The garden

This is really beginning to come together. Lix has been out there shovelling the rubble from the pathway for 2 days - and has filled about 60 rubble sacks (guess I will need a skip soon). Paul and I have taken a trip to Focus and filled the boot of his car with bags of bark and weed suppresant. I want the garden to look neat and there simply isnt enough time or money left in the budget to go for gravel. At least the sun has shined for the workforce for the first time in what feels like months!



Tho I am sure that I have actually snapped my spine from all the manual labour!

Final push

So we are into the final straights now. The date for finishing is September 27th and I am a woman on a mission. We are over budget, over schedule and I am overdrawn. As I watch the housing markets are in meltdown and I am having a breakdown but I am determined to get this finished.


I am resigned to the fact that I am going to have to rent this in the short term and wait for the sagging market to recover, but I am determined that this is going to be the best rental property in the area!

Bathroom

Well the inspector has been round and had a chat with Dad. Nothing too scary - and it helps that the manhole is on our property so away we go.

I am off to the shops now to pick some tiles. As the room is so tiny the sink will need to a small cloakroom variety and I am going for white slight-gloss tiles to add a feeling of space. the floor tiles are also going to be white but to avoid the room looking like an operating room I have got some mosaic tiles to go horizontally around the room. I also picked up a chrome heated towel rail that was going cheap at Focus so I will need chrome fittings. It is going to look great!

Hopefully we can also save the shower which is servicable and only needs a good clean. That will free up money to spend on the bi-fold door making the bathroom feel more spacious.

This is a small room but a vital one as it is always one that I look closely at when I buy! It's all about the kitchen and bathroom baby!!!

Bathroom

Well we are taking at look at the bathroom this weekend. These people lived in such a state I couldnt believe it. There is a toilet but it is in the wooden shed which stands at the end of the kitchen, and is accessible through a hole cust in the kitchen wall! There is a tiny outside window that is broken, and there is no door between the toilet and the kitchen - erm.. very hygenic!!! And the toilet itself is unspeakable - that is going straight in the skip!

There is a rudiementary bathroom upstairs - in that there is a partition down the middle of the 3rd bedroom with a bath in it (not fixed to the wall or with correct pipework). The bath is also filthy, but it is a whirlpool spa bath so worth saving after a really really REALLY good clean!

We did find a bathroom sink in a box under the stairs, but it is too big so a shopping trip is in order (my favourite part!).

The first job is to get the Building Inspector round to look at what we need to do to get the waterworks to standard and then we can make a start in giving the new owners a new bathroom!

Credit Crunch

This is starting to get a bit scary now. The first I heard about the credit crunch was when I was completing my mortgage back in January and there was talk of my bank being overwhelmed with mortgage applications as some offers where being withdrawn (and Northern Rock were spirralling out of control). This did not worry me unduely at the time, except that it held up my purchase. A bank making some really bad choices surely wouldnt mess things up too much!? Now this looks like things are going to change radically in the near future. Mortgages are being withdrawn and banks seem to be less inclined to lend. As I am appealing to first time buyers I hope that this will not have too detrimental affect on the price I hope to get.

Plasters

Well the plasters have done their first bit upstars and it looks amazing. It had to be done, despite the cost, because I need a good finish and the previous owner was a muppet! The plaster he put in the hall wasnt even attached to the wall and moved when you leaned on it. Now it looks like eggshells. I have to leave it dry properly before we can start painting - but then I hope the place will start to look better. It will give us a much needed boost when our engergy levels are starting to flag a little!

Budgets and schedules - gone!

I have been looking back over my original budget and I already realise how wrong I was! As an amateur I had absolutely no idea how much things cost. I bought the property for £102,000 and planned to spend £10,000 doing it up - and then sell it for £130,000.



Well that 10 grand is no longer looking realistic! I have spent 5K already and we are not even close to half way through the project. And my planned 8-10 week project is also looking a dim and distant memory. This is week 8 and we are not even close to being finished - floorboards are up, electrical cables hang from ceilings and walls everywhere you look, and there is no plaster on most of the walls.

However, as a beginner the only way onward is upward, and I will know better next time! This is a very steep learning curve, and as long as the curve is heading upwards and not down the plughole I am happy!