Owning your own home

Money well spent then

That's why I looked at recent days, similar outside temp

From https://www.kellysblinds.co.uk/ Cost about £300 for the bay (3 windows) with them doing the measuring up and installation.

A colder day (heating on in that room in the middle of the day too for mini_com's nap while she wasn't at the childminder's).

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#science

Wasn't aware this was a thing, interesting option considering we looking at adding a bit of privacy from the street

Do a heat calculation so you have the right btu for the room, and have the right sized rads.

Ah yes.

Cheers!

Blinds that rise from the bottom. By far the best blind solution. We usually have ours halfway up, privacy but let’s light in.

Only have to hide the top half of you as you walk around naked?

Oh... you mean the inverse... blinds that are on the floor when fully open and are lifted from the bottom to close.

That would be nice.

We once looked at a house that was part of a former school. There was a really well built solid wooden sliding panel at the top of the stairs, like some kind of child gate. The owner was a bachelor, so we asked the agent what the purpose of it was.

Turns out he'd fitted it so that he could walk naked between the bathroom and his bedroom without exposing himself through the massive cathedral window that looked out over the stairs (#csb).

My wife and I took out life insurance and critical illness policies at the start of the year. We're both fit and healthy and in our mid-thirties. The cover means if anything happens the mortgage won't be an issue. It costs us less than £80 a month combined, insurance is a racket but it'll only get more expensive if we want to take it out later.

TLDR: Always get more than one quote...

So the electrical survey which kinda precipitated our house sale falling through wasn’t entirely accurate.
It said the lights upstairs were not earthed and therefore a full rewire was necessary.
Cost was estimated at £2.5k including installing a new RCD and didn’t include redecorating the resulting mess.
The buyers balked at this (think the phrase “dangerous” was used) and insisted we pay half towards costs. We refused, then relented under pressure, and then thought no, we’ve had enough.
We got a more local sparky round to quote for the work. He queried the survey and said it would still be compliant even if wasn’t earthed as long as there were class 2 lights installed where required. (Original sparky didn’t mention this)
He did the work this week and discovered the lights WERE earthed and didn’t even need a rewire.
He (perhaps diplomatically) said he couldn’t see how the previous sparky couldn’t find the earth...
Work was £1k including new RCD, EICR certificate and new light install.
I like to think the best of people but it feels like I was being played - again.
Worst thing is my Brother in Law is a sparky but won’t help at all!

We did opaque window film for the bottom windows (plain though obvs).
You can probably get L,L,L versions made for bonus points -

Not much help now I guess but the standard response to any of this bullshit from buyers is "fine, you pay for that".

i.e.

We'd like an electrical survey. FINE YOU PAY FOR THAT

The electrical survey says work needs doing. FINE YOU PAY FOR THAT

FWIW we have a weird situation in our loft conversion where the lights are earthed but the switch wire is not...feels a bit wrong. Going to get it sorted at some point so that we can fit dangerous metal faced switches.

Just had a surveyor round for our buyers mortgage valuation, so we will know soon whether we are going to caught up in this EWS1 mess or not.

As it's a bit more technical @Dammit maybe get a surveyor involved with your garage situation?

Not sure how much I'd trust a spivvy estate agent with that.

Legally speaking the issues should be sortable with a good solicitor but I don't think you'll ever pick up a garage in a separate transaction for simply the value it adds to your flat: if nothing else the legal fees won't be picked up by a future buyer.

For me it would depend on how long I planned to stay there. I know you want a double garage, obvs...

Lots of folk want to buy an old house but expect everything to be perfect and not spend a penny on it or they dont have any money to spend on it when they buy it.

Ok, so £100 pcm or £1,200 / year. Depends what your personal cost of capital is but £20k sounds like bargain to me (6.1% imputed post tax return).

Yeah. And buyers can be cynical and go in high to get a sale agreed in principle then chip away on nonsense like the above.

If it was being sold as a 'recently fully renovated' house or something very modern I kind of get it, anything else and it's a big nope.

Window covering chat: We're now looking at black out Roman blinds from Blinds 2 Go. 1810mm x 626mm with free black out lining are £79 each, for reference

That'll be down to their lender, no?

best thing about our new house is clearly the TMH tote back we got with it, only six hundred and fiddy big ones!

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Oh... you mean the inverse... blinds that are on the floor when fully open and are lifted from the bottom to close.

Yes I made a complete fucking hash of describing them !
Something like these
https://www.orderblinds.co.uk/buy/cotton-misty-white-07e-bottom-up-blind_2268.htm

Plus lower car insurance premium and higher car resale value and of course the luxury of having a garage to work in/waste time during the next lockdown