting Hill, with an M&S, a Zara, a park, and even a palace! (Hi Kate & Wills, Haz & Megs!)

There were a lot of stairs though—lols! Which I discovered when the storage company brought all my belongings back. The flat was so small that I had to unpack the oversized plastic boxes immediately in the roaring heat of summer and send them straight back down to the van.

Life in My Kensington Flat – The Good and the Bad

The convenience of living in Zone 1 in London is a feeling I will never forget. Every day, I appreciated the beauty of Kensington—the history, the fancy houses, the manicured gardens, the boujis coffee shops, and the magnolia blossoms in spring.

But, of course, there were downsides:

• The flat turned into a furnace in summer. I had to go out during peak heat and return after 9 PM.
• No WiFi for ages—Kensington was completely old school like that (when I left, we had Hyperoptic, so things do change!).
• Expensive living costs—Rent and bills were packaged together, so I kept all other expenses down.
• Uploading videos was a nightmare—As my work became more video-heavy, I had to rely on cafes and co-working spaces.

Why I Had to Say Goodbye

So, why did I leave? YES, INDEED, WHY WHY WHY?!

After all these years, I had met my BF (hi Pete – you’ll never read this in a thousand years), and I knew it didn’t make sense to keep the flat. I still spent a lot of time there. And my wardrobe was there. I had essentially become Carrie Bradshaw, hanging onto my apartment as a place to work and escape to!

In truth, I would have kept it forever if I could. But in the end, the choice was not mine. My landlady needed to do work on the roof, and one autumnal Saturday morning, as I walked around the park, she told me I needed to move out by Christmas.

Harumph. I was really sad. Is it possible to grieve a place? I guess it was more than that—the end of an era. As my friend Zoe said, echoing Sex and the City, “A lot of shit went down here.”

Packing Up – What I Wish I’d Done Differently

My boyfriend and I made the big mistake (HUGE!) of packing up over a three-month period and doing it via car trips every weekend. Hindsight is wonderful. Stretching it out seemed like a sensible idea—especially considering I was moving into his house… which was mid-renovation (I KNOWWWW!).

Adding chaos to chaos has been hard. Very emotional. And also dumb.

✦ Just hire the van.
✦ Do it in one go.
✦ Take a week off to sort everything out.

As I write, my handbags are in a very stress-inducing pile.

Documenting the Goodbye – A Content Creator’s Dilemma

One of the things moving sparked (or should I say triggered?!) was the feeling that I needed to capture it all.

✦ My favorite breakfast.
✦ Sitting next to the little fire.
✦ My Instagram-friendly wardrobe!
✦ Watching the sunset with a cuppa.

So, in the middle of packing and moving, I embarked on an exhaustive campaign of filming and photographing the details of my life in Kensington. I even got a photographer in (hi Louise Adolphsen!) and a few years earlier, I’d worked with a videographer (hi Victoria Hutton!).

Even on moving day, Women With Sparkle (hi Sally!) suggested writing a Love Letter to my home—so I filmed a tour of the flat… wearing heels and evening wear! Who does that? Carrie bloody Bradshaw, that’s who. She’s ruined me!

Lessons Learned From Leaving My London Home

So many of us leave somewhere we love and adore. That feels heart-wrenching, frightening, and sad. My mum (hi Mum again!) told me about the time she left the house she rented with her girlfriends at college. She cried the whole way home.

My uni friend (hi Mim!) messaged me saying she felt exactly the same when she left her London flat. And thank you to all the friends who have visited me over the years (hi absolutely everyone else!).

Things I know now:

1. Appreciate the place you’re in at the moment. Don’t wait until you’re leaving to make it special.
2. Don’t wait to create content in your home. Why didn’t I just do it all along?
3. Get help moving. It’s always worth it.
4. Write the love letter (or video) to your home. It’s your diary.
5. Make a ‘one last time’ list. And if you run out of time, it’s a great excuse to revisit the area.

 

Final Moments – A Farewell to Kensington

On my last day, I was alone, and I filmed the final moments of me leaving.

And then I could really leave.

I posted a video—one of those raw, real ones you don’t think you’ll actually post, but I did in the end. I was crying and saying how scared I was to leave. The response I got was so overwhelming, it inspired this blog post.

In those last moments, I bought a small bottle of fizz from Sainsbury’s and sat on the balcony. Taylor Swift’s All Too Well was my swan song as the sun went down.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some of the content from my time in the flat. It’s become this big pile of videos I’m not sure what to do with.

But for now… See you in my new place.

x