Karmacat: To Infinity And Beyond!

Double_Trouble

Good luck with the thunking - its not easy suppose you need to sort out the priorities and where you want to be say in 5/10 years time and then sort out what you need to do to get there and then be brave and do it.

We are always here as a soundboard.

DTxx

taxi73

I agree with DT about the thinking especially the where you want to be living in 5-10 years as that I guess will be the most critical deciscion.
Unfortunately,it's one of those jobs that won't improve over time and a housebuyer valuation report would probably pick it up so knocking the value down.
If you want to stay where you are...then getting a few builders around for quotes would be the best starting point.

Then you just need to decide where the funding is coming from.Can you get some more work in?

Just my thoughts anyway..feel free to ignore me if you want..lol

Karmacat

Thanks folks - as if I'd ignore!

5-10 years is the right timeframe to be looking at, I'm sure. Even with the extended retirement age, that takes me to retirement. Until then, its about access for me and to me by clients, easy access to London, a low maintenance house in a quiet neighbourhood but walking distance of a nice area of cafes.

Thing is, and I was talking about this with Wol, the options are to sell it as is - and only someone treating it as a development would buy it in its current state - or to develop it myself to sell - I don't think I want to live here any more, I like the quietness but I need more access to that cafe area (in above paragraph).

However, from the way the engineer was talking, I'm wary of the letting this wall go until next year - he didn't call it urgent, but he did call it a "reasonable priority", whatever that means. So on that bit in particular, I think its me that has to spend the money. Ah well. That'll learn me......

Wol2

Hi KC

Ooh more hornets....I had ANOTHER MASSIVE Queen hornet buzz me at the front door as I left the house the other day :eek: - must remember to turn my heating off as I'm sure that is what is attracting them

Good news as far as the house is concerned that there's no subsidence.....but pants about the wall though and not being covered on the insurance.

Hmm...shall I enquire whether my top totty builders might like to quote for the work rebuilding the garden wall? (is that the one we looked at?)

Tbh - if we go back to what we last talked about - if you are planning to sell, you need to ensure that whatever work you do (and the cost of it) is value for money and recouped in terms of the selling price....otherwise it is better not to spend the cash/endure the stress and save it for the next house. So depending upon pricing, it might not be worth doing the garden wall as it may not detract that much from the price from the point of view of a purchaser (worth asking a "tame" Estate Agent...if there is such a thing..... how much the price would be reduced as a result of the current condition of the property...and then getting a builder to quote for all that needs doing and seeing if it offsets the reduction in price)

So to give an example of my house - (NB Obviously the flooding issue is completely another matter so we won;t go there...but it has also been a deciding factor in terms of staying because of the horrendous knock down I would have to take on the price if I sold at any time in the next 20 years )
Anyhow, assuming there was no flooding, I would have lost £10-15k off the selling price without a garage. I now have a garage but it cost £15k inclusive of ground works....it was worth it for me because I plan to stay a long time (and because piggies needed a winter home ). If I could have sold, I would have taken the hit and kept the liquidity to do up the new place

Happy to come down again soon (with or without top totty ), now that things chez Wol have calmed down a bit and go through some approx costings........and maybe sample that wine you were talking about on my diary

Hugs Hun...please don;t stress too much about the wall......or I may have to send the piggies down for a little holibobs...:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

See you soon!
xxx

Karmacat

:rotfl: guinea pig holibobs! Lovely...... :j

It is the wall we looked at, Wol - and I agree with you completely about letting the next person do the work if I decide to move. Trouble is, the engineer said that if the wall moves another couple of inches, **inches** :eek: its not safe. I'll wait till I see the written report, I get my own copy as well as the insurance company, but there were hints that it may not last out the winter - and I'm not ready to move before the end of the upcoming winter, I'm just not. So it may *have* to be me that does it.

Seeing top totty in person - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm would they come as far as my way to work? If so, yes please - *known* builders are like gold dust. My Mr Bodge It was actually here when the structural engineer showed up - finally came round to fix the immersion heater work he'd left undone (admittedly, the delay was mostly my fault) - I'll certainly get him to quote for the garden work.

I love your idea of getting an estate agent to quote the price of the house with/without works, and then getting a builder to quote on that basis, thats brilliant. Its the kind of thing they do on the property programmes I've watched so much over the years :o:o but it never occurred to me.

It would be lovely to have you down here - are you sure you'd be okay with going through approx costings? The wine is on standy - there's another bottle, actually, which also cost me about two euros equivalent, that I got from the House of Fraser with that £5 off voucher - they'd run out when I went last Friday at Victoria, but I created a fuss in such a polite way, they gave me £5 off, and I was in the wine section, so........ mind you, they're really expensive, so it probably is crap, but its red and its wine, so .......... Just checked the diary - I'm not free till 14th November :eek: I hate it when people say things like that, but its true.

Okay, enough, before I crash the site with such a long post. More later
xxx

taxi73

Morning KC..it's so hard when we have to make deciscions.Knowledge though is a pwerful tool

elantan

kc can i ask what do you think of sg universe ... i watched it on anf off and am finding it jumpy ... i like jumpy it makes me have to think and pay attention more ... but i wasnt expecting it so i dont know if i like it or not

Karmacat

Yep, I'd rather think about SG:U .... trouble is, I don't have Sky any more, so I haven't seen it. I like the idea of Robert Carlyle in it, and they've hired some of the creative brains behind Battlestar Galactica to edge it up a bit (that might be the jumpiness you're seeing, El) - Stargate is famously a very *safe* visual style, so it might all take a bit of digesting to work properly. The only thing I have seen is the instructional videos of Dr Daniel Jackson - they've been up on the official MGM site for a few weeks - the link is on the previous page of this diary, El, if you're interested - I think only one has been shown on SG:U, but I've seen at least four. One of them is about the Ascended, and it set off some really funny chatter on the Michael Shanks yahoo group about the way he flutters his eyelashes.....

I'll take Michael Shanks' fluttery eyelashes over my falling wall any day

Wol2

Hi Kc

Builder may travel that far if needs work as based in Crawley. Will give you a bell next week about sorting something out after 14th Nov - moi aussi tied up til then!!:beer:

xxx

boredofbeingathome

Hi KC, just had to show you this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_u1dgToZJM

if you want to find out more you can go on gateworld which have all the transcripts

http://www.gateworld.net/universe/

not that i am addicted or owt...lol

just don't tell them i told you ..*cough*