the daydream fund challenge thread

Rummer

Ah I'm sure to win the lottery I would need to buy a ticket! Mind you maybe it is my time.............

Davesnave

A quiet and sunny morning......seems odd!

Last night, the train hit a fallen tree, so DD2 expected to be in Exeter for longer than she wanted, but the train co laid on taxis and she arrived bang on time.

Itismehonest

Alfie!!
In case you haven't had the email there's a thread about free listings for this weekend.

Alexelisey

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2012 brings you all you hope and dream of. I don't post all that often but I've just caught up on the last three weeks due to a quiet period at work.

Alfie I'm in Kent about 6 miles west of Dartford and slightly inland up a hill.

I have started thinking about what to plant this year and ordered myself some tomato seeds from the US. I now have 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and lots of seeds of each. I've missed the gift-giving season as such but if anyone wants a list to see what I have, PM me. I'm happy to send a few seeds of each variety out as FREEBIES to people on here - you've all given me so many giggles and enjoyment that it's time I gave something back and I love sharing. So who wants some free tomato seeds? Speak up! First come first served.

rozeepozee

Rummer wrote: »

We are at the bottom of a gentle slope and the front garden is poorly drained so we often end up with a small lake out the front. The only things that really cope are heathers and grasses and our garden always looks rubbish compared to the others in the street

No pennies to improve the drainage situation and the grass out the front on closer inspection is really just moss and those horrid creepy buttercups (did I ever mention how much I hate them :rotfl:). Even in the summer the ground out there is damp and unpleasant.

Choille we have gone for the raised bed option near the bog in the side garden. After a few years of trying to make the bog workable we have given up graciously and now have it as a wildlife area . I am however going to battle the nettle patch at the bottom of the garden so that I can use my cold frame this year. What is the best way to kill them without damaging the other things around?

Oh, Rummer, I'm wondering what to do with our land now we actually own it! We have lots of horrid creepy buttercups too. If you look at the Google Earth pictures, it actually looks really tidy, so maybe we'll be able to restore it, but the old man was knocking on 90 when he died, so I think things had gone down hill for a few years.

Draining the field next to the curtilage wall is a big necessity as it must have an impact upon the bungalow's south wall... Damp!

We've completed on the purchase now and are in the process of deciding which architect to instruct before submitting plans. Does anyone have any suggestions for what we can do with our land whilst we are in the limbo of waiting for planning permission and not wanting to do much to the garden until late summer when the builders will have done their thing and left?

We have a big strip of woodland to the rear of our bungalow that forms a dell with a decent stream running through it; a small east facing back garden; a large, sloping slightly boggy (at least near the house) field of about three and a half acres; a south facing front garden, currently lawned and a north facing triangular piece of land (of ?third of an acre?) which is bordered by tall trees and I doubt gets too much light that may have some fruit trees growing on it. As a total novice, it strikes me that we have the advantages of water from the stream (but how best to get it up from the woodland dell to the garden?), there's the heavy clay soil I've talked about so I'm thinking some raised beds and there's an ancient wooden framed greenhouse that I think can be salvaged at least in the short term (no heat though).

I'm itching to get started doing something once the weather improves. We've been away for most of the holiday period (how many miles have we clocked up - with children?!? (Ellesmere Port - Bolton - Wales - London - Wales!), we're back now for six weeks til the next half term. I need to do more than just visit the property every few days and admire the view :rotfl:

Hi CTC we passed your way today on the way back from London.

rozeepozee

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Hi Alfie, I'm in Aigburth - that's South Liverpool. I'll give my postcode for folks here, and a picture, and hope I can remember to delete it tomorrow evening or soon after!

***
If you look on Google Earth we're on the elbow of the road, and we look straight down the road towards the river.

This is what the house looks like now.


Blinds up in the house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Except we got rid of the awful laurel hedge last spring and replaced it with a climbing rose. (look for 54 in the above post code on google earth to see it as it was)

Don't forget to delete your postcode, Maggie

Rummer

rozeepozee wrote: »

Oh, Rummer, I'm wondering what to do with our land now we actually own it! We have lots of horrid creepy buttercups too.

I hate them :mad: they are the bane of my life! Every year I spend hour after hour digging them out and still there are thousands of them!

rozeepozee

lucielle wrote: »

Had a phone call from the potential seller, they are going to put it back on the market in the Spring but haven't found anywhere to move to yet. So as far as I can tell they aren't any further forward. The asking price is way over our budget so I think its back to the drawing board for us.
L

That's a shame, Lucielle. It's frustrating when sellers won't get real about the market. The survey of the property which we put an offer on but fell through suggested that it was about £75K over priced and, whilst we appreciate that a survey is an opinion, our surveyor said he was just not seeing any properties that were selling for over £300K in our area, and the one we'd put in the offer on had many limitations that did not justify its price tag and we would have been willing to pay £25K over the asking price plus do the £25 worth of work he was recommending was needed but would not in fact increase the value!

We backed out and bought another at auction and although we didn't get the "bargain" that is often billed as what happens when you buy at auction, we at least feel we bought at a fair price.

Itismehonest

It's really hard to advise, rozee. From experience, when the machinery moves in for builders the places they get to or need access via are quite amazing. They can be miles away from where you expect.
There's nothing more frustrating than doing work & then watching a digger or dumper rumble through the middle of it.
Been there - done that :rotfl:

rozeepozee

Davesnave wrote: »

Indeed, it's the nicest extension I've seen on a semi.....and living where I was before, I saw plenty.

We've decided to be sensible here with our re-modelling/extension plans, so despite the foundations being good enough, I don't think we'll be going upwards. We're getting somewhere near a workable design now.;)

While it's great to have acreage when one is young(ish:o) I'm open to the idea that we might want to downsize at a future date and that there are natural limitations on this kind of property. For example, there's a similar place within a mile, which has been seriously extended, but the owners can't get the price they want. People who have that sum to spend don't necessarily want to blow it on what began in the 70s as a humble agricultural worker's bungalow.:(

On the other hand, if the government abolished those troublesome agricultural ties.....:rotfl:

We saw loads of down sizers in their sixties and older. I think you're sensible!

We are keen not to spend "too much". It's a balance between spending what is economic in relation to the value of the property and what benefit we'll get out of it if we live here for, as we hope, another 20 years - we're 43 by the way!

Davesnave wrote: »

Much earlier in the life of this thread, I argued that most people would be more than well served with just an acre to maintain. That would also put the property out of the equestrian frame, making it cheaper on a like-for-like basis.

Then I decide to buy something far larger than that.

The good thing about our place is that we could always sell off the yard, barn and much of the land, leaving ourselves with a tidy square acre.

Ah, but would we? My guess is that I'd not want to see someone else using the fields.

We did the same! Hehe!

annie123 wrote: »

Wanna swap for a 3 bed maisonette in London with tiny garden (accessed via side door into communal side ally pass 2 other gardens then into mine) garden would be low maintenance but I garden organic, and refuse to believe it's not bigger, I can see the local park from my back windows and the petrol station neon lights beyond, local pound shops abound, traffic always drives slowly and carefully 'cause there's too much to go any faster than 10mph and the beach is only 2 hour nail bitingly slow frustrating drive away. The air smells.....well it just smells! and the birds can be heard clearly at 4 am in the summer only other than that the traffic drone wins.
have I sold it to you :rotfl: I'm an honest ex estate agent

Annie, we've just spent a few days in London and I was happy to leave. I lived there for 10 years! My sister and brother in law live in a £1,5M house in north london with what I'm sure would be considered a very large 100 ft garden. Whilt there I had to travel 3 miles with my son in the car and we played a game:how many times will we have to stop for traffic (too many to count in the end) and then take half an hour to find somewhere to park. Such an uncivilised life style for such a massive expense.

I've just vacuum packed up 2 large bags worth of boys clothes aged 8 -10 and 9 - 11 yrs which are hand me downs from her sons. My son is 5 and they'll ne put away for up to 7 years but I never spend any money on clothes! This is one of the money saving ways we've afforded the smallholding in Wales